Your first crappy bass

[lowend1]

I rented a Kay for about a month, but this was the first bass (and amp) I really owned...

[Pilgrim]

All hail the Univox Hi-Flyer!!! 

[lowend1]

All hail the Univox Hi-Flyer!!! 

Yep - and a couple of years later I traded up to...
The Ampeg "Big Stud"

[SGD Lutherie]

All hail the Univox Hi-Flyer!!! 

I just sold a Hi-Flyer guitar recently.     

I have owned two Mosrites. I still have one of them.

[SGD Lutherie]

Yep - and a couple of years later I traded up to...
The Ampeg "Big Stud"

In both cases the pickups were made by Maxon!

[JazzBassTbird]

I rented a Kay for about a month, but this was the first bass (and amp) I really owned...

A Univox UB-250 was my first amp too. At the time, I had a brainstrom to get four of them instead of one decent amp...luckily, I didn't.

[Barklessdog]

mine was a Gibson Grabber, so I guess not such a crappy bass.

[iamthatguy32]

Mine was an upright double bass that I used for a swing band when I was in high school. Sadly, no picture.

My first electric bass was a white P-Bass with a red tortoise pickguard from the early '90s that my aunt handed down to me because she didn't play anymore. That was about ten years ago.

[Droombolus]

mine was a Gibson Grabber, so I guess not such a crappy bass.

Nope, more like a grabby bass ..........

[Highlander]

This was a Grenn bass... essentially an EB2 copy with a bolt-on neck... several-hand old... came with black dead tape-wound strings that I continued to play with as I knew no better... the action was something like 1/2" at the 19th (iirc) but being so high I soon developed finger-control... the tail-piece was chromed pressed steel, with razors for edges... the pup was... well, a coil of wire... and as for the controls, why do you guys think I minimise on them on every instrument since... oh yeah, and a floating bridge... I kept the name plate after burning it...

great for feedback... guitar-on-amp was a favourite...

Next bass was the PC Custom which has

[Dave W]

Next bass was the PC Custom which has

And? Don't tell me you've gone the way of Joseph of Arimathea ("the castle of uuggggggh") ("he must have died while carving it")

[fur85]

My first bass was a Greco hollowbody like this one in about 1973. I saw one for cheap on eBay a few years ago so I bought it. It was pretty crappy indeed, so I sold it.

[Highlander]

Next bass was the PC Custom which has

... stayed with me ever since...?

(oops... got distract... hey there goes that squirrel again... )

[uwe]

Mine was, in 1977, a sunburst Jazz Bass Ho (with a minibucker in the bridge position, don't remember what was in the neck position, but it wasn't anything remotely Fender looking or single-coilish) from notable Korean maker "Johnny Guitar" - this was long before Korean instruments became good guitars.  Within half a year the bridge pup had dropped out, one of the tuners no longer worked and the fifth fret (hey, we did half our songs in A and the other half in E!) was worn down to basically fretless. When it worked it didn't sound horrible, but to a hard rock kid the JB look was very unalluring (but I couldn't afford anything else, it was the cheapest model they had) and to this day I believe that this first bass experience shaped my "Un-Fender" taste in basses (I bought my first Fender only in my 12th year of bass playing). I  moved on to a bolt-on Ibanez Ric then, that was already a real instrument and it looked suitably Deep Purple-ish. Later on, I tore out the frets of the Johnny Guitar JB (yes, I know, Jaco ...   ), filled the fret slots, finished the fretboard, but never the project, it became derelict in our cellar and my dad eventually threw it away after I had long moved out. ("Do you still know where my old bass is, dad?" "Oh, that thing, I threw it away long ago ..."   )

I guess if I saw one today on ebay I would buy it just for the memory aspect. So do keep a lookout for a sunburst (ashtrays and all) Johnny Guitar JB Ho, will you?

Uwe

[eb2]

My first crappy bass was a Kent Basin St, which wasn't really that horrible structurally, and had some potential. The worst part was the bridge had these hunks of plastic for saddles and they kept the strings way too high off the board.  I tried a Badass later, and that dropped the action too low, to the point of non functioning.  So I had a decent Badass for years.  The pup was ok, and the styling was pretty decent in a Fendery way.  It had a mirrored chrome pickguard, which suggested Thin Lizzy to me, so I kept it for ages.  For some sick reason they show up on ebay and get bid beyond the $50 they are worth, so I won't revisit my youth.