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Post subject: What was your first guitar and amp?
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 4:43 pm
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I tried several searches to see if this topic has been posted before - found nothing, so here goes. If it's a dead horse, sorry. I started playing guitar in 1963 after I finally (took two years) talked my father into buying me a guitar. He had no faith in my promise to practice (none of my brothers ever followed through on their instruments), so he went cheap - a Sears Silvertone built by Harmony for about $40. This is actually my second amp.

I played that guitar in two bands until 1969 when I sold everything and went into the Army.

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Dennis in CR
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Last edited by CRGuitarMan on Fri Feb 25, 2011 5:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: What was your first guitar?
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 5:00 pm
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That's some pretty big amps for beginners,what brand are they?This topic has been posted many times and not too long ago.Anyway my first was a noname hand me down that my uncle had owned.It had the old Black Diamond Strings that you could have moored an oil rig with and half inch action.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.


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Post subject: Re: What was your first guitar?
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 5:13 pm
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My first amp was the guts of a Heathkit pre-amp that my dad cobbled together to run an old hi-fi speaker. When he finally decided I was serious, he bought me the Sound 1x15 amp and 1x12 Sound extension speaker on top. I have no idea who built Sound amps, but these two had Jensen speakers and could really crank, with great reverb and tremolo as well. The other cabinet in this pic was one my dad and I built together with six 12" speakers in it. Back then, size mattered.

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Dennis in CR
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Post subject: Re: What was your first guitar and amp?
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 5:41 pm
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Here's the second band I was in, The Fifth Column, live on stage in 1965. We had actually evolved to using another old Heathkit amp my dad modified for vocals (sitting on the 6x12 cab), rather than singing through our amps, which was standard for that time period. I'm not sure what Fender head Larry was using, but he and his dad built the speaker cab after I showed up with mine. Like I said before, size mattered.

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Post subject: Re: What was your first guitar and amp?
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 5:58 pm
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Kewl pics, Dennis!

I see we both followed similar paths -- my brother and I were in "amp poverty" for most of our formative years. We could usually afford a decent amp head, but had to resort to "home-builds" when it came to speaker cabs. But even today, I'm still building cabs......either clones of "famous Fullerton models" or custom-spec jobs that mimic same.

My first guitar though was a Teisco -- two pickup, wanker bar, "tulip" body and a "zero-fret" neck. I plugged into a Heathkit PA27 that my Dad built for me as a birthday gift. As a "first amp" it wasn't bad......louder than my buddy's '66 Vibro Champ anyway.

When I left for the service that old Heathkit was still in the basement but when I returned on furlough after Ft. Rucker my mom had gone on a spring-cleaning jihad and set it out for the trash collector. I wish I still had that amp, if only for the sentimentality it generated.

Rawk on!

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: What was your first guitar and amp?
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 6:09 pm
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My first guitar was a 1983 Kramer Pacer Carrera and the amp was a Peavey Rage. The amp is long gone, but I still have the Kramer :)


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Post subject: Re: What was your first guitar and amp?
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 6:12 pm
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I started playing Electric when I was old enough to buy my own. 16 years old in 1981. I had bought a used brown sunburst Memphis Les Paul (a common beginners ax in that time) For $50.00 and my buddy sold me his old Peavy Artist 240 100w tube combo W/ a black Widow speaker for about $100. a couple of months after I bought the Memphis. Boy, that Peavy had Headroom all the way up to about 8 on the volume, and when I started to get some breakup, It was so loud the windows about shattered. Not really my thing at the time, But I wish I had that old Peavy now to play my Strat on. 8)


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Post subject: Re: What was your first guitar and amp?
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 7:24 pm
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Great pics Dennis!

My first electric and amp were Sears no-name cheapies. Have no pics, or for that matter, even a clear recollection of that amp, other than that it was small enough to drag to school with me a couple times in high school. Probably a 1x10" combo or thereabouts. The guitar was a burst, but I have no photos of it in its original condition. It eventually became a wall hanging in the house I lived in during law school, after I repainted it in a checkerboard pattern:

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Here it is over on the right with my early attempts at a guitar "collection:"

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Post subject: Re: What was your first guitar and amp?
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 7:35 pm
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the year- 1962

the guitar - fender musicmaster

the amp - fender princeton


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Post subject: Re: What was your first guitar and amp?
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 7:36 pm
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Steve-oh-no wrote:
My first guitar was a 1983 Kramer Pacer Carrera and the amp was a Peavey Rage. The amp is long gone, but I still have the Kramer :)



this reply is worthless w/o picks. :wink: (hint hint)

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Post subject: Re: What was your first guitar and amp?
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 8:28 pm
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Here's my second real guitar amp, bought in 1971 shortly after I returned from Vietnam and wanting to get back to making music. It's a Mosrite Venture's Model BG-1000, made by Award in Minneapolis for The Ventures. This solid state, 100W amp sold for $995 new and was hawked by The Ventures at one or two NAMM conventions in the late 60s.

Image

The amp was a behemoth, with two knuckle-crushing handles, and put out sound through two 15" Jensen speakers. Originally this amp had a tubular cage stand that lifted it off the ground and let the amp be tilted for better projection. I left those stands with a friend in Connecticut in 1972 and I never got them back.

The two guitar inputs on the left were for Bass Guitar, with no effects. The two on the right offered more EQ, plus Reverb, Vibrato and Fuzz-Rite distortion, all built into the amp. This was the first amp I owned that could almost make my ears bleed.

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Post subject: Re: What was your first guitar and amp?
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 8:31 pm
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wow it cost $995 way back then?

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Post subject: Re: What was your first guitar and amp?
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 8:35 pm
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My first guitar/amp setup was pretty modest to say the least. I had a little $5 no-name electric guitar my grandad bought at the flea market, and I played it through a karaoke machine... :oops: My first real setup was an '87 Squier II strat through a Peavey Bandit 60. I still have that amp today, and with a good overdrive pedal it can sound pretty nice.

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Post subject: Re: What was your first guitar and amp?
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 8:36 pm
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Yes, it listed for $995 - part of the reason the whole "Venture" went bankrupt in a couple short years. Here are more pics of the Mosrite amp: left and right side inputs, center effects and foot pedal for same.

Image

Image

Image

I bought the amp from the guy who bought out the Mosrite line when it went bankrupt in 1970. He was a friend of my father's, of course, and I drove to Minneapolis and went into a parking ramp where all the amps, finished and unfinished, along with boxes and boxes of parts were sitting. I bought the BG-1000 in perfect working order, then I bought two of the BG-500 cabinets with 15" Jensen speakers in them, but no heads. I used the amp and two cabinets for guitar and PA for years.

Image

The interesting part is that I still have all of them, forty years later, and that amp still cranks now just like it did then.

Edited to reduce size of last pic.

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Post subject: Re: What was your first guitar and amp?
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 9:22 pm
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My first was an El Cheapo-Deluxe electric guitar with a real deal Fender tweed Champ that was a hand me down from my uncle,who had used it in the '50s,my time was in the late '60s around '66/67 I think.....wish I had some cool pics like those....but they're gone with the wind.


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