Anyone seen one of these?

Brandonbq · #1 07-25-2011, 06:55 PM

I saw this Bass today when I bought my G&L.. It says Epiphone but not anything else. Not even a "made in" label.

NecroticImbecil · #2 07-25-2011, 07:40 PM

grendle · #3 07-25-2011, 07:43 PM

Yeah they made those back when epi and Gibson split. Kinda cool looking, not bad playing either.

huaihai · #4 07-25-2011, 07:50 PM

James Hart · #5 07-25-2011, 07:54 PM

circa 1991 I think... I remember when my local store first got them in. They had a baby/powder blue one that played great.

Brandonbq · #6 07-25-2011, 07:55 PM

LOL... YES... I should have worded that different.

Thanks Grendle, They wanted like $119 but I have never seen anything like it. Is that a good price? I'm not up on basses as much as I am on guitars.

Thanks for your help.

NecroticImbecil · #7 07-25-2011, 08:27 PM

EBM4. Though fairly rare today, not collectible at all. Your price is cheaper than the one that seriously tempted me last year. As an investment, bad idea. If it has nothing wrong with it, not beaten up, and (very important) you like it, seems a good price. How much you want it is up to you. Tough but not impossible to get a cool, uncommon, good quality bass for that price. I thought the one I tried looked, played, sounded quite good, not even considering price.

bolophonic · #8 07-25-2011, 08:33 PM

Dude, c'mon... is $119 a good price for a decent bass? What kind of question is that?

Brandonbq · #9 07-25-2011, 09:03 PM

Quote:

Dude, c'mon... is $119 a good price for a decent bass? What kind of question is that?

I don't know that much about Bass guitars... I just bought my first today. Sure I know names, That's why I bought my G&L L1000 today, I had no clue it was made in 1981 and a well respected bass. I got it cheap at a pawnshop and it is made in the USA. That's all I was looking at.

I was just wondering what type of bass it is and if it is worth that price... I've seen Epiphone and Squire guitars sell for $79 buck but they are crap.

I appreciate your opinion on it being a "decent bass". I think I will take a second look at it tomorrow.

JimB52 · #10 07-25-2011, 09:10 PM

That sounds like a great pawnshop.

tone696 · #11 07-26-2011, 09:27 AM

$119 is without doubt a good price, I have the 5 string version of this at home, picked it up nearly 10 years ago now and paid nearly 4 times that price (in Euros). Wonderful Plays and sounds great, really low action on it, can’t comment on the string spacing on the ebm 4 but on the 5 it feels a little tight, (I prefer to play 4 string so this sits for weeks on end without being touched, not worth trading in against something, but then again can’t replace it for anything that feels or sounds as good for what it is worth)

Notwithstanding the above though one point to check the electronics. The stock pickups sound a little hollow at times, and the preamp failed on mine, in the end upgrade the pups with SD and converted it back to passive and never looked back.

MortallyWounded · #12 01-15-2013, 11:16 AM

I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to throw my two cents in anyway. I'm not an Epiphone guy. I'm not even a Gibson guy. And I hate P-bass pickups. In a five string, I'd rather have a 35"+ scale.

HOWEVER... The EMB-5 is a weird bass, somewhat rare, and I've heard that they're not too bad to play.

If anyone ever searches the interwebs and finds this thread because they've got one and wants to know anything about it... EMBs are keepers. 20 years down the road, when someone asks what the heck it is, you can tell them "Oh, it's a piece of junk from the 1990s" and when it turns out that there's only like, eight of them left in the world, it will be worth keeping.

I saw them in Musician's Friend back when they were new. Arctic White or Candy Apple Red. Those were the only options. I picked up an UNFINISHED EMB-5 at Speno Music in Auburn (Not natural, not oil-finished... rough-cut-from-the-milling-machine unfinished) and thought wow, this thing is really cool. But I wanted a Steinberger, so I put it back. It was $395 back then. Rumble Seat in Ithaca has one for $395 at the time of this posting. And it's worth at least that.

It's just a shame that the MM-style humbuckers weren't used on these. A new EMB would definitely get a boost from one or two.

Love the reverse headstock. Too bad the T-birds don't have this still.