What Gibson's EB3 should have become but never did.
In the neck position: Beautiful, glorious, juicy, thick MUD.
In the bridge position: Remarkable clarity and hard punch.
Last year I bought a Curtis Novak mudbucker with the intent to do an "EB3 mod" on my SG bass. But earlier this year I was seized by inspiration one night to put a Thunderbird pup in my SG. So to do this, I turned to none other than Steve Soar of Thunderbucker Ranch.
After some waiting, I got my Thunderbucker: a Thunderbucker MX Bridge. As soon as I did, I took the bass and the pups to my tech, Tom Pellerito. Great guy who does great work.
After about a month or so of waiting, he told me he finished it. The way he explained it, it was somewhere between a mod and a restoration. He has to route the bridge cavity and add a bit of wood as well to get the pickup just right. In the end, he couldn't have been happier with the way it turned out and I couldn't be happier too. Pellerito said he'd recommend the mod to anyone who brings a bass like this to him in the future.
The way these pups work with each other and complement each other is uncanny. The perfect mismatched tag team. The mudbucker is a wild untamed beast, while the Thunderbucker is super defined. Together they create a huge sound that steamrolls and cuts at the same time. These two pups are surprisingly balanced, and without much effort. I found I didn't have to raise the mudbucker's pole pieces anywhere near as high as I did with the SG bass pup. Ditto for the Thunderbucker, as with the old mini-humbucker I had to raise the pup until it was nearly touching the strings and even then the E pole piece had to be raised.
To put it bluntly: This is a remarkable improvement over the candy-ass stock pups.
Overall, super happy with the way this turned out. Tons of bottom end too. As soon as I plugged it in and played at home, my mother remarked that it was the best sounding of all my basses. I thought that was funny.
Short-scale naysayers, eat your hearts out.
And a sound demonstration:
In the neck position: Beautiful, glorious, juicy, thick MUD.
In the bridge position: Remarkable clarity and hard punch.
Last year I bought a Curtis Novak mudbucker with the intent to do an "EB3 mod" on my SG bass. But earlier this year I was seized by inspiration one night to put a Thunderbird pup in my SG. So to do this, I turned to none other than Steve Soar of Thunderbucker Ranch.
After some waiting, I got my Thunderbucker: a Thunderbucker MX Bridge. As soon as I did, I took the bass and the pups to my tech, Tom Pellerito. Great guy who does great work.
After about a month or so of waiting, he told me he finished it. The way he explained it, it was somewhere between a mod and a restoration. He has to route the bridge cavity and add a bit of wood as well to get the pickup just right. In the end, he couldn't have been happier with the way it turned out and I couldn't be happier too. Pellerito said he'd recommend the mod to anyone who brings a bass like this to him in the future.
The way these pups work with each other and complement each other is uncanny. The perfect mismatched tag team. The mudbucker is a wild untamed beast, while the Thunderbucker is super defined. Together they create a huge sound that steamrolls and cuts at the same time. These two pups are surprisingly balanced, and without much effort. I found I didn't have to raise the mudbucker's pole pieces anywhere near as high as I did with the SG bass pup. Ditto for the Thunderbucker, as with the old mini-humbucker I had to raise the pup until it was nearly touching the strings and even then the E pole piece had to be raised.
To put it bluntly: This is a remarkable improvement over the candy-ass stock pups.
Overall, super happy with the way this turned out. Tons of bottom end too. As soon as I plugged it in and played at home, my mother remarked that it was the best sounding of all my basses. I thought that was funny.
Short-scale naysayers, eat your hearts out.
And a sound demonstration:
