Gibson EB 5 String Bass

Kinda an impulse buy as I was saving up for something else, but this caught my eye....

Specs here (from 4 string page).

I just got it unboxed. It came in a gorgeous case with white fur and a padded handle. Very nice.

It's finished in a thin, satin Nitro which some have bagged on, but I personally love it. It feels great to the touch, and the wood is not sealed and totally smooth. It's different that any other bass I've seen.

The Babicz (19mm), as expected, is great (I have 2 other basses with that bridge). The bass is super light (<8.5 pounds) and is very comfortable to play. Due to the strap button location, I was concerned about possible neck-dive tendencies, as I am super, super sensitive to that. I'm happy to report there is no neck dive at all. Not a trace. And it seems to be a 3 piece maple neck.

The neck is slim front to back, with the back pretty flat. Not baseball bat at all (I'm not a fan at all of thick necks). The bass seems very resonant and the B string seems solid and blends well with the rest of the strings.

I've not yet had a chance to play it cranked, but so far I really like what I hear from the pickups. I love being able to coil tap, but I don't care for pull-pots, so I will likely get it re-wired VVTT with coil tap switches and move the pickup jack to the body. I;m still not sure if this is going to wear flats or the Circle K's it currently has on it.

Construction overall seems very, very solid. Tight seams, perfect fret edges, secure tuners and electronics. Definitely some attention to detail going on.

So here are the customary bass-on-'sheepskin'-rug pics (all out of Polar Bear). I included some measurements as well.

 

Thanks, everyone.

I figured I'd take pics of the measurements people always seem to ask about.

The sound out of the pickups does seem to be pretty robust. I'm looking forward to the bass aging quickly, but not so much me...

 

I've never owned a Fender Jazz so I don't have a basis for comparison, sorry.

 

Thanks!

Briefly, but awhile back and only for a short time. In general I don't notice it to be particularly large or small compared to other basses, except for being smaller than a Carvin SB5000. It fits in all the gig bags I have.

Not a chance. They are set up for totally different sounds and situations.

 

An update.

Here's why I haven't posted a follow up on this until now:

When I got the bass from the factory, it had a broken Corian nut, rendering the A and D string unplayable. So I had a bone nut installed and a setup done immediately. To their credit, Sweetwater offered to send me a whole new bass immediately (I declined) and they had 2 blank nuts in the mail the next day.

I get it home, and there is a problem with the wiring as the volume never turned all the way off. When both pots were down, the tone knob controlled the volume. It was really stupid. But, sensing a challenge (and also having intended all along to rewire it to lose the push pull pots), I bought all new 500k Bourns pots, Orange Drops (waste of money, I know, but they look cool), a football jackplate, 2 mini toggles and some extra knobs. I had the whole bass rewired V/T V/T with mini toggles for the coil tap, and also moved the jack to the side of the nobody where it belongs.

While it was being rewired, I had them look at the frets. The sides were fine (no sprout) but there were high frets and whatnot. Being committed at this point, I had him do those also.

So now I have it back. It is a totally different beast. The coil taps are awesome and the pickups are actually usable in both settings. It's really, really resonant and very comfortable to play. I have a rehearsal tomorrow night and will be able to post more about how it really sounds in a band environment. It is very unfortunate that the bass straight from the factory required immediate repairs (-1 on you, Gibson) but the mods really seem to bring out what I think was intended with this bass.

We'll see how it goes tomorrow night, but I think that if Gibson can get its QC in order and get this bass out the door without all these issues, it can be a really, really good bass

To their credit, Sweetwater took care of me with some store credit to cover some of the cost of the repairs. Not the mods. I'll be buying from them from now on. Anyone can be good when things go well, but Sweetwater kicked a$$ for me in this situation.

Pics of mods tomorrow.