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Gibson EB2
- Thread starter Baril
- Start date
- Feb 24, 2004
- 4,103
- 642
- 68
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist: Phantom Guitars, Eastwood Guitars
- Feb 24, 2004
- 4,103
- 642
- 68
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist: Phantom Guitars, Eastwood Guitars
Gaolee
Official leathers tester and crash dummy
I have one and love it. I won't be buried with it because that would be a waste of a great bass. Mine is the two pickup version but has been modified with a Dimarzio One instead of a mudbucker. The replacement pickup lowers its value but makes it sound better, at least to my ears.
Watch for broken off headstocks and repairs. Mine isn't broken, but many of them were. The two point bridge is straight forward enough to adjust, but if you don't loosen the set screw, it will get fouled up and tip. Early EB-2s had non-adjustable bridges. The two pickup version had an adjustable bridge. I'm not sure when those bridges started turning up, but I think the single pickup version got the adjustable bridge somewhat later.
Serial numbers are a mystery. When I got mine, I was told it was a 1965. It was irrelevant to me, because it was the early 1980s and nobody wanted anything except pre-CBS Fenders at the time. Mine was just an old bass. Now that it's a little bit more exotic, I tried to figure out what year it was made. Depending on where you look, it could be anywhere from 1965 to 1969. I think 1968 is probably most likely, but that's just a guess.
The finish is nitro, and seems to hold up well, but it will act like an old nitro finish. No surprises there. They are hollow, so you can't treat them like a plank. I don't know what the banjo tuners on the oldest ones are like, but the stock tuners on mine work just fine after all these years.
They are a bit of a niche player, so I doubt you would need to worry much about fakes or fraud, although some people seem to think they are far more valuable than I think they are. What do I know. Not much.
Epiphone Rivolis were the exact same bass, just with a different headstock. I don't know if they were more or less common, but if you have any trouble finding an EB-2 you like, that's another option. I don't believe they came with two pickups, though.
One last thing - balance. It balances like a Gibson, not a Fender. The neck will stay put if you wear it with the neck approaching vertical. If you try to play it with the neck closer to horizontal, it will have some mild neck dive.
Watch for broken off headstocks and repairs. Mine isn't broken, but many of them were. The two point bridge is straight forward enough to adjust, but if you don't loosen the set screw, it will get fouled up and tip. Early EB-2s had non-adjustable bridges. The two pickup version had an adjustable bridge. I'm not sure when those bridges started turning up, but I think the single pickup version got the adjustable bridge somewhat later.
Serial numbers are a mystery. When I got mine, I was told it was a 1965. It was irrelevant to me, because it was the early 1980s and nobody wanted anything except pre-CBS Fenders at the time. Mine was just an old bass. Now that it's a little bit more exotic, I tried to figure out what year it was made. Depending on where you look, it could be anywhere from 1965 to 1969. I think 1968 is probably most likely, but that's just a guess.
The finish is nitro, and seems to hold up well, but it will act like an old nitro finish. No surprises there. They are hollow, so you can't treat them like a plank. I don't know what the banjo tuners on the oldest ones are like, but the stock tuners on mine work just fine after all these years.
They are a bit of a niche player, so I doubt you would need to worry much about fakes or fraud, although some people seem to think they are far more valuable than I think they are. What do I know. Not much.
Epiphone Rivolis were the exact same bass, just with a different headstock. I don't know if they were more or less common, but if you have any trouble finding an EB-2 you like, that's another option. I don't believe they came with two pickups, though.
One last thing - balance. It balances like a Gibson, not a Fender. The neck will stay put if you wear it with the neck approaching vertical. If you try to play it with the neck closer to horizontal, it will have some mild neck dive.
Thanks, just that I live in France and I don't think i'll be going to America any time soon. But I'll look in to it.
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The banjo tuners on my old EB-2 were just fine: held pitch and they were light. But that bass had the center block, which added stability, punch and weight. Later EB-2s dispensed with that feature. I expected my recently-acquired Dillions (which basically are EB-2D Ls) would not have the block and was blindsided when I discovered they do.
The block diminishes hollow-body boominess in favor of P bass-ish punch. And adds weight (sigh!).
The block diminishes hollow-body boominess in favor of P bass-ish punch. And adds weight (sigh!).
the plus for the center block though is to reduce feedback! what happens is sound goes through 1 f-hole and out the other creating a cycle around the pickups that creates crazy feedback(especially if you use Fuzz like I do for that great Michael Shuman tone)
these are great basses!
these are great basses!
Gaolee
Official leathers tester and crash dummy
I wasn't aware that they were ever made without a centerblock. Live and learn, I guess. If they had got rid of the centerblock I would have expected a different kind of bridge, most likely floating, and maybe a trapeze style tailpiece, like the strange and wonderful Canora I have. I know for sure it's hollow and I know for sure that my EB-2 has a block. Other than that, I don't know.
You can have a block that runs the full length of the body from neck- to tail-block, or one that goes just a bit up from the tail, just enough to anchor the bridge assembly.
a lot of great info from other talkbass members.
as anyone who knows or follows my eb2 related rants on talkbass, i am huge fan of this bass. something i wanted to mention that has not been discussed yet is that depending on the year of your (potential) eb2 the width and depth of the neck will be different. the early versions of the bass 1958-1961 had much wider/larger necks and finger boards. i think, and i could be wrong, is that when gibson started making the eb2's again in 1964 the fingerboard remained wider as is the case with my 1966 eb2. by 1967 through the end of production in 1972 the neck had a thinner profile. sorry if this sounds vague i am at work and cannot measure my eb2's but this is also based of experience. i own four eb2's (1966, 1967, 1968, and 1971) they all play and feel a little different, the neck on the '66 is definitley bigger, and i have played a 1959 and a 1960 at a vintage guitar store near me and the necks on the early models were not only wider but thicker. if i remember i will measure mine when i get home and post the info.
anyway, they are great basses, welcome to the darkside
sorry for slacking on this but as a follow up to my last post, my 67, 68, and 71 all have a nut width of 1 1/2 inches, my 66 has a nut with of 1 11/16 inches. for some this is not an issue but like many players I started playing on a p-bass, so the 66 was a much more comfortable transition.
in case it was not mentioned earlier the hardware on the eb2 was usually nickel until 1967 when Gibson switched to chrome hardware.
in case it was not mentioned earlier the hardware on the eb2 was usually nickel until 1967 when Gibson switched to chrome hardware.
I hope the image helps explain my ramblings. the 66 is the cherry finish, black is the 67, tobacco is the 68, and the walnut is the 71
Would you care to elaborate on the differences among the bridges and tuners? To my eye, the variations are more of a hopscotch pattern than a linear chronology.
And am I the only person on TalkBass who would like to see a return to the original banjo tuners, or at least having them offered as aftermarket options? My '59 had those, and I LOVED them.
sure thing, I always have time to ramble aimlessly about eb2's. from my research/talking to owners/info on talkbass/etc., Gibson was using the banjo style tuners from '58 and starting transitioning to the nickel kluson tuner in '60, there are eb2's from '60 that have banjo tuners and some with the kluson's, I have seen and played both. it also looks like around '67 the same tuners were used but were changed to chrome. I agree with you on the banjo tuners being offered again as that is what has kept me from picking up an older eb2, the "tulip" part of the tuner felt breakable and I understand finding replacements is difficult, I have also seen many eb2's with that part of the tuner being full of cracks or crumbling. around '69 the stock tuners offered on the eb2 were changed from the kluson 588 to the smaller Schaller, sometimes the Schaller had "Gibson" stamped on them, sometimes they were stamped with "made in W. Germany", for example my walnut eb2 has Gibson stamped on the tuners.
my knowledge on the bridge is that Gibson used a 2-point bridge from '58 but If you check out pics of the bridges they are smaller, when the eb2 was brought back in '64 they still had the 2-point bridge but it was larger (see my cherry finish '66 in the pic I posted earlier), then finally when the eb2 was offered as the eb2d (the 2 pickup version) Gibson switched to the larger/flater bridge with individual saddles (see the tobacco and the walnut eb2 in the picture). ignore the black eb2, that is a project that I am in the process of restoring, at some point in its history someone changed out the bridge and tuners to more modern versions. finally, in the pic I posted it is in reverse order that I bought them (the walnut on the right is my most recent buy), not the chronological age.
hope this helps, I would also suggest the guitarfly website, it has a lot of great info that was really helpful when I was tracking down parts for the black eb2.
my knowledge on the bridge is that Gibson used a 2-point bridge from '58 but If you check out pics of the bridges they are smaller, when the eb2 was brought back in '64 they still had the 2-point bridge but it was larger (see my cherry finish '66 in the pic I posted earlier), then finally when the eb2 was offered as the eb2d (the 2 pickup version) Gibson switched to the larger/flater bridge with individual saddles (see the tobacco and the walnut eb2 in the picture). ignore the black eb2, that is a project that I am in the process of restoring, at some point in its history someone changed out the bridge and tuners to more modern versions. finally, in the pic I posted it is in reverse order that I bought them (the walnut on the right is my most recent buy), not the chronological age.
hope this helps, I would also suggest the guitarfly website, it has a lot of great info that was really helpful when I was tracking down parts for the black eb2.
Actually, it does. What caught my eye first was the bridges. My understanding of the sequence was first the non-tunomatic bridge followed by the two-point tunomatic followed by the three-point tunomatic. Your basses do not reflect this sequence. And once the cloverleaf tuners gave way to the smaller ones, they did not return either. And your basses do not reflect this sequence either.
But you clarified things splendidly.
As to the banjo tuners, I understand the concerns about "rot" and the near-impossibity of finding replacements. But my EB-2 had chrome metal keys like those used on the Firebird guitars, the only
such metal tuners on an EB-2 I've seen.
I have definitely heard of persons replacing their banjo tuners (once they wore down or broke) utilizing the metal tuners from a firebird and drilling the string hole open to accommodate a bass string. again to mention the guitarfly site, they have an article about mike watt using that method on his eb2.
my apology to Baril from france, the user who started this thread, I did not mean to load you down with a lot of extraneous info, I really wanted to point out that in my experience with eb2's they all played, sounded, and felt different. because these basses can vary in neck width, hardware, etc. I would strongly urge you to try a few different models from different years to find the right eb2 for you.
my apology to Baril from france, the user who started this thread, I did not mean to load you down with a lot of extraneous info, I really wanted to point out that in my experience with eb2's they all played, sounded, and felt different. because these basses can vary in neck width, hardware, etc. I would strongly urge you to try a few different models from different years to find the right eb2 for you.
