Jack Bruce at Royal Albert Hall

There was a big feature in the December edition of Bass Player magazine.

 

That is a Gibson EB-1. Solid body, short scale. Produced in the mid 50's and then again in the late 60's early 70's. It was Gibson's response to the Precision Bass, originally designated "Electric Bass". Once the oddly named EB-0 was introduced, it was refered to as the "EB-1". Felix Pappalardi, Cream's producer, had played an original EB-1 with Mountain.

 

For some reason, Jack refers to the bass as being an EB-0 in the Bass Player article. BP repeats this error in the insert associated with the article describing the gear that he used at RAH.

 

Yeah, I saw that too. It's wrong. EBO = SG body, violin body = EB1. All the old ones I've seen are solid body.

 

and H E A V Y . . . but NOT as heavy as the Les Paul Recording bass.

 

The EB-1 is a 32" scale bass.
Some call this med. scale?
I was lucky enough to find a 1968 EB-1 in very good condition.
I love the sound of this bass.
Big, fat, clean, with tone knob off.
With tone knob on full, treble, and destorted.
Records great.

 

No its a SOLID body, mahgony i believe. Several years ago Epiphone reissued them.

 

Yeah I just looked back at the article and the photo of Jack Bruce has him playing an EB-1 - like this :



..whereas he talks in the interview about an EB0 which is like a bass version of an SG.

The guys who can actually do it, aren't so hung up on gear....?

 

Even Epiphone made a bolt-on version of the EB-1 for a short period, just saw a used one in Guitar Center today.

 

I thought that little Gibson sounded better than his fretless Warwick during the Royal Albert Hall shows. I was suprised how strong Jack's voice still is, and man he can sure still play like crazy.

 

+1

 

I agree, that bass has a great sound. Couldn't have anything to do with Jack, could it?

 

I could not hear anything he was playing, Eric's guitar was so up front in the mix that Jack's bass was practically inaudible. What I did hear I did'nt like, The EB-1 IMHO sounds muffled and indisinct. I liked the sound of his Warwick better.

 

I thought the EB1 tone was okay, and so was that of the Warwick fretless. The band's performance for the early part of the DVD was, I thought, a bit lack-luster, but when he changed to the fretless they just took off.

 

+1

 

thats because he is a better fretless player than anything.

 

Where were the bloody Marshalls?!?!?!

 

No way! It was a result of his stellar bass rig: Gibson EB-1 > Hartke head with the graphic EQ set to "medium frown".

Kind of humbling, isn't it?

Riis