NBD Epiphone EB-3

Received my new Epiphone EB-3 this week. I always intrigued of the SG style bass after seeing Jack Bruce and Andy Fraser (two of my favorites bass players) so I traded in some old equipment at GC and ordered one. GC shipped one from one of their warehouses and I received it within three days. Free shipping. I have never played a SG style bass, mostly Fender style Jazz and P basses.

My first impressions:

1. Out of the box setup was terrible, not even close to factory specs. No big deal as this is typical for most new basses I have purchased, and I know how to do setups correctly. I did let the bass acclimate for a day in the house before doing the setup. Temps here in Tucson are over 100 degrees.

2. Sound was much better than I thought with the stock pickups. Not as muddy as I have read here in the forum. I tried neck soloed, both and bridge soloed. I do like the sound of the bridge pickup soloed, very punchy but if I need some old school thump, I can switch to the neck only or both.

3. Finish is just plain awesome. No defects whatsoever.

4. Neck has a nice, smooth feel to it even though it is slightly wider than my Lakland 44-60 Jazz bass. The Epiphone nut width is 1.65in, Lakland Jazz is 1.5in. Not much of a difference that I could feel.

5. Three point bridge was easier than I thought to setup but I could not get the action low enough for my style even with the front post all the way down. I made sure the front post was slightly higher than the back posts and adjusted each post 1/4 turn each to lower, no big jumps like cranking down on side then another.

6. The only issue I have is two high frets causing buzzing, 7th and 14th frets. I checked using a fret rocker. I'll take to a local guitar shop to have the frets leveled. I'm sure I can get the action to my taste once the frets are level and I replace the bridge with the Hipshot Supertone. I realize this is a sub $400 bass so some minor issues might be expected.

I am going to swap the bridge for a Hiptshot SuperTone 3-Point so I can have more adjustability, and just for grins swap out the stock bridge pickup with a Wilkinson P90 Mini Humbucker. Also, install Dunlop strap lock and TI JF344 Flatwounds.

Overall, for a bass under $400, its great quality for the money.