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NBD: Epiphone Embassy Pro

bobyoung53

bobyoung53

Aug 29, 2004
24,098
60,626
73
Auburn, Mass
#1
I pulled the trigger on a white one and got it today, this is the first Epiphone I've ever bought and I bought it because the Embassy in unique to Epiphone, not saying I'm a bass snob now:laugh:. I actually like the original 60's a little better with the shorter top horn, I really don't care whether a bass is head stock heavy or not, if it looks better head stock heavy I'd prefer that but anyway I've been playing it all day and adjusting and setting it up. Whoever set this bass up cranked up the truss rod so when I got even though it was tuned to D it was unplayable even when tuned to E so I got out the Allen wrench and loosened it way up and played with it until I got it playing pretty good with the neck fairly straight, the intonation was way off too so I set that. I also set up the pickups, took off the plastic from the pickguard also. I also filed the nut down on all strings, the only thing left that I can see is there's a little fret sprout so I'll file them tomorrow. I now plays and sounds great. It sounds similar to a T-Bird and is long scale but the bridge is so close to the end of the body it feels like a medium scale, the neck is D shaped, not thin but not too thick. The nut is 1.625, pretty close to a P bass I think. The neck is pretty flat with a 12" radius. It's got master volume, blend and tone, I prefer V V T but this is OK. Tune-o-matic bridge, which is fairly easy to work with and it's mahogany with a set neck. All in all after getting most of the bugs out of it, it's definitely a nice bass, has a dirty middy sound but playing with it I got some nice bottom out of the neck pickup which sounds great all by itself unlike on many basses IMHO anyway, I also bought a hard case for it. If you're handy with set up I highly recommend them if not I still recommend them but you may have to bring it to a luthier to get the most out of it unless I just got a Friday afternoon bass. I haven't seen any flaws in it at all, paint is nice, fit is good, I may have the frets leveled we'll see. Obligatory crappy photo below. Oh yeah this thing is very light.

Epiphone Embassy Pro.jpg
 
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#4
ajkula66 said:
Congrats on your new bass. May it serve you well.

I was initially attracted to these, but the only one I tried was absolutely unplayable, a real Friday afternoon special. Glad yours set up decently after all.

Play it in good health and enjoy!
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was a little worried about it at first but it turned out nice. I could not believe how tight the truss rod had been cranked.
 
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#5
bobyoung53 said:
I pulled the trigger on a white one and got it today, this is the first Epiphone I've ever bought and I bought it because the Embassy in unique to Epiphone, not saying I'm a bass snob now:laugh:. I actually like the original 60's a little better with the shorter top horn, I really don't care whether a bass is head stock heavy or not, if it looks better head stock heavy I'd prefer that but anyway I've been playing it all day and adjusting and setting it up. Whoever set this bass up cranked up the truss rod so when I got even though it was tuned to D it was unplayable even when tuned to E so I got out the Allen wrench and loosened it way up and played with it until I got it playing pretty good with the neck fairly straight, the intonation was way off too so I set that. I also set up the pickups, took off the plastic from the pickguard also. I also filed the nut down on all strings, the only thing left that I can see is there's a little fret sprout so I'll file them tomorrow. I now plays and sounds great. It sounds similar to a T-Bird and is long scale but the bridge is so close to the end of the body it feels like a medium scale, the neck is D shaped, not thin but not too thick. The nut is 1.625, pretty close to a P bass I think. The neck is pretty flat with a 12" radius. It's got master volume, blend and tone, I prefer V V T but this is OK. Tune-o-matic bridge, which is fairly easy to work with and it's mahogany with a set neck. All in all after getting most of the bugs out of it, it's definitely a nice bass, has a dirty middy sound but playing with it I got some nice bottom out of the neck pickup which sounds great all by itself unlike on many basses IMHO anyway, I also bought a hard case for it. If you're handy with set up I highly recommend them if not I still recommend them but you may have to bring it to a luthier to get the most out of it unless I just got a Friday afternoon bass. I haven't seen any flaws in it at all, paint is nice, fit is good, I may have the frets leveled we'll see. Obligatory crappy photo below. Oh yeah this thing is very light.

View attachment 3560232
Click to expand...
I love it in this color, it screams to be played with a pick and Rotos ;)
 
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#8
The truss rod thing seems to be a thing with Epiphone. Every Epi I've opened factory fresh lately has had the truss rod tightened too much. They've all played nicely after an adjustment though.

I noticed that the bridge saddles are all the way back. Does it intonate properly? There was a batch from late 2018 (I think it had serial numbers starting with 1809 or possibly just 189) that had the bridge mounted incorrectly making it impossible to intonate. This batch came with the bridge saddles all the way back from the factory. But from the pic it looks like yours has the bridge in the correct position? Not easy to determine 100% from the pic. I would check intonation and consider returning it if there's an issue. I purchased one with the faulty bridge and returned it. I absolutely LOVED the sound and hope it will become available again but an instrument that wouldn't intonate was worthless to me. Shame on Epiphone for being aware of the issue and not recalling the faulty ones (they literally hinted to me to wait until the faulty ones were sold out before I tried purchasing another...) It's currently sold out everywhere I can buy it from (CITES).
 
#9
bobyoung53 said:
I mentioned before that it had a dirty sound, I will amend that to say that it has a LOT of growl, not sure if it's the strings or the pickups but the more I play this thing the better I like it.
Click to expand...

It's the pickups, they're absolutely brilliant and one of the most aggressive sounding bass pickups I've ever heard. A sort of reissue of the earliest T-bird pickup, isn't it?
 
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#10
bobyoung53 said:
I pulled the trigger on a white one and got it today, this is the first Epiphone I've ever bought and I bought it because the Embassy in unique to Epiphone, not saying I'm a bass snob now:laugh:. I actually like the original 60's a little better with the shorter top horn, I really don't care whether a bass is head stock heavy or not, if it looks better head stock heavy I'd prefer that but anyway I've been playing it all day and adjusting and setting it up. Whoever set this bass up cranked up the truss rod so when I got even though it was tuned to D it was unplayable even when tuned to E so I got out the Allen wrench and loosened it way up and played with it until I got it playing pretty good with the neck fairly straight, the intonation was way off too so I set that. I also set up the pickups, took off the plastic from the pickguard also. I also filed the nut down on all strings, the only thing left that I can see is there's a little fret sprout so I'll file them tomorrow. I now plays and sounds great. It sounds similar to a T-Bird and is long scale but the bridge is so close to the end of the body it feels like a medium scale, the neck is D shaped, not thin but not too thick. The nut is 1.625, pretty close to a P bass I think. The neck is pretty flat with a 12" radius. It's got master volume, blend and tone, I prefer V V T but this is OK. Tune-o-matic bridge, which is fairly easy to work with and it's mahogany with a set neck. All in all after getting most of the bugs out of it, it's definitely a nice bass, has a dirty middy sound but playing with it I got some nice bottom out of the neck pickup which sounds great all by itself unlike on many basses IMHO anyway, I also bought a hard case for it. If you're handy with set up I highly recommend them if not I still recommend them but you may have to bring it to a luthier to get the most out of it unless I just got a Friday afternoon bass. I haven't seen any flaws in it at all, paint is nice, fit is good, I may have the frets leveled we'll see. Obligatory crappy photo below. Oh yeah this thing is very light.

View attachment 3560232
Click to expand...

I'm generally not much attracted by Gibson/Epiphone basses, but the body shape, nice cream finish, the vintage knobs, the pickups shape and placement and the super fretboard's texture (as seen in the picture, at least) of this Embassy are great :thumbsup:
The only thing that puts me off a bit is the headstock's shape, but for the rest it's a very cool bass !
I wonder how it sunds.

Congrats ! :thumbsup::thumbsup:
 
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#12
ajkula66 said:
Congrats on your new bass. May it serve you well.

I was initially attracted to these, but the only one I tried was absolutely unplayable, a real Friday afternoon special. Glad yours set up decently after all.

Play it in good health and enjoy!
Click to expand...


Sam Ash had two. One, the strings were literally laying across the neck even at tension. Like, completely. Couldn't finger it at all. The other was set up fairly well. It played real nice. I have an EB-3 so I like the way Epiphones play anyway. I've been eyeballing this one cuz I want those tbird tones but without the tbird body. Gonna wait a couple years for when these hit the used market at sub-$200.
 
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