SG & EB Bass Club

[SubHuman]

Hey SubHuman! You're #138, in The SG & EB Bass Club! Welcome Aboard! View attachment 3915939

Thank you for the warm welcome! I will post pix of my SG limited edition run soon. It is one of a beautiful 400 piece limited edition custom run of the Gibson SG bass that has a bookend matched flamed maple natural top! Quality hardware and electronics.
I also have a somewhat rare Epi translucent black T-Bird IV pro, my P Bass fretless, Sunburst Rivoli, EPI re-issue EB-1 and several others but my 1971 slotted headstock EB-3 and SG limited edition basses are my favorites. Lightweight and EZ on the shoulder but heavy bottom thunder.
They're my secret sauce and they both rumble. I dial in some highs in the bridge mini-humbucker for some tight definition and it sits just right in the mix. Dancers love to feel the bass and the EB-3/SG basses deliver in spades. Ha!
I know Fenders rule here but I like to have my own unique sonic pallette. Of course I also have an 18" Fender bass reflex cabinet so it can handle the mudbuckers full range. Most players that complain about the mudbucker don't have a large amp speaker that can handle the Lower frequency rumble. I love my P Bass but if I want to sound unique it's EB/SG all the way.

 

[west al]

yes i would like a number. thank you.

Hey Palo! You're #139, in The SG & EB Bass Club! Welcome Aboard!

 

[Palo]

Hey Palo! You're #139, in The SG & EB Bass Club! Welcome Aboard! View attachment 3919869

139 thank you

 

[west al]

139 thank you

You're very welcome.

 

[Palo]

My sg bass new name Diablito and #139

 

[west al]

Just my all time opinion, the SG body design is the finest design shape ever. My EB-0 is the "Electric Lady".

 

[Palo]

Electric lady has a beautiful deep rich color,nice.

 

[west al]

Electric lady has a beautiful deep rich color,nice.

Thanks, I've had some Heritage Cherry Gibson SG Std.'s that didn't have the finish color, the Mahogany grain that this EB-0 has, or the Rosewood on the neck this one has.

 

[Az4stringer]

Finally got to moving the strap button from the heel\back to the upper horn. I followed Kev1955 procedure.

1. The stock strap button screw is 1 inch so I went to the hardware store and bought a couple of screws the same thread size but 1.25 inches. The extra length, though may not be much, will set the screw deeper in the horn where the wood is thicker.
2. I used tape to set and see the angle I needed to drill into the horn. Kev1955 has a great pic of this on this thread. I used the ridge on the upper horn as a guide for the tape and the angle.
3. I used a small drill bit first to drill a pilot hole and then used a 3/32 drill bit.
4. Soaped up the 1.25 inch screw by rubbing it on a bar soap. This is very important, the soap acts as a lube and helps keep the wood from splitting.

Check out the pics below. I found moving the strap button to the upper horn the EB-3 sits better, much more like my Jazz Bass instead sticking out to the left making me feel like I have to stretch to reach the first five frets.

 

[Kev1955]

Great Job and PIC

 

[dmt]

Finally got to moving the strap button from the heel\back to the upper horn. I followed Kev1955 procedure.

1. The stock strap button screw is 1 inch so I went to the hardware store and bought a couple of screws the same thread size but 1.25 inches. The extra length, though may not be much, will set the screw deeper in the horn where the wood is thicker.
2. I used tape to set and see the angle I needed to drill into the horn. Kev1955 has a great pic of this on this thread. I used the ridge on the upper horn as a guide for the tape and the angle.
3. I used a small drill bit first to drill a pilot hole and then used a 3/32 drill bit.
4. Soaped up the 1.25 inch screw by rubbing it on a bar soap. This is very important, the soap acts as a lube and helps keep the wood from splitting.

Check out the pics below. I found moving the strap button to the upper horn the EB-3 sits better, much more like my Jazz Bass instead sticking out to the left making me feel like I have to stretch to reach the first five frets.

View attachment 3937479 View attachment 3937480

Nice job. The horn really comes to a pretty thin point there, eh.

The horn location makes much more sense though, from a balance perspective, but yeah, also like you mention, the reach out to the nut, which can be a stress on the left front shoulder

 

[Tim Skaggs]

Thumb rest mod. I'll probably paint it black since my red mahogany stain missed the color of the bass by 20 miles.

 

[Tim Skaggs]

For EB / SG basses with bolt on necks, you can build a strap button extension and attach it to the neck screws if you don't want to try to drill a hole in the point of the upper body horn. I built the one in the attached picks in about 1/2 hour from some scrap aluminum strap I had in my shop. It needed to be about 1.0" longer, but I only had a 13" long piece, and I wanted to double the thickness, so I ended up with a length about 6.5". Looks like 7.5 - 8.0" would be just right to put the strap button even with the 12th fret.

It's still very comfortable as it is, and the first fret is not so far left as it is when using the strap button on the neck plate. I'll get by the hardware store and get another piece of aluminum strap. It's handy stuff to have around.

 

[Kev1955]

Nice

 

[Tim Skaggs]

@MrNylon I suppose I need a number. That's my rig on posts 3472 & 3473.

 

[Tim Skaggs]

My Epi EB-0 is the first bass I've had in about 18 years with a massive humbucker at the end of the neck. I had a '73 Fender Telecaster bass back then & it had the wild & wooly sound, but not the same as the EB-0.

I'm looking for a little more high end on occasion, so I thought I'd experiment with the stock sidewinder. I cut the wire between the two coils and soldered on extensions, ran them in the control cavity, and wired the HB in parallel instead of series. That was not a solution.

I have done this with a variety of P-bass type pickups with some success in getting a much brighter tone, but with lower output. The sidewinder output did drop a little when it was wired parallel, but the tone stayed about the same as when it was in series.

So, I kept messing with it just to see what it sounded like with only ONE of the coils connected (single coil of course). That was more interesting. One of the two coils was brighter & cleaner than the other, which I think may be because the end of one coil is the ground side for when both coils are in series, and it was still grounded in the pickup cavity whe I wired that side up in single. Not sure that's the reason, but there is definitely a difference in the two when each are connected singly. I think I will get a push- pull pot and set up to switch between standard series wiring and the bright single coil. I know I'll lose the humbucker effect when in single coil mode, but it wasn't too noisy when I was experimenting, and we all know there are lots of single coil pup basses roaming the earth.

Is there anything I'm missing trying to go parallel with both coils of the sidewinder? I don't think I've ever rewired a humbucker from series to parallel that didn't get brighter.....until this one. Maybe the stock 500k pots are an issue?

Tim

 

[Camaro69]

My Epi EB-0 is the first bass I've had in about 18 years with a massive humbucker at the end of the neck. I had a '73 Fender Telecaster bass back then & it had the wild & wooly sound, but not the same as the EB-0.

I'm looking for a little more high end on occasion, so I thought I'd experiment with the stock sidewinder. I cut the wire between the two coils and soldered on extensions, ran them in the control cavity, and wired the HB in parallel instead of series. That was not a solution.

I have done this with a variety of P-bass type pickups with some success in getting a much brighter tone, but with lower output. The sidewinder output did drop a little when it was wired parallel, but the tone stayed about the same as when it was in series.

So, I kept messing with it just to see what it sounded like with only ONE of the coils connected (single coil of course). That was more interesting. One of the two coils was brighter & cleaner than the other, which I think may be because the end of one coil is the ground side for when both coils are in series, and it was still grounded in the pickup cavity whe I wired that side up in single. Not sure that's the reason, but there is definitely a difference in the two when each are connected singly. I think I will get a push- pull pot and set up to switch between standard series wiring and the bright single coil. I know I'll lose the humbucker effect when in single coil mode, but it wasn't too noisy when I was experimenting, and we all know there are lots of single coil pup basses roaming the earth.

Is there anything I'm missing trying to go parallel with both coils of the sidewinder? I don't think I've ever rewired a humbucker from series to parallel that didn't get brighter.....until this one. Maybe the stock 500k pots are an issue?

Tim

Love to get an answer on this as well

 

[Camaro69]

Hey @MrNylon

How's the number handling business going?

 

[Tim Skaggs]

I received my mini humbucker for the bridge position of my EB-0 so I'm looking for those who have some experience on what wiring options produce the most useable tones.

Here are the options I'm considering;
V V T, with the coils in each pickup wired in series, each pickup wired to its own volume control and one tone control for the overall signal.

V V T with push / pull switching pots - Same as above, but with the ability to individually switch each humbucker from series to parallel, or to individually switch each humbucker to single coil.

VT VT - like a stack knob Jazz, but with humbuckers instead of single coils. More like a Les Paul I suppose.

VBT - master volume, pickup balance / blend, tone. There would be no coil splitting in this config.

My concern is what two humbuckers wired like a Jazz will sound like. I think I'm going to want the availability to switch one or both pickups to parallel or to single coil.

 

[Kev1955]

I received my mini humbucker for the bridge position of my EB-0 so I'm looking for those who have some experience on what wiring options produce the most useable tones.

Here are the options I'm considering;
V V T, with the coils in each pickup wired in series, each pickup wired to its own volume control and one tone control for the overall signal.

V V T with push / pull switching pots - Same as above, but with the ability to individually switch each humbucker from series to parallel, or to individually switch each humbucker to single coil.

VT VT - like a stack knob Jazz, but with humbuckers instead of single coils. More like a Les Paul I suppose.

VBT - master volume, pickup balance / blend, tone. There would be no coil splitting in this config.

My concern is what two humbuckers wired like a Jazz will sound like. I think I'm going to want the availability to switch one or both pickups to parallel or to single coil.

I found VVT with pickups coils in series always worked for me, with the eb3 it's just VTVT, just usually run on pickup full open and blend in the other for the character I want