Jack Bruce and his EB ONE

[dexter]

UWE,   Do you know the respective wieghts of each bass
?....

how would they compare to an early , 61 -63 ish Gibson EB3 , heavier or lighter ?

i just realized i don't know the wieght of the basses i play!

Because the EB ONE  has such a thicker body , and looks bigger ,  i'm just assuming it would be heavier ,

i could be completeley wrong , !
would you mind doing a little checking ?
 thanks
 much appreciated
dexter 

Mine isn't as Terr-ific (hey, it was "only" 5,000 bucks at the time!), but Herr Pappalardi had it refinned in a nice cherry, allegedly it's a 53 (but sans serial number which never existed or was sanded off over time you can't tell for sure):




That pic was before the Schaller mount. Pappalardi wasn't obsessive about keeping it original either: The tone knob is notched and works different in the first half of the turn than in the second. In the first half it cuts the mids and emulates a mudbuckish sound with the singlecoil (though sans the mudbucker's archaic might), bit like the filter on EB-2s, in the second half it cuts what treble there is. I heard from the seller (Mark Discordia, a Pappalardi- and Nintendo/Super Mario-nut, with a Mountain website at the time) that that was a speciality of Pappalardi on all his EB-1s. Mark (who had an uncle work at Gibson in the fifties and had some background knowledge from there too) at one point must have bought three or four EB basses from the Pappalardi estate (after the "gun accident"): a 69 RI, a 55 (Pappalardi's main playing bass which he also had in Woodstock with him, and which now graces the Toronto Hardrock Café, I've seen it there behind glass, you have to pass it when you go to the loo, Mark sold it for 20,000 US bucks to them he said) and the cherry refin 1953 (?) that is now mine. There might have been another one, I'm not sure.

Here's my Pappasomething and 69 RI side by side.




And to confuse everyone a bit: My 69 is much lighter than my 53, the wood on it sounds a lot more porous when doing the recommended "knock test". In comparison, the 53 sounds thick and dense, almost as if it were a chunk of maple (it isn't).
 

[dexter]

IMO , way too much money for this badly abused specimen ,  especially considering it does not even have the original 50' s pick up.

if it did though, i would have seriously considered it .....

dexter   


http://cgi.ebay.com/1956-GIBSON-EB-1-ELECTRIC-BASS-W-OHSC-FELIX-EB1-VIOLIN_W0QQitemZ190333717999QQcmdZViewItemQQptZGuitar?hash=item2c50c60def&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

[Dave W]

IMO , way too much money for this badly abused specimen ,  especially considering it does not even have the original 50' s pick up.

if it did though, i would have seriously considered it .....

dexter   


http://cgi.ebay.com/1956-GIBSON-EB-1-ELECTRIC-BASS-W-OHSC-FELIX-EB1-VIOLIN_W0QQitemZ190333717999QQcmdZViewItemQQptZGuitar?hash=item2c50c60def&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

That one is mentioned earlier in this thread. I'll say it again, I wouldn't touch it at any price. Bogus serial number and all sorts of other issues. I wouldn't believe it's a legit '56 without a long verifiable paper trail.

[Rhythm N. Bliss]

Heya Dex~

When I got mine we had a great discussion on another bassplayer site about whether I should have it made lefty & actually play it or not.
Many were against makin' it lefty & some suggested that I have one custom made instead.
That's not a bad idea, even for a righty.
Bruce Johnson remarked about it's simplicity when he first saw it & how easy it'd be to make one.
Funny that he refused to move the knobs south when he made it lefty for me.
That's ok tho, it's fine for now. Doc Dolan-another great bass luthier-has agreed to do it for me if I ever decide to do it.

Either one of these guys could make you a great EB just as good & pretty as a Gibson!!

[copacetic]

Me thinks as simple as it sounds to make the pickups on the original Gibson Electric bass might be hard to duplicate. If anyone has done it (and sat down and compare the origianl with a remake and they sound the same)I'd like to know and I would drop it in my EB-0 in a matter of secounds.

[Rhythm N. Bliss]

Me thinks as simple as it sounds to make the pickups on the original Gibson Electric bass might be hard to duplicate. If anyone has done it (and sat down and compare the origianl with a remake and they sound the same)I'd like to know and I would drop it in my EB-0 in a matter of secounds.

If anyone can do it, Bruce Johnson could. The guy's a genius.

[uwe]

"UWE,   Do you know the respective wieghts of each bass
?....

how would they compare to an early , 61 -63 ish Gibson EB3 , heavier or lighter ?

i just realized i don't know the wieght of the basses i play!

Because the EB ONE  has such a thicker body , and looks bigger ,  i'm just assuming it would be heavier ,

i could be completeley wrong , !
would you mind doing a little checking ?"

It's definitely heavier, not hugely though but noticeably so. That is in fact why Bruce switched to it for the reunion, he thought an EB-3 "felt like a toy" after years of playing Warwicks who are neither light nor small basses. In fact, Bruce's preferred Warwick bass, his signature Thumb, has a very thick and compact body too, maybe that is why the EB-1 felt like home to him. In any case, the EB-1 is the much more substantial instrument feelwise.

[Dave W]

Me thinks as simple as it sounds to make the pickups on the original Gibson Electric bass might be hard to duplicate. If anyone has done it (and sat down and compare the origianl with a remake and they sound the same)I'd like to know and I would drop it in my EB-0 in a matter of secounds.

I don't think it would be hard at all. It's not as if they used any exotic wire or magnets that aren't available today. There are a number of custom pickup makers who could do it.

OTOH the 53-58 originals are rare enough in whole basses, I don't recall ever seeing a separate pickup for sale. That makes it hard to compare.

And if you got an original, it wouldn't sound the same in your EB-0 as it did in the Electric Bass/EB-1.

[eb2]

The construction is pretty crude, as you can see below.  I think we went into this on the old dudepit.  The bobbin is a rough cut hunk of cream colored plastic, like left-over Les Paul Standard pickguards.  It is a gigantor single coil.  I am sure you could have one duplicated easily enough.  The cover is actually the hardest part to replicate, and the side "tabs" where they screw into the top are pretty fragile.  Also, they don't line up with the way a cover for a later black plastic mudbucker or nickel/chrome cover sit on the top.  I haven't seen one for sale off a bass in many years.  The last time I did, I bought it, and this is it.

[Dave W]

I can't remember where I snagged this pic.

[chromium]

Does anyone know roughly what the impedance was of that single coil?  I know there are other variables involved, but I was wondering if a single mudbucker coil might get in that ballpark.  If so, maybe that might offer an easier alternative to re-engineering one of the single coils(?).

I've never heard the sound of that single coil before to compare the two.

[Dave W]

Joe, it should be about 30K, same as the mudbucker. It was 25,000 turns of AWG#42 on one coil, and when they decided to go with a humbucker, they simply did it as two coils each with 12,5000 turns with one RWRP to the other.

So no, I don't think one 12,500 turn 15K coil would be overwound enough to get the same sound.

[clankenstein]

i  wonder if you put both mudbucker coils in the middle there in series and put both magnets up one end and the pole piece screws and bar down the other wouldnt you have a similar pickup?to get the single coil sound perhaps both coils would need to be not rwrp....weirdly my eb2 had a single coil pickup but it was only half a mud bucker i.e. one coil missing maybe it had been repaired i dont know.it was really good at picking up hum.it measures 13.9 k.

[Dave W]

i  wonder if you put both mudbucker coils in the middle there in series and put both magnets up one end and the pole piece screws and bar down the other wouldnt you have a similar pickup?to get the single coil sound perhaps both coils would need to be not rwrp....weirdly my eb2 had a single coil pickup but it was only half a mud bucker i.e. one coil missing maybe it had been repaired i dont know.it was really good at picking up hum.it measures 13.9 k.

The mudbucker coils already are in series.

If you did as you are asking about, and the coils weren't RWRP to each other, that would be just about the same setup as the single coil.

There is a metal blade running through each humbucker coil that conducts between the screws and the magnets. On the single coil the blade obviously has to run from one end to the other. The theory is the same, but the different path would change the sound, although I don't know exactly how.

[dexter]

thanks for the info  UWE       I fIgured 50'S eb ONE wieghed a significant amount more,.....it looks bigger for a start , and if its as thick as some of those 70s EB 3 Basses,it would be noticable.
hhhhhmmmm , i might have to get used to that wieght factor , as i definately want one ,     but the lightness factor of those early Gibsons is a real attraction for me .
i know for sure tho, i could definatley not go back to playing a 9 pound,  full-scale Fender jazz bass .... ,


TERR,  as for having a bass built , i suppose i could have one made ,  but i would much prefer to have the REAL DEAL, although the prospect of owning one of only 500 or so made is daunting.
of course if someone could pull it off , to play ,and sound like an original 50's , 'd be lining up with everyone else with my money.!


dexter

"UWE,   Do you know the respective wieghts of each bass
?....

how would they compare to an early , 61 -63 ish Gibson EB3 , heavier or lighter ?

i just realized i don't know the wieght of the basses i play!

Because the EB ONE  has such a thicker body , and looks bigger ,  i'm just assuming it would be heavier ,

i could be completeley wrong , !
would you mind doing a little checking ?"

It's definitely heavier, not hugely though but noticeably so. That is in fact why Bruce switched to it for the reunion, he thought an EB-3 "felt like a toy" after years of playing Warwicks who are neither light nor small basses. In fact, Bruce's preferred Warwick bass, his signature Thumb, has a very thick and compact body too, maybe that is why the EB-1 felt like home to him. In any case, the EB-1 is the much more substantial instrument feelwise.