So again, like with the Midtown (why do they need both models splitting the vote target market for hollowbody ES style basses, dooming both to probable commercial failure and therefore discontinument?), they have taken what I liked about the original, and thrown 80% of it in the trash.
In a way I am glad, because I can't be buying any more instruments right now (even though I always felt a hole in my stable that could only be fille3d with a hollowbody; eventually I will find a decent Starfire/EB2/Rivoli body is project shape and make the bass I have been dreaming of - Lo Z LP pup in the bridge and mudbucker in the mid/sweet spot).
Also, as always, nothing wrong with the 3 point. Fine stable bridge that.
And I thought you would find at least the binding-less version commendable, Jake. How you disappoint.
Your assumptions, guys, are all wrong. You criticize Gibson for taking a position it hasn't claimed. It hasn't said it would reissue the EB-2. It said it would bring out the Midnight and the ES-335 bass, both unprecedented models. Just because one looks like and one is a semi-hollow, you guys assume it is an "EB-2", a bass that was never offered in long scale and suffered for it as short scale went out of fashion at the end of the sixties and people started looking for a brighter bass sound. The salesman in the session music (= large German retailer) vid I posted says, towards the end 35:00, something interesting along the lines that Gibson does faithful reissues on one hand ("you have to pay homage and you learn from the best of history ... but you got to grow" - a sentiment not very popular in this forum of forums I dare say!) , but on the other hand also brings out new stuff that cites somse aspects of historic models, without really wishing to copy them completely, and hoping that these will be viewed as iconic in their own right "in fifty years time". There is nothing wrong with that. Or go to 30:37 were he says that a model "embodies a lot of things we have done in the past, but it is not a reissue of anything, it's new".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apj1ZaD67Dc&feature=player_embeddedSo take that bass for what it is: A vintage looking modern hollowbody with a long scale neck, upmarket for those who don't want a chambered solidbody (Midnight) or a Korean-made bass (Epi JC Sig). Sales of the Allen Woody "hollowbody" (in actual fact chambered too) with its short scale neck were not such since its release that Gibson should assume a huge market for short scale hollow bodies. With a mudbucker!
It's fine for you guys to like your EB-2s, I like mine too, all four of them, but it's probably one of the most limited, one trick pony'ish basses on earth, let it rest and let Gibson try something different rather than repeating - albeit collectible and beloved - mistakes from the past.