NBD Gibson SB-300

[amptech]

So, it's finally here. Bought this one from Scott. I'm hooked on short scale Gibson basses, so I was curious to explore this one.
I have tried one before, way before I started to play shorties - but that might have been a SB-400. It was horrible, neck like a bow and impossible to play. I don't remember if I even played it on an amp, owner just wanted to show it to me because I had a Gibson too at that point (Grabber). He said it sounded weak and sold it off cheap. And now I lusted for one, who would have known. Here it is in all it's glory:



Hope you all can see pic (Photobucket) The finish is not as good as in the pic, just turned out that way
Naturally I wanted to fiddle with it right away. Tuned it up after a quick look, it was strung with very thin strings (measured .082, .065, .047, .045 on my digi caliper). I know Scott fixed the truss rod on it, but anyhow I use TI's and the sort so it's OK. I have an extra LaBella deep Flats lying around I might try.
   Sounded good acoustically and played really easy, but the E was making a pretty nasty buzzing sound. A quick look under the hood
of that clever bridge revealed the reason for the bad behaviour, the nylon E saddle was chipped.



I might try to make steel saddles, but for now I just filed a notch with a rat file. There was enough room on it for it to seat, so it will probably stay this way if it sounds OK. It now played very nice (notched the other saddles too to set the radii).

Time to plug in. There was an EBS Fafner 2 that I just finished repairing on the bench, so I plugged into it (and a Marshall 412 with Eminence Bass neo's). Even at 12 o'clock gain/vol there was just a very low sound, although both pickups made som popping when touched with a nail. Measuring the output jack it has a very high dcr. That does not really worry me, the control plate have two screws only. Turns out corrosion got the better of it, a ground connection was loose and the jack was all gunky and green. The electronics takes about 30 seconds to resolder, and a thorough jack cleaning and pot lubing another 30 seconds. Both pups measure 6,6 K ohms each, so quite good output should be possible with both on (in series).



And yes, now it played nice and loud. So good I had to go find my '73 Superbass. (the EBS makes every bass a bit dull) I must say, this is a really good one. It does bite, but that is very controllable with the tone control (which I never use on EB-3's or mudbuckers in general). Can almost match the rick in clank and it is louder. Can do a good P too! Very easy to dial in the sound, compared to muds.
Both pickups on and tone backed off a tad, very varm and full sound but with super definition. It can definitely be expressive, not dead at all. OK, it's new to me - but it is a bass I can see myself spending a lot of time with, it screams 'do me again'!

I can only join in with Uwe and the others who praise this beauty, it is a very good instrument! For the record I did try a SB-350 a while back, but I'm glad I waited. The 350's bridge pup is as useless as everybody claims.

I'm not too fond of walnut, but decide to keep it as-is. Only thing that must be done is a refret, wich is boring to do but I'm sure it will be worth it when I'm done. It's a winner! 

[Chris P.]

Cool! This one and the LP Sig are my 'I hope to own them once' Gibsons. The looks of this one are great and a great post and explanation. Yes, I can see the pics clearly.

[Basvarken]

Congrats!

Now I want one too   

[Rob]

I agree with the walnut not being their most popular finish but you just said it grabs at least three solid different sounds.
That's impressive for any guitar much less a bass..

[slinkp]

I've kinda wanted one of these too, but never seen one in person!

Those are on-off switches for each pup?

Based on experience of other two-pup basses, and my perpetual annoyance at the limited controls every time I play a Telecaster guitar, despite otherwise quite liking Teles...  if I had an SB-300 and played it often, I think I'd be tempted to have a custom control plate fitted with V/V/T for even more variety. Would be a pretty easy and inexpensive retrofit, the most expensive part obviously being a guard that probably nobody has a ready-made template for.
And trivial to undo, just keep the old plate and controls!

That said, from the few samples I've heard, I think I could have plenty of fun playing a stock one.

[Dave W]

Congrats, hope it works out for you.

[amptech]

I've kinda wanted one of these too, but never seen one in person!
Those are on-off switches for each pup?

Yes, and both on is in series.

Based on experience of other two-pup basses, and my perpetual annoyance at the limited controls every time I play a Telecaster guitar, despite otherwise quite liking Teles...  if I had an SB-300 and played it often, I think I'd be tempted to have a custom control plate fitted with V/V/T for even more variety. Would be a pretty easy and inexpensive retrofit, the most expensive part obviously being a guard that probably nobody has a ready-made template for.
And trivial to undo, just keep the old plate and controls!

That was more or less what I was planning. I really wanted a hacked up project to play around with, and at some point I wanted to turn it into an EB-3, meaning filling the top and routing the back. Just to have a non maho EB-3 to experiment with. I also wanted to see how it works as a fretless, as I played a lot of fretless years back. I miss it, but I do not like to switch scales between songs. Someone here might recall my EB-0 fretless project a couple of years back, with LoZ pickup. Did not turn out well, but it sounded fantastic with frets, so I refretted it in the end

Obviously, this SB-300 is too good/complete to hack up in any way, but at least I will find out how it works as a fretless when I refret it

[slinkp]

Series, interesting! So while you're playing around you can find out if it also sounds good in parallel

Congratulations and enjoy your experiments!

[ajkula66]

Nice looking Gibby, congrats.

Play it in good health and enjoy!

[Granny Gremlin]

Congrats - always thought those looked cool.

[wellREDman]

i've never really been a fan of the SG shape, especially on basses, but with the tele-esque plate and those pickup rings that  looks the mutt's nuts

[westen44]

i've never really been a fan of the SG shape, especially on basses, but with the tele-esque plate and those pickup rings that  looks the mutt's nuts

I've never been a fan of the looks of SG shaped basses, either, but I've always liked a lot of other things about them. 

[slinkp]

When I owned an EB0 I found that the body was super comfortable, it just felt great, I like those contours. I just couldn't make its distinctive sound work for me.  I'm curious about these SB300 though, I really think I could work with those pickups.

[Dave W]

The SG body shape has always been "love it or hate it." Not sure why. Works for me, that's all I care about.

[westen44]

The SG body shape has always been "love it or hate it." Not sure why. Works for me, that's all I care about.

I like everything about them except not so much for the way they actually look.  As for people hating them, probably a lot of the time that's from people who have an overall bias against Gibson itself.  At least that has been my impression through the years.  Of course there are people who are going to be critical of short scale basses, what they consider a muddy sound, etc,, regardless.  Personally, though, I think Jack Bruce made  EB-3 basses legendary, although I'd like them even if he had never played one.  Of course if Gibson itself felt that way, they would have brought back an actual EB-3 reissue long ago. Something which apparently wouldn't be considered marketable in today's world, though.