Eblah 1971 EB3 Bridge

[Dave W]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with a two-point bridge. Just look at the hundreds of thousands of tuneomatic guitars, archtops with floating bridges, Warwicks, Alembics, etc. But all of those have tailpieces. Without a tailpiece, the Gibson two-point bass bridge pulls forward. The higher the string tension, the more it's noticeable.

[uwe]

I've said this before, but Dave's valiant if ultimately futile attempt to justify the two point's existence by adding a tailpiece Gibson never intended or offered with it reminds me of a car dealer selling a car without wheels and adding helpfully: "All it needs is some tires and you have yourself a fine working car, Sir!" Or of the Monty Python sketch where the pet shop owner remained adamant that the parrot was not dead, "just resting". 

Try sticking a stringholder/tailpiece on a long scale EB-0, -3 or -4. I guess you could find room for it on the other side of the bass! 

[chromium]

Try sticking a stringholder/tailpiece on a long scale EB-0, -3 or -4. I guess you could find room for it on the other side of the bass! 

Hang ten!  (or four, as the case may be)   

[eb2]

The original concept - the 53 bridge - was a wonderful concept in that it was a massive dense piece of metal screwed into a chunk of mahogany via threaded inserts.  The missing element was the intonation - or the close enough part was there with the allen screws.  But for out of the box and of its time, wonderful. 

The attempt to correct the lack of intonation - almost a decade after Fender and Gibson's Les Pauls figured it out - was to redesign the bridge to have intonatable saddles.  Like a Gibson Guitar tunomatic.  But they screwed up in changing the stud screws that allow for tilting, and the saddles that tend to suck some sustain out of the things by being plastic.  And then they shifted the treble stud south of the earlier version, since now they could intonate the D and G, but it made them not something to retrofit on earlier basses.  All in all a rush job that with simple tweaks could be much better.  Of course the whole idea of a separate tailpiece should have been unnecessary to begin with - like a Badass guitar or the horrid Schaller 460. Fender adopted the stud concept with the Stingray bass using allen studs, which will cure the tilt of an Evertilt as well if you need to jam it all the way down.

I have high hopes that Hipshot will cook up something that will work on 53-67 and 67 and later EBs.

[Basvarken]

Isn't the tilt caused by removing the felt mute device that was part of the bridge configuration?
I believe that the base plate of the felt mute kept the two point bridge from tilting forward.

But when peole started removing that mute device from underneath the bridge it went wrong. Could that be it?

[Dave W]

I've said this before, but Dave's valiant if ultimately futile attempt to justify the two point's existence by adding a tailpiece Gibson never intended or offered with it reminds me of a car dealer selling a car without wheels and adding helpfully: "All it needs is some tires and you have yourself a fine working car, Sir!" Or of the Monty Python sketch where the pet shop owner remained adamant that the parrot was not dead, "just resting". 

Try sticking a stringholder/tailpiece on a long scale EB-0, -3 or -4. I guess you could find room for it on the other side of the bass! 

Funny you should mention Python. Back in the mid 90s when John Slog was doing a monthly bass feature for Vintage Guitar magazine, he showed a photo of an early (doublecut Junior shape) EB-0 with the title "Spot the Loony." The catch was that the bass had an adjustable bridge and separate tailpiece. So Gibson did at least think about offering it.

And as Joe's picture shows, you can put a tailpiece on the butt end. 

[Dave W]

The original concept - the 53 bridge - was a wonderful concept in that it was a massive dense piece of metal screwed into a chunk of mahogany via threaded inserts.  The missing element was the intonation - or the close enough part was there with the allen screws.  But for out of the box and of its time, wonderful. 

The attempt to correct the lack of intonation - almost a decade after Fender and Gibson's Les Pauls figured it out - was to redesign the bridge to have intonatable saddles.  Like a Gibson Guitar tunomatic.  But they screwed up in changing the stud screws that allow for tilting, and the saddles that tend to suck some sustain out of the things by being plastic.  And then they shifted the treble stud south of the earlier version, since now they could intonate the D and G, but it made them not something to retrofit on earlier basses.  All in all a rush job that with simple tweaks could be much better.  Of course the whole idea of a separate tailpiece should have been unnecessary to begin with - like a Badass guitar or the horrid Schaller 460.

Whoa! You think the original bar bridge is good? Aside from the intonation issue, it also tilts. And it's not what I'd call massive.

Lack of sustain with the nylon saddle bridge? In what parallel universe? Not with any I've ever heard.

Fender adopted the stud concept with the Stingray bass using allen studs, which will cure the tilt of an Evertilt as well if you need to jam it all the way down.

That's MusicMan, not Fender. The studs aren't there to solve any tilting problem, that bridge doesn't tilt if you remove them.

[eb2]

I have found slight tilt in early bridges, virtually none in the hollowed out 60s version, but in either case nothing like the Evertilt.  If anything it is a lack of consistency in the casting of the "hook" that causes that on the earlier version.  The Evertilt is a poor design from the un-clampable stud mounts on down.  Terrible flaw right there, but the whole thing reeks of rushing. And yes, the 50s nickel bridges are massive.  You could kill an Elk with them things.  Good sidearm delivery.  And nylon saddles suck sustain, by their nature.  Hard brass,nickel or steel are much denser and harder materials to use for string saddles to transfer tone and sustain.  And more expensive, which was probably Gibson's motivation.

And the MusicMan bridge mounting was Mr Fender at work, and just a recognition of the superior mounting of two honking studs vs five little wood screws.  If Gibson had used those screws, it would have been much easier, stable, and comfortable.   

[Dave W]

Without the studs, the three screws at the rear of a MM bridge hold it down just fine. The studs on the make for solid contact with the body. Their purpose is different from Gibson bridge studs. Apples and oranges.

You can't transfer tone and sustain, no matter what marketing folks say. They work in opposite directions. The more vibrations transferred to the body, the less sustain, and vice versa.

[Freuds_Cat]

[re: the Burns I tried]

It was in my mates guitar shop here locally and he was doing some work on it for a guy who was going to put  it on a wall. It was apparently left to him by his mate who died in a car accident.  Tim (the shop owner who is also a luthier) told me that he had put a new nut on it and tried to do a decent setup but the "0" fret caused him so many problems combined with how ropey the neck is that he would get it playing reasonably well then within hours it was virtually unplayable again.

Unfortunately for me it was in the latter state when I plugged it in. What I did find interesting was the shape of the back of the neck. Like the apex was on the higher side  rather than the middle and the shape either side of the apex obviously made it different either side.

[lowend1]

What the heck is that Japanese one from?  I have never seen an Evertilt clone before.

"Ho's" this?

[eb2]

Ooooh, that's fantastically crappy!  What a kick!  And of all the things to try to copy correctly.

[OldManC]

What the heck is that Japanese one from?  I have never seen an Evertilt clone before.

My Ibanez Thunderbird has the Evertilt. Works great with the tailpiece (like Grecos have). I've always maintained that my Ibanez is one of my best ever birds for recording. 

[lowend1]

Ooooh, that's fantastically crappy!  What a kick!  And of all the things to try to copy correctly.

Funny thing is that it's not a bad bass - the most inconvenient thing about it is the neck, which is a little wimpy, even compared to the other short-scale basses I own. It actually has an interesting sound, nothing like an EB. Attack the strings a little too hard (I tend to have a heavy plucking hand), and the pickups fart out, so a light touch or a pick works best.