My name is Phillip R. Jones. I was hired on as the first Gibson custom shop Luthier,in July of '84,and was the first custom shop employee. I worked for Gibson for 15 years,to the day,until July of '99. Of the 30 designs I was involved with Gibson,many more were guitars,as statistically,they out-sell basses by the ratio of 4 to 1.
And since I was somewhat of a bass player,it fell upon me to design the basses,as they were treated as the red-headed stepchild,of Gibson product. They had been behind Fender from the onset of the first electric basses from both companies,as Gibson had the design aspect of following an upright bass,with the introduction of the EB-1,which had the profile of an upright bass,and even a screw-in aluminum post,to stand the bass upright,when playing. And Fender came up with the idea of the "Horizontal" bass,and they were ahead if the game,from the beginning. Gibson's EB pickup,was overwound,with a deep output,and the short scale length made for a short attack,and short sustain,as per an upright bass. Whereas the Fender employed a 34" scale length,and had a piano tone,and a sharp attack,and long sustain.
So there was a long uphill battle to bring the Gibson bass into the modern era,and comparable to the Fender product. The subsequent models,the EB-0,and EB-2 still had the short scale,and deep pickup,and even a choke coil,activated by a switch,to deepen the tone even more. And even though there was a long scale EBO-L produced,it wasn't until the introduction of the 34" scale Thunderbird bass,that was finally comparable with the Fender basses. The humbucker pickups incorporated long lap steel coils,and were magnet-loaded.They had a much better overall output,and tone,a great design,although the "reverse" body design lacked a horn,for balance,as the Fender had. The non-reverse design was better balanced, but still lacked the balance that a bass with a horn employed. The reverse Thunderbird remains among my favorite Gibson designs,and the non-reverse Thunderbird was the best design they had produced for many years to come.
In the 70's,Gibson fell to copying aspects of the Fender bass,but fell short,as they used Maple construction,for the body,as well as the neck,and the tone and resonance fell short,due to the maple body,as well as the pickup designs they used. They also employed bolt-on method,to emulate Fender,but Gibson was always best as a fitted neck instrument,as Fender was always best as a bolt-on instrument. The Victory bass was the first all-out Fender emulated design,with the first time employing a horn design,for better balance. The problem was,that Gibson placed 2 steel bars in the neck,in an effort to strengthen the neck,which made the balance off again,and several notes would be swallowed up by the resonant frequency of the steel bars inlaid in the neck. Gibson used quarter-sawn wood in their instruments,as a rule,because quarter-sawn wood is usually strongest,in flexing. Maple is unique,in that it is stronger as a slab-cut,as Leo Fender used slab-cut Ski stock,to make his necks,as it was readily available in California,due to the huge Ski production industry there. Skis require a great amount of strength,in flexing,without breaking,and they had already determind the fact of strength in slab-cut maple.
Now,with that brief history of Gibson bass design,I will next describe the new era of Gibson basses,the era I was involved with,in the next installment to be posted soon.
With regards to all Gibson Bass players,collectors,and enthusiasts,
Phillip R. Jones
