Music videos that feature EB0 to EB4 and SG variant basses...

[uwe]

Not relevant. Baritone tuning, baritone strings.

Sure he plays nice, but it has nothing to do with bass.

[Dave W]

Not relevant. Baritone tuning, baritone strings.

Sure he plays nice, but it has nothing to do with bass.

 

EB = electric bass. regardless of how it may be tuned.

Listed under Basses in Gibson's 1960 catalog
https://www.vintageguitarandbass.com/gibson/catalogues/1960_16.php

[uwe]

On German humour, no laughing matter ...

Dave, I have one, I know it's a functional bass! But mine has bass strings and is tuned like a bass. But the guy in the vid has the bass tuned like a baritone guitar (lowest note A or even B, fifth string tuned to E or F#, ie guitar tuning, four and not five half-steps higher). Consequently, he plays it like a guitar.

Which he is fine to do, but it's not playing bass with an EB-6, it's not what Jack Bruce did with a Danelectro six-string. I was - jokingly, as I had hoped would be recognized - alluding to that "misappropriation" of an EB-6. But when the EB-6 came out, it was of course meant to be used both ways. And they probably saw more use with baritone strings and guitar tuning than as basses. No matter what you do, the two additional strings don't sound much like a bass anymore, they have a guitarish twang to them even in bass tuning.

Sigh, more "bass playing" here:

[Dave W]

Dave, I have one, I know it's a functional bass! But mine has bass strings and is tuned like a bass. But the guy in the vid has the bass tuned like a baritone guitar (lowest note A or even B, fifth string tuned to E or F#, ie guitar tuning, four and not five half-steps higher). Consequently, he plays it like a guitar.

Which he is fine to do, but it's not playing bass with an EB-6, it's not what Jack Bruce did with a Danelectro six-string. I was - jokingly, as I had hoped would be recognized - alluding to that "misappropriation" of an EB-6. But when the EB-6 came out, it was meant to be used both ways.

Sigh, more "bass playing" here:

Sorry, I can't hear you, I'm busy listening to Budgie. 

[uwe]

Which is all good, Dave, you should of course listen to more new music like that, my favorite Budgie track is this here:



 

[Basvarken]

Local heroes from Arnhem.
Elderly men now

[uwe]

Ok, Hank the Knife & The Jets didn't change the course of rock history, but in 1975 they were the first band I heard where I consciously noticed a baritone guitar, the way it was mixed up loud Glam Rock style, you couldn't help but notice.

Of course baritone leads had been popular in the early 60ies, but I didn't have access to that music then.

So if someone asks you what a baritone guitar sounds like, playing Hank the Knife to them will elicit immediate understanding! They're educational!



Of course, it doesn't always have to sound like this, here at 2:31 you hear a Danelectro Baritone Bob Ezrin talked Steve Morse into playing. Steve was initially aghast about the action and the stiff strings, but he pulled thru alright me thinks ...

[Basvarken]

In Bruce Springsteen's bio he mentions that he once owned a Gibson EB-6 which he mistook for a guitar with a long neck.
He had been playing guitar on it for quite a while, never knowing it was actually a six-string bass.

He walked up and congratulated me on the brilliant idea of stringing an old Gibson six-string bass with guitar strings and playing it as a solo instrument. I nodded coolly while thinking, “Holy shit … it’s a six string bass!” I’d been soloing like a madman for months on a bass guitar! No wonder its sound was so thick and its fret board so impossible. It worked!

[uwe]

He's forgiven - on the later SG body model only the huge bass tuners are a giveaway if automatic scale length recognition isn't your thing. Tuned an octave higher and with the ensuing string tension, the Boss went through a hard school. Perhaps if he had found it easier he might have turned into a lead guitarist and not a songwriter! 

I only realized after years of playing that my Kramer XKB-10 Flying Broom was a medium scale bass. And how many people play a Ric without knowing that it's not quite a long scale?

Most guitarists I know are totally oblivious to the different guitar scale lengths between Fender and Gibson. They think it's some design secret that a Les Paul  "is easier to play" and "let's you bend notes better" than a Strat or Tele. 

[Dave W]

This video is a year old but the bassist (Christopher Wolf) posted it to the FB group today. It's Mel Schacher's 70th birthday.

[uwe]

Trevor digging out his Ziggy Stardust era slothead with da Heepsters ...

[amptech]

Trevor digging out his Ziggy Stardust era slothead with da Heepsters ...

Aah, Fallen Angel. This was the first UH album I listened to. An elderly man next door was literally throwing a pile of records in his garbage bin, and my dad stopped him. Actually, they were all 70's disco hit's medley records, except complete Uriah Heep catalog up to head first. I liked the cover on Fallen Angel, wonderful artwork, so I gave it a listen. I noticed the bass right away, back then I listened a lot to Bowie and was surprised that Trevor played fretless bass too!

I think he used a fretless Kramer (aluminium neck) bass on most of that record.

EDIT: @Uwe: a fretless bass is typically a 4 stringed instrument tuned like a bass (not baritone) but without frets

[uwe]

Pah, I already played fretless bass when you were still circling the Christmas tree as a bambino full of Panettone crumbs fretting about when the Babbo Natale would finally come! 

I like that whole John Lawton era of Heep. Lawton wasn't a flamboyant front man like Byron, but he had great pipes.

I remember Trevor with a Kramer too. The bass on the track certainly doesn't sound anything like his Fender P (which he would mostly play with Heep in his later years with them). I wouldn't rule out that it was the slothead though. He did play the slothead on the more ballady stuff in the studio.

Like almost all Uriah Heep bassists, an excellent musician. For some reason, the bassists (inter alia Mark Clarke, Gary Thain, John Wetton, Trevor Bolder, Bob Daisley) were always the strongest instrumentalists with Heep.

[ilan]

Really weird intonation - looks like the bridge was intonated for a left-handed player:

[Granny Gremlin]

Really weird intonation - looks like the bridge was intonated for a left-handed player:

It totally does, but weird things can happen if you use custom gauges.