New EB owner experiences sought

[neepheid]

Oh yeah, I never liked the name.  Makes absolutely no sense in the grand scheme of things.  Super lazy.

[uwe]

My son has paid penance: Ruefully he admitted that the Blackberry Smoke bassist did not only play an EB but also a 60ies Les Paul Bass and what my son jokingly called a "Jacision" (P-Bass with extra J-pup). And here it comes: The EB (which my son finds visually non-descript as hell) sounded by far the best from the batch.

His meek excuse was: "Hey, Southern Bands almost always play Gibson basses and Gibson guitars, so what was new about that?"

[Basvarken]

My son has paid penance: Ruefully he admitted that the Blackberry Smoke bassist did not only play an EB but also a 60ies Les Paul Bass

Really? The gig that I attended he used the one EB bass.
I have seen him use a red white and blue PJ in some concert vids on YT. But never a Les Paul Bass.
Somehow he doesn't seem like a short scale type player. Maybe he borrowed someone else's bass (support act)?

[uwe]

My son described the bass to me: "Huge black pick-ups, dark-brown, way too many controls, Les Paul shape". You know that there is only one bass on earth that fits that description, Rob!

[Basvarken]

Haha! Indeed.
Richard Turner obviously has an exquisite taste!

[VeloDog]

Well, the EB bass arrived.  As many of you noted, the finish is not great and one of the tuners is noticeably crooked, but the tone is super.  The frets are not particularly sharp so playability of the neck may be this axe's greatest attribute.  I think this is likely to become my go-to bass.

In looking through the "owner's manual" I find no mention whatsoever of the coil-tapping function.  I've only played this bass at low volumes thus far but my ears cannot detect a great difference between the single-coil mode and humbucker mode.  I assume that when the vol. knobs are pushed in this is the humbucker mode and when they are pulled out is the single-coil mode?  Confirmation would be good here.

Thanks again for all your collective input.

-Bob

[Dave W]

Knob pulled up is coil tap mode.

http://www2.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Features/en-us/How-to-Get-Eight-Different-Bass-Sounds-from-the-EB.aspx

[VeloDog]

Thank you kindly for the confirmation, Dave.

[uwe]

With all this craze around the EBs around here, I took both my EB 4-string and my EB 5-string to the last rehearsal. That bass sounds like a gently modernized Gibson should - no one will mistake it with a Fender or a Warwick, but it doesn't cry out vintage either. It has a warm, never nasty, low-mid sound without honk plus ample lows and a nice treble/presence that doesn't clamor for attention, but is distinctly there. No, pushing and pulling those knobs won't give you "eight different basses", but a handful of the sounds are useful and give the bass different nuances without changing its character. Try changing the nuance of an EB-0. 

The B string on the 5er is nothing short of mighty - considering the fact that Gibson generally "don't do 5ers", they do them well.

Even though it's a different wood composition (swamp ash and maple as opposed to full maho), the basses are reminiscent of the late 80ies Gibson IV and V basses, but more variable.

But for the life of me I don't feel like a rock star when I play them, that shape is just too homely for me! And while they were at it they could have spoiled them with a high E.