Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I just picked up one of these locally for a hundred bucks. I had a real EB-O back in the day(72). It was my first brand name bass. My first ever was a pretty well made Japanese P copy.

http://www.epiphone.com/news.asp?NewsID=500



The funny thing is, I am in the middle of an SG project (still need a neck), and the body is black too. So I will have matching Epi EB-O and SG!

I am on the other end of the spectrum from all these high finance collectors on this site but I still have fun...

Congrats Charly.
As I mentioned somewhere else here, I still have my '71 EB-O.
And I've always been meaning to sell it.
But now that I've just taken it out of its case to take some eBay photos, I'm beginning to think ... why not fire up this baby and see how she sounds after all these years.

Cool Mark!

I Had a Dan Armstrong Plexi for a while too! I just love having a short scale around. It is effortless to play IMHO. And I like that huge honkin humbucker right at the neck!

I have an old EB-O copy in the closet(I think it's
a Kay).It's in pices now but I rember when I bought it for $60.00 in a pawn shop it had this really neat
muddy sound.I pulled the frets shortly aftre I got it and to me it had a nice warm almost accoustic sound.Back in the mid '70s my friends father played a real EB-0 and I had a chance to fool around with it.They are pretty neat basses.

I have a real late 60's Gibson EB-3 which is an EB-0 with a bridge pickup and varitone which selects different combinations of sounds from the pickups. The neck pickup alone is total boom. It is a nice bass once you get used to it and many people played them during the late 60's with various great sounds: Jack Bruce, Alice Cooper's bassplayer (Dennis Dunaway), and Free's bassplayer (Andy Frasier who had a great sound) to name just a few. They were almost as common as P basses back then.

I used to own a Gibson EB-O with slothead back in the 80s. I now have a reish Epi which, inspired by Dennis Dunaway's, I covered with mirrors. It's fun and I use it for encores, looks cool under the lights.

Ok, I now want to upgrade the pup, and maybe put in a bridge pup. I can't seem to find replacements. Any ideas? I suppose I could REALLY change it and put RIC hb's in!! Nah, I still want the vintage vibe. I did notice Gibson put a mini hb in the bridge position on the reissue.

Check out Mike Watt's basses. His main bass is an old EB-3. He replaced the mudbucker with a DiMarzio and added a Bartolini preamp.

http://www.hootpage.com/hoot_gallery-thudstaffs.html

I like his ideas. Although I wasn't thrilled by this statement!

"Those pickups are dead and they weigh a ton (70's EB-3s). One of the settings would sound really thin, out of phase, like a Rickenbacker, oh man. "

I did play one of those Ashbury rubber band basses this weekend at a store. Not too bad for what it is. Too tiny for my hands.

The original EB-3's have a mini humbucker near the bridge and they sound good on position three which is both pickups on. Mine is a slothead also. Watt's bass, at least on the Stooges new album is muddy and has two new pickups in it, they look identical but don't sound like much of an improvement to me, I have heard much better tones from stock EB-3's especially from Andy Frasier on the Free stuff.

I'll probably go with the mini hb for the bridge. I have heard that Gibson has a "vintage" replacement pup that is super hot for the neck. Something like 27k or such?

In looking around the web for info on modding EB0s, I stumbled on this fellow's site. I am not linking for his basses, but check out his "over the top" rig!!!!!! Talk about processed sound!! As a tease,the cabs are a 4x10, a 1x15 and 2 separate 18s!!! Scroll down for the rig.

http://www.basskahuna.com/equipment/index.shtml

A nice pix of EBOs.