[SKATE RAT]

i think my next Gibbby(in a few months) will be an EB4L.i know that in the 70's the bodies got thicker but what year?and does the EB4L have the thicker body?

[donnervogel]

There are no EB-4s with thin bodies. As a a 1972 and onwards model, it had the thick, heavy body and the long scale maple neck plus that ultra-robust, but unergonomic hunk of a neck/body joint. Still a nice bass for its sound, it has much nicer treble and presence (both always sound a bit brittle on the seventies EB-3s) and less burpy mids plus a more sensible amount of low fundamentals than an EB-3. You get a very pure mahogany sound with it, musical is the word, I always think of Motown when I play it because through all the Gibson warmth it has some Fender clarity (no doubt also due to the maple neck, it makes tonally one heck of a difference).

Two drawbacks:

- Dialing the treble down will give you a dark sound, but not mudbucking spluttering force.

- The magnetic field of the pup poles is so narrow you can absolutely not bend higher notes with this bass. The signal will not just decrease in volume but disappear completely like with no other bass I've played. Even the magnetic field of early Ric Hi Gains is wider. It's a bass that would drive "constant benders" such as Jack Bruce and Billy Sheehan mad (or cure them of their "bend-itis" affliction).

Uwe

[SKATE RAT]

THANK,UWE THATS WHAT I NEEDED TO KNOW.THAT BENDING THING WORRIES ME.

[donnervogel]

Well, you could go for another pup, but that would be self-defeating. The one thing that makes the EB-4 stand out is the characteristic of its pup. Without that, it is just another EB-3L husk.

Uwe

[Dave W]

I can't find it offhand, but somewhere in the maze of Jules' main site there's a photo of the innards of an EB-4L pickup. Each polepiece has its own individual coil, so it's like four small circular coils instead of the usual rectangular coil. Different magnetic field than a typical pickup, and in this case, obviously a narrow field if you need to bend.

Jules, can you point us to that photo?

[chromium]

Originally Posted by donnervogel

- The magnetic field of the pup poles is so narrow you can absolutely not bend higher notes with this bass. The signal will not just decrease in volume but disappear completely like with no other bass I've played.

This behavior reminds me of the Ovation Magnum neck pickup. 4 coils, very narrow field, disappearing bends, and more of a clear-and-present/polite tone. Looking at the timeline, I wonder if this pickup was their inspiration...

Anyway, here's that pic of the EB-4L pickup:

[SKATE RAT]

Originally Posted by donnervogel

Well, you could go for another pup, but that would be self-defeating. The one thing that makes the EB-4 stand out is the characteristic of its pup. Without that, it is just another EB-3L husk.

Uwe

I WOULD BE FINE WITH AN EB3L HUSK.THE "L" IS WHAT I REALLY LIKE.

[jules]

Originally Posted by SKATE RAT

i know that in the 70's the bodies got thicker but what year?and does the EB4L have the thicker body?

back to the original point. This is one area where the catalogues are wrong. All Gibson catalogues that feature solid EB basses show the body width as 1 5/16" - right up to 1979. This includes the 1972 bass place catalogue which first announced the EB4L and demonstrated the new bodies.

The 70s ones (this change perhaps started in late '71, and was universal by '72) are 1 1/2" - parhaps a shade more - i'm using a ruler not accurate calipers.

I can only assume they just used older descriptions, and forgot to change that figure

The 3/16 " differences doesn't sound like a lot, but the difference is discernable

EB4L projects do come up with the switch broken - Its probably the one Gibson bass item I think i've never seen on ebay - so if you intend to change the pickup, and are ok to wait, you could get a project body for quite a good price.

[Redbird]

A very strange pickup?

I have never seen anything like that.