neepheid

Another year goes by, another year of bassy joy so time for thread revival/long term road test update. I finally got around to fixing the intermittent muting issue (5 year warranty ended in March), replacing the headphone socket looks like it has done the trick (hasn't muted itself in a couple of months now). Who would have thought such an inexpensive (£300) amp could have lasted this long? I am rubbish at betting, but I definitely picked a winner here.

Update: I replaced the headphone socket with a Neutrik branded one a couple of months ago (5 year warranty ran out in March). The old one was an absolute bugger to remove, I sucked as much solder off the tabs as I could but in the end I needed to incrementally heat the tags and use a plastic wedge to slowly prise the tags out of the holes. Finally got it out (probably took half an hour in total, moving it a fraction of a mm at a time). By comparison, fitting the new one took about a minute Long story short, I have had no recurrence of the random muting since I replaced the socket. It has been driven hard most weeks at band rehearsal and lugged about all this time. Happy to say I call this one fixed. Probably one of the least difficult things to fix has gone wrong after 5 years. Not bad for such an inexpensive piece of kit.

It's all lies I tell you! All Thunderbird headstocks are magnetically attracted to the Earth's core, didn't you know?

This bass is so lovely to me that for a fleeting moment I considered selling up all my other basses so I could collect a JC Sig of every finish which has been made available. Then I gave myself a slap. This one is neat looking though, I might be tempted to grab one just for the anniversary-ness of it all to sit next to my oh-so-sparkly blue royale one.

I highly doubt that they've changed the neck specifications. It's made to Jack Casady's specifications for 20 years and suddenly he/they decide that the neck's too chunky? Seems unlikely considering how involved he was in the design and how he's been using them professionally ever since.

Broken headstocks are the fault of the user or clumsy person who last touched the instrument, not the manufacturer. If it stays off the floor, it's fine. It's designed to give optimal break angle over the nut without using string trees, not withstand impact with the ground, and I for one have no issue with that.

Well, that was a lot of fun

RD Artist circuit is a 2 band EQ (treble/bass), then the Moog stuff. A compressor (which only acts upon the neck pickup) which does as you would expect - smooths out the attack and stretches out the note. On mine it also results in a noticeable increase in output volume. An expander (which only acts upon the bridge pickup) does pretty much the opposite - emphasises the attack of the note and ends it more abruptly. Supposed to be good for pick playing. Also a "bright" mode which seems to boost the upper mids and does make it sound significantly different. Pre 1979 models have a three way switch which means that you can only use compression/expansion OR bright mode. Post 1979, they used two mini toggles which means you can use both at the same time (although expansion + bright is pretty extreme). All this RD talk is making me want to take mine to band rehearsal tonight

[quote name='NancyJohnson' timestamp='1487678712' post='3241713'] I'm not one for dissing on anyone's ability, we all have to start somewhere, but for the love of god couldn't Gibson have gotten someone/anyone [i]better [/i]or perhaps more[i] adept [/i]than Noah Sierota (from Echosmith) to play that EB? It doesn't actually look to bad in that clip. Christ on a bike. Fender = Geddy Lee, Yamaha = Billy Sheehan, MusicMan = John Myung. I could go on. They could have flown me and Neeph over. At least we've been buying and playing their instruments for a while. [/quote] I don't think I could be trusted not to knock some peoples' heads together if they flew me over to Nashville

Fallow years ahead for Gibson bass fans. You get spells like this sometimes - they've been in a monumental bass huff since the relatively productive 2014 resulted in a massive "so what?" from the world's bass players for the nth time.

[quote name='Kevin Dean' timestamp='1486338028' post='3231035'] How do you think they compete with all the internet stuff , Personal Service , offering set ups ? [/quote] From my point of view, they can't compete on price (fairly obviously) but I did sell a bass through our local second hand shop and although I didn't get as high a return as if I had sold it privately, it got the bass out of the house right away, I didn't have to deal with stupid hagglers and chancers, I didn't have to worry about packaging and courier-proofing the bass and of course got personal service and updated about how the sale was going - number of enquiries/people trying it out etc. so I guess it depends entirely upon if you value your time or if the bottom line is the only consideration. I hope they thrive, they sometimes have some cool stuff - it does heavily lean towards guitars rather than basses, but that's just standard.

Ramjam Music in Aberdeen - second hand instruments shop, mostly guitars, basses and amps http://www.ramjammusic.co.uk

[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1485953042' post='3227943'] Took it back to practice last night, fired it up, mute on. After a few goes at sticking a plug in and out on the headphones it came back - then stayed on all night. Think you might be on to something Neepheid. Ta. [/quote] Nice one, thanks for checking. I think I'll look into replacing that headphone socket, it looks like a standard PCB mount switching jack socket and it's on a handy wee daughterboard (see bottom right of pic below) so assuming there's some adherence to standards then it should be a straight swap. My guess and hope is that the sprung contact(s) which are supposed to be connected when there's nothing plugged into the socket have partially failed, hence why the action of plugging something in there then removing it remakes the connection for a while, until presumably vibration eventually resurfaces the fault.

Standard Brush Script MT font found in Windows, innit?

[quote name='Twincam' timestamp='1484790471' post='3218527'] Why are they putting those thunderbird style pickups on [b]everything[/b]. They belong on a tbird I bet they are even in a similar space. I honestly wish some manufactures would give a little more variety from one bass to the other in terms of tone. [/quote] Yeah, because these are going to sound exactly like a Jack Casady, an Allen Woody or one of those "Tobias" Toby models - no variety there then

Actually, you know something - I'm out. No batwing, no deal. Look at the errant band member twatting upside the head possibilities!

I'm interested for sure, but I can't help thinking the new Embassy would have looked cooler with the 4 in line "batwing" headstock of the past.

[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1484670256' post='3217355'] I found a Hartke 3500 for 140 quid in a pawn shop in Exeter. I got over excited and bought it. Haven't tried the HB out since, will try it again at some point though. Sorry neep. Was all primed to try the headphone trick though. [/quote] No worries. My first proper amp was a 3500 - good amps those.

[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1484125205' post='3212799'] Some of you may remember the craze about 5 years ago for Ibanez promethean clone amps. [/quote] Did you try to see if the headphone jack was involved in the problem? Would be keen to get a confirmation from someone who appears to have the same issue as me

It's started happening on my RedSub 5110 combo (basically the same thing as yours but a different badge and red speaker cone). I think the fault is the headphone jack. Next time it happens, try plugging something in the headphone socket then remove it - on mine the light goes out and the mute comes off right away. I have a 1/2" > 3.5mm adaptor permanently in the Aux in socket so when it happens for me, I just reach over and use that to clear the muting.

Well, setting aside the ridiculously muddled nomenclature issue, and to answer the OP's original question - the EB (2013-15) is a great bass. I had a bullion gold 2014 model for a while. It was a reasonable weight, well balanced and sounded good too. The push/pull pots which split the humbuckers make an audible difference to the tone. Comes with a nice hard case, and like you said, can be had for reasonable money. While this was the first time in ages that Gibson had put out a bass which had no corresponding guitar model, I'd keep away from using the word "commitment" when it comes to Gibson and bassists - they binned the EB in question after 2 years, which I think is a shame, and they did practically nothing bass-wise last year. Some commitment, eh? I'd argue that recent history is nothing compared to the productive time of the 70s and 80s - Grabber, G-3, Ripper, RD, Victory, IV/V, 20/20 to name but a few. I think they were much more interested in giving it a right good go back then, even though it wasn't always successful. These days I get the feeling Gibson make basses because they feel obliged to because Fender make basses. That 2017 new "EB" can do one - it's like they're not even trying any more - let's make a less distinctive looking bass than its predecessor AND remove one of the useful features (the coil splitting). Well played, Gibson. Slow hand claps all round. I expect to see it in a Thomann fire sale by the end of the year.

Ahh, but which Seymour Duncan Jazz pickups are we talking about? There are many different types, all with different properties. http://www.seymourduncan.com/pickups/bass/jazz-bass I used a Quarter Pound bridge pickup years ago in a project but I'll be damned if I can remember much about it, sorry.

I think the OP is referring to the EB (2013-2015) because of the phrase "[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]a conventional shaped bass with decent pups" [/font][/color]but I don't blame anyone for the confusion - it was a terrible idea to call it that. Is this the bass you're talking about?

[quote name='darkandrew' timestamp='1483353620' post='3206376'] Well, looking through recent posts on BC, it seems that a great bass player has: A fender P bass Clean hands Good dance moves Tone in their fingers Their own bass, backline and PA A partner that's fine with having their house filled with band gear. Oh, and I almost forgot, you've got to be sexy and under 25. I think that's got it covered? [/quote] Fell at the first hurdle, how embarrassing

Santa received my hint and I received my book. Lovely stuff!