Gibson EB-2


The Gibson EB-2 is an electric bass guitar model produced by the Gibson Guitar Corporation from 1958 to 1972, with a hiatus from 1962 to 1963. When production ceased in 1972, a total of 8017 instruments has been built, with 2102 of them being EB-2D's. Willie Moseley, in Vintage Guitar, referred to the bass guitar as possibly "Gibson's biggest bass invention"; the instrument, however, was not a great commercial success, and the Rivoli, the sister model made by Epiphone, may have been used more than the original Gibson.

Description

Introduced in 1958, the EB-2 was the bass guitar equivalent of the popular Gibson ES-335. It featured a 335-style semi-hollow body, a short 30.5" scale neck and one large "Sidewinder" humbucking pickup in the neck position. The electronics consisted of a single volume and tone knob. The EB-2N had natural finish, the EB-2 sunburst. The next year a "Baritone switch" was added, which enhanced or cut the bass frequencies, and later a string mute was added to the bridge. By 1961 the original banjo-style tuners were replaced by regular tuners, and by 1965 cherry was a color option also.
In 1966, the EB-2D was introduced, which added a mini-humbucker pickup in the bridge position. Electronics included separate volume and tone controls and a 3-way switch to select the pickups, besides the "baritone" switch.

Variants

In 2012 Gibson came out with a "Midtown Standard" bass, a semi-hollow bass loosely based on the EB-2D. Although cosmetically very alike, it supports a long-scale 34" neck, a solid mahogany body with routed tonechambers and a flat maple top, which is considerably smaller than the original 335-shape and different electronics.