The Gibson EB-2 is an

electric Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

model produced by the

Gibson Guitar Corporation Gibson, Inc. (formerly Gibson Guitar Corporation and Gibson Brands Inc.) is an American manufacturer of Guitar manufacturing, guitars, other musical instruments, and professional audio equipment from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and now based in Nashvi ...

from 1958 to 1972, with a hiatus from 1962 to 1963. When production ceased in 1972, a total of 8017 instruments had been built, with 2102 of them being EB-2Ds. Willie Moseley, in '' Vintage Guitar'', referred to the bass guitar as possibly "Gibson's biggest bass invention", although it was not a great commercial success, and the Epiphone Rivoli branded version of the model may have sold more copies than the Gibson branded one.

Description

Introduced in 1958, the EB-2 was the bass guitar equivalent of the popular

Gibson ES-335 The Gibson ES-335 is a semi-hollow body semi-acoustic guitar introduced by the Gibson Guitar Corporation as part of its Gibson ES Series, ES (Electric Spanish) series 1958 in music, in 1958. It has a solid maple wood block running through the cente ...

. 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 (with the pegs pointing backwards) were replaced by larger open gear tuners with the shaft and large flat buttons projecting from the side of the peghead at a 90-degree angle, which required pieces of wood (ears) to be glued to each side to make a wider peghead to accommodate a larger gear footptint and by 1965 cherry was a color option also. In 1966, the EB-2D was introduced, which added a

mini-humbucker The mini-humbucker is a humbucker, humbucking guitar Pick up (music technology), pickup (used in electric guitars). It was originally created by Epiphone, the Epiphone company. The mini-humbucker resembles a Gibson Guitar Corporation, Gibson P.A.F. ...

pickup in the bridge position (like the EB-3). 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 Mahogany is a straight- grained, reddish-brown timber of three tropical hardwood species of the genus ''Swietenia'', indigenous to the AmericasBridgewater, Samuel (2012). ''A Natural History of Belize: Inside the Maya Forest''. Austin: Universit ...

body with routed tonechambers and a flat

maple ''Acer'' is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the soapberry family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 nd more or less continuously updated si ...

top, which is considerably smaller than the original 335-shape (somewhere between an ES-335 and a Les Paul shape) and different electronics.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gibson EB-2 EB-2