EB-1 pickup suggestions

[benny]

Gents: been lurkin' awhile, and thought I'd wade in when I maybe had something of interest, instead of the same ol' sh*t. I'm buildin' a few repros of the old Gibson '51 EB-1 bass, and was wonderin' if anyone has ever seen, dissected, or has specs on the original brown alnico pickup (with the poles closest to the bridge).I can roll my own, or I'll buy sumthin' if ya got the goods. What would you guys use if you were doin' one of these? Please don't say dimarzios, cause I never heard any of those that didn't suck ass.I'm open to not only the traditional setup, but a modern kick ass version, now that we're all a little older and wiser. I'm thinkin' Felix- 2007. Muchas Grassy-ass.

Rock on,

benny

[madialex]

Hi, way cool name I'm thinking David Schwab will be the one to chime in on this one, he is the resident Bass guy and electronic slash engineer type as well. He can probably steer you the right direction. Jason Lollar could as well but he is scarce around here these days.

[David Schwab]

Here's what it looks like on the inside. I have no information about it's construction. However, from looking at it, it looks like half an EB-0 Sidewinder... so we see the bar magnets on the right, which are contacting a steel blade running through the coil. You can see the other end of the blade with the adjustable screw poles on the left.. that's probably a tapped keeper bar attached to the blade with the poles.

That's a funky looking bobbin! It also looks like a ton of wire on there, just like with the humbucker version. So figure on about 25K DC resistance for a good muddy roar.

I have pictures of the humbucker Sidewinder here.

[benny]

college of pickup knowledge

Bros, Thanks for the help. Not many places to go for this stuff. So whatcha think, 2 alnico II's stacked with about 10,000 turns of 42? Schwabbee, what the hell you got on that bass in your picture? Any opinions on revised pickup placement on an EB? Anybuddy really know what time it is? Anybuddy really care.? I'm tryin' not ta get all crazy with laser diodes and stuff. Not yet, anyway. I'll have to admit,sometimes I like bein' in a good box,but sometimes ya gotta think outsidda one.

Feel free to continue to rock on,

benny

[David Schwab]

Bros, Thanks for the help. Not many places to go for this stuff. So whatcha think, 2 alnico II's stacked with about 10,000 turns of 42?

Alnico II might be too soft sounding. The EB-2 pickup I have actually uses ceramic magnets. But try it all. It's easy enough to swap magnets.

Schwabbee, what the hell you got on that bass in your picture?

My profile picture? It's a bass I made. At that time it had three EMG 40 soap bars. When I used EMG's, I liked the tone of the 40J at the bridge, but I wanted a fuller tone, so I added a 40DC next to it. I still wasn't happy so I decided to make my own pickups.

Now it has just two humbuckers I made. It's actually been disassembled for some refurbishing. It's a 13 year old bass and it needs some TLC.

Here is is with its sister. I replaced the 40J with an EMG J near the bridge. I was experimenting with things. Then I removed those and started using various prototypes of my own pickups, which are now in the maple top bass. And yes, for the eagle eyes out there, the maple bass is missing the output jack and has a broken string!

Any opinions on revised pickup placement on an EB?

Well, if you want that Gibson tone, I'd either make or pickup an EB-0 Sidewinder replacement and place it at the neck. You can find some on the internet... but I have no idea if they are made like the originals, or just look like them.

The issue with the Gibson EB pickups are they basically have one tone, and that's it! This is why you saw many Gibson EB players adding or replacing the pickups. This is why DiMarzio made the Model One. But that's a different tone from the original, but might make the bass more usable.

I have a '74 Rick 4001 that I added a Sidewinder to (the one in the photos I posted). I unwound about half the wire from it to make it about 12K total, which retained the Gibson tone, and opened up the top end somewhat. At the bridge I had an old Hi-A (Bartolini) pickup, so I had everything from vintage mud on one end of the spectrum, to clean hi-fi on the other. They sounded great mixed together.

I don't know what the new Gibson and Epi pickups sound, but that might be an option.

[Steve Conner]

Those are lovely basses! I'm digging the weird body shape, must have been a good potato harvest that year...

[benny]

Mr. Dave, Thanks for takin' the time to respond.Those pics really helped out. Bro, you do beeyootiful work,and I look forward to future contemplations of our navels, or other equally important concerns in the pickup universe.I'll try to smokem' some pics when I gottem'.

Later,

benny

[David Schwab]

Those are lovely basses! I'm digging the weird body shape,

Thanks... But, Weird? They look quite normal to me!

must have been a good potato harvest that year...

I sometimes call this guitar "the potato"

[Tonerider]

Stick with Ceramic, alnico of any flavour really does not like being stacked like this. You have to put two north poles together (I know, in the same direction, not really together), and over time output will drop significantly. I built about 20 stacked buckers with double a3 magnets a couple of years ago and they sounded great for about a week, then lost a bit of their fire and turned to mud.

Not sure about the physics, but ceramic seems to be more "stackable".

If you custom ordered a nice 6-7mm fat alnico bar, that would change everything...

@Dave, what bridge is on the 5-string potato? Looks like a very nice unit!

[Joe Gwinn]

Stick with Ceramic, alnico of any flavour really does like being stacked like this. You have to put two north poles together (I know, in the same direction, not really together), and over time output will drop significantly. I built about 20 stacked buckers with double a3 magnets a couple of years ago and they sounded great for about a week, then lost a bit of their fire and turned to mud.

Not sure about the physics, but ceramic seems to be more "stackable".

Ceramic has a higher magnetic coercivity than any alnico, which means that it's harder to magnetize or demagnetize ceramic than alnico.

Said another way, ceramic magnets cannot generate a field strong enough to demagnetise themselves, while alnico can demagnetise itself.

Rare earth magnets also have a very high magnetic coercivity, and may well work even in a nose-to-nose configuration.

[David Schwab]

@Dave, what bridge is on the 5-string potato? Looks like a very nice unit!

The bass with the zebrawood top has a Schaller bridge, and the maple top bass has a Gotoh bridge. The Tele has a Gotoh bridge.

I found some info on the EB-1 pickup from George Gruhn's web site:

1960 Gibson EB-0 Bass

The pickup is a multi-magnet, double-coil humbucker with adjustable polepieces mounted in the middle. The winding on the two coils has a total of 25,000 turns, an unusually large number compared to the Gibson PAF humbucker (which has 10,000 to 12,000 turns) or to other bass pickups. This makes the pickup unit larger than usual: 1.875" wide, 2.56" long, and .925" deep. The black plastic pickup cover is 2.324" wide and 3.275" long.

The EB-0's hefty pickup evolved from the one used on the 1953 "Electric Bass." Designed by Walt Fuller, that pickup had only one coil with 25,000 turns and the polepieces were mounted on the side of the unit facing the bridge. When it was later changed to two coils, the same number of turns was retained, and the polepieces were moved to the middle of the pickup.

[black_labb]

this is relating to your sidewinder pups dave

those look like some intresting coils, are they basically the 2 coils facing the centre, with a plate of steel at the cente of the coil, transfering the magnetism from the magnets on the outside of the 2 coils to the centre where the pole pieces are? or is it one plate with holes around the poles.

how thick are the plates in the coils?
i assume the plate thickness still effects the coils inductance?, does a thinner plate educe output?
how do you do the wiring and magnet placement? i assume that the magnets must both point north (or south) towards the centre, thus making a humbucking effect impossible?

what is the certain sound you get from the coils, any examples of players with a gibson bass sound/ a sound from that type of pup?

sorry to ask so many questions but ive never seen those pups without a cover and am interested in their workings.

[David Schwab]

this is relating to your sidewinder pups dave

That's a 1972 EB-2 pickup. Not one of mine. The only thing I did to it was unwind a bunch of wire, and wire it up with a 4 conductor cable.

I replaced the pickup in the EB-2 with a NOS Sidewinder I picked up that had a slightly brighter tone. Worked better in that bass.

those look like some intresting coils, are they basically the 2 coils facing the centre, with a plate of steel at the cente of the coil, transfering the magnetism from the magnets on the outside of the 2 coils to the centre where the pole pieces are? or is it one plate with holes around the poles.

There is one steel plate that runs through both coils. In the middle there is a threaded keeper bar that is attached to the plate with a couple of screws. The threaded keeper bar holds the pole piece screws, which also pass through the plate. On the other side of each coil, the plate extends far enough past the bobbins to hold a ceramic bar magnet.

how thick are the plates in the coils?

Looks like 1/16"

i assume the plate thickness still effects the coils inductance?, does a thinner plate educe output?

Yes, a thicker plate would increase the inductance, but with so much wire on the coils it probably wouldn't have much of an effect. I don't think you would want to go much thinner... it's already pretty thin!

how do you do the wiring and magnet placement? i assume that the magnets must both point north (or south) towards the centre, thus making a humbucking effect impossible?

It is a humbucker, and the magnets do face the same way. The coils are wired series out-of-phase (i.e., finish of the first to finish of the second). Gibson Ripper pickups are a smaller version of the same design. The Ripper patent is: 3916751

This is also how Bill Lawrence's Strat size pickups work. I'm not exactly sure why it works as a humbucker, but it must have something to do with both coils sensing the same portion of the string.

Gibson Thunderbird pickups are similar, but slightly different. The magnet is in the middle with the north pole up, and the coils have steel cores, but the magnet doesn't actually pass through the coils. He explains how it works in the patent for the Thunderbird pickups (which interestingly show a guitar pickup). He says the coils are "magnetically neutral and are thus not loaded magnetically but serve merely as inductors." Very odd, but it works. The Thunderbird patent is 3902394

what is the certain sound you get from the coils, any examples of players with a gibson bass sound/ a sound from that type of pup?

Gibson wanted to get a sound strong in fundamental, with little harmonics. I had read that they wanted a pipe organ pedal sound. The 25,000 turns of wire accomplished this! Typical examples of the tone of this pickup would be Jack Bruce playing with Cream (though often he was playing with a lot of distortion), "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" by the Animals, which is an EB-2 hollow body bass, and likely with the "baritone" switch engaged, which rolls off the low end. Colin Moulding on the album Black Sea with XTC (he played an Epiphone Newport bass with Gibson Sidewinder).

The tone is dark and a little fuzzy, with a very low resonant peak somewhere in the midrange. People like to call them "Mudbuckers"

When not wound with so much wire, they have a clearer tone, as can be heard on Ripper basses. Two examples of Rippers I can think of off hand are the first album by Devo, and Brain Salad Surgery by ELP, though Greg Lake had all the mids notched out.

Because they are sampling the string at a single point, they sound like single coil pickups, as heard in the Lawrence "small humbucker" Strat pickups.

I wonder if he thought this up first, or just tried out some different ideas, and then figured out how it worked later.

[black_labb]

thanks alot for that, i dont know if id like the sound but its nice to see and (somewhat) understand coil ideas. might one day do something like that, but not in a hurry.