EB-12 Bass? Which one?

[Beate]

Hi,

 

just curious:

 

we are all well aware of the EB-13 and EB-14 basses - the new EB beasts. The EB-11 is also pretty wellknown (Les Paul Junior DC). But which one corresponds to "EB-12" ?

[capmaster]

All I can say is that you should be prepared to replace the new DeCola bass humbuckers. They foul up tone through severe string pull.

 

I own two EB 13 four-string basses. Sadly the stock pickups are as poor as the bass as such is fantastic on principal. The E4th was of use up to the 7th fret, and the A3rd up to the 10th fret only. On higher frets the beats were unacceptable. At the 12th fret, the sound of the E4th was mainly bad noise. A real bummer as the coils of these pickups would offer a nice tone on principal, but the strong rod magnets foul up performance for the worst.

 

I went with replacing the stock pickups with EMG TB-HZ Thunderbird pickups which are a direct drop-in. Unfortunately, they seem to be unavailable at the moment, perhaps they don't make them anymore. Sadly there never was a replacement pickup for the EB 13/14 five-string bass, so it is of no interest for me.

 

The EB 13's pickguard is likely to break and/or come off the body when pulling the plug out of the jack. I had three additional screws added when having the destroyed one on my first EB 13 replaced, and had this done from the start on my second EB 13. The EB 14 comes with the jack at the rib.

 

The DeCola bass humbuckers are the only Gibson pickups I found up to now which are definitely unusable. I will never understand how they call their "Master Luthier" Jim DeCola a "pickup guru." Unfathomable. Bill Lawrence (died 2013) and Seymour Duncan deserve this denomination in my opinion.