Epiphone SG Bass E1 Electric Guitar, Cherry Red

Update An Easy Fix and reccomendations to Greatly improve the sound:
A Bass problem Solved.
Many basses Particularly the Epiphone Eb-0 and Gibson EB basses.. But other basses also can have this problem especially short scaled ones. The problem is when the cotton or metal windings are resting over the bridge saddle. I have searched extensively over the internet and found no easy solution that would not require machine tooling and hard to find parts. What you need is a spacer that will go down the strings…and will stop at the Ball / Ring end. I came up with a very easy fix that anyone can do.. All you need are Steel 8-32 Nut’s. The Type a screw goes into. The Size is based in USA.. So foreign sized may be different.. If so just bring you “E” string to you hardware store and try out different sizes until you land one that fits as I initially did. I found I only needed one or 2 nut’s and that moved back the windings so only the string part rested on the Saddle. The mount of nut’s needed may vary depending on the type of strings so just in case buy 5 nut per string and your covered. They cost less than 10 cents each. As a result intonation was perfect and the action and tonal qualities sounded correct and made a huge difference in the overall sound as a big Improvement.
If using an Epiphone EB0 bass I spoke with Epiphone to find out the Gauge strings the Bass was designed and setup for: They told me to use: E: .105 A: .080 D: .065 G: .045 .
If buying a new Epiphone please trust me one this.. Change the strings!!! I could not find and exact match but the closest I found in gauge were all the same except for the A string being .085 in a set of Ernie Ball Hybrid slinky roundwounds – which worked perfectly.. The intonation did not go off on the A string.
Hope this Helps as an easy fix that will make your bass sound vastly improved. Remember the cotton or cloth or metal winding should never rest or touch the saddle.. And should always be well behind it. This fix is cheap and an easy fix!!
Hope this helps!
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This is my older review before I used the nut Spacer and changed strings:
The sound and performance is greatly improved now. Still some Buzzing but much better overall than before….

I have been playing bass for more than 30 years and used to own an Original Gibson EB0 made in the 60’s which this bass copies. Gibson still also sells and makes a replica of this bass but you can expect to pay well over $1,000.00. Firstly the sidewinder pickup is not designed nor sounds nearly as good as the original.
The Bass Buzzes like crazy – I have no intension of filing down frets in an attempt to maybe change that. The Epihone Basses as this model are notorious for the felt or string windings resting on the saddle where they should never be but the felt completely goes over the saddle of the bridge on the E string.. this is a known flaw… and you will need spacers to correct that. The felt or string winding should always be behind the saddle. The sound barley provides a distinguishable sounding note unless you amp or use effects that treble up the sound.. and even then it sounds lousy.. Noisy electronics’ that are not properly shielded with poor electronics. I own another short scale Bass a Korean made Dan Electro that has nice low action with no buzzing and clear tones, and the ability to get a nice boomy sound or a very trebly at your choosing. You can distinguish on a boomy muddy setting on the Dan E. the note of the fret.. the EB0 you could be one fret high or low and the tone is hardly noticeable.. great if you make mistakes as no-one will be able to hear them! The wood and finish feels like a quality bass.. but the rest of the bass is junk. If you want that Animals classic bass sound and tone.. I would suggest looking into Eastwood’s classic 4 semi hollow body, or the new Magnum bass which has a massive pickup right at the neck just like the EB basses, but more powerful and great sounding. The Eastwood Magnum bass just came out it is costly at $750. but will give you those low deep tone sounds. The Classic 4 sounds quite good in that regard too and gives a nice classic bass sound without sacrificing quality.. and cost $450. You can always get a fender Jazz but they have less boom and are not short scaled. The Classic 4 Eastwood is short scale tho the Magnum (copy of 70’s Ovation Magnum Bass) is full scale. There are videos demo’ing these on youtube… I suggest spend a little more and get better quality. If you cant afford much more then I would suggest get a Fender Squire version of the Jazz Bass.. and use an amp or Bass effect device to get the tones you like.

Wir haben diesen Bass für unseren Sohn gekauft und für ihn als Anfänger wollten wir nicht sofort in einen Fender Precision oder teureres investieren.
Also haben wir uns für dieses Modell entschieden, da Epiphone als Gibson Tochter für eine gewisse Qualität stehen sollte und wir wurden nicht enttäuscht.
Der Bass ist ein Short Scale Bass, also auch für etwas kürzere Finger und Arme gedacht, ideal für unseren Sohn.
Da ich selbst Bass und Gitarre spiele, habe ich mir den Bass nach der wie üblich schnellen Lieferung mal unter die Lupe genommen. Ich muss sagen, dass ich sehr positiv überrascht bin.
– Die Verarbeitung ist für den aufgerufenen Preis ausgezeichnet. Die Lackierung ist einwandfrei, keine Kanten und Grate, Humbucker, Elektronik und Schlagbrett sind sehr ordentlich, nichts scheppert, keine losen Teile, so muss es sein.
– Saitenaufhängung hinten ist sehr gute, massive Qualität, jede Saite einzeln justierbar und hält bombenfest, da wackelt oder schnarrt nichts.
– Das Palisandergriffbrett ist einwandfrei bespielbar, die Einfassung der Bundstäbchen ist perfekt.
– Der Hals (justierbar) ist sehr gerade, Saitenabstand über dem 12. Bund keine 5 mm, trotzdem schnarzt keine Saite, egal auf welchem Bund, sehr gut.
– Die Mechaniken sind gekapselt, knacken nicht und sind recht leicht zu bewegen (Ich habe die Kapseln leicht gefettet)

Nun zum Klang: Ich habe den Bass an meinen AMPEG SVT CL (Röhrenverstärker) mit einer AMPEG SVT-410HE Box angeschlossen. Der Bass klingt schön warm und weich beim Fingerpicking, satt, voll und rund. Beim Spielen mit Plektrum klingt der Bass schön scharf und klar, auch beim Slapping und Popping hört es sich schön knackig an, wobei der Humbucker das letzte Quentchen Brillanz vermissen lässt, da muss man aber auch ganz klar den Preis sehen. Alles in Allem toller Klang, sehr vielseitig und nuancenreich, das hätte ich dem “billigen Brett” erstmal gar nicht zugetraut. Regelbereich der Elektronik ist gut, Änderungen am TONE-Regler haben tatsächlich Änderungen im Klang zur Folge, nicht nur einfach dumpf.
Zusammengefasst: Ein toller Einsteiger-Bass zu einem Superpreis. Hier kann man nichts falsch machen. Sehr empfehlenswertes Produkt und ein Beweis dafür, dass “preiswert” nicht gleich “billiger Schrott” sein muss. Hut ab an Epiphone !

弾きやすい

One of my girlfriend’s cousins and I purchased this bass for my girlfriend who wants to start learning how to play. She’s a huge music fan, her favorite guitar style is the SG shape, and her favorite colors are black and red, so she broke down crying out of joy for a good 10 minutes when we gave it to her on Christmas morning. One of her other cousins plays both bass and regular guitar, and both him and his guitar teacher tried out the bass and said it feels and sounds extremely good, especially given the price. During the relatively short time I’ve spent with it I would have to agree, and there have been absolutely zero problems with it since we received it.

One additional thing worth noting about this bass is that it looks way better in person compared to the pictures on Amazon. The wood grain shows through the red finish when you look at it up close or from a short distance which gives it a really nice, classy appearance that doesn’t come across in the relatively low-res on the product page.

This is an excellent low-cost bass. It’s not an SG, but it’s perfectly playable. The strings were set far too low when it arrived, and everything buzzed. After a little setup work, it played fine, and intonation was remarkably good for an inexpensive instrument. I bought some Fender short scale strings, which had a brighter sound than the strings that came on the bass. It doesn’t have a wide range of tones, but you can use downstream modelers to get any sound that you want. It puts out a strong, clean signal, and the short scale is good for us guitar players who play bass only occasionally and find a full scale bass awkward. I plugged it directly into my Focusrite audio interface–worked perfectly.

Made in Indonesia, Cherry Red, Epiphone EB-0.
It’s a lovely instrument, very solid, easy to play, but has its limitations.
Single humbucking pickup doesn’t give much tonal variation, but that’s not a defect, it’s the design, what it does, it does well.
Needs setting up. There was fret buzz on every string. The neck was flat as a plank. Surprisingly, no allen keys or screwdrivers came with this bass, despite having an instruction sheet explaining how to adjust the truss rod.
The Gibson style 3 point bridge looks impressive, but is a devil to set up. The wound part of the strings sit on the saddles which makes it almost impossible to set the intonation. (Why Gibson/Epiphone have stuck with this design is a mystery to me.) It may be possible to add a metal bar to the string retainer to add a few mm to the string length. Unless you have a big fat screwdriver, it’s easy to damage the 3 chrome screws.
Got in touch with Absolute Music, they immediately sent me the allen key for truss rod adjustment, 2 t-shirts and a cap! Very good customer service!