With the great start of the show we got yesterday, we where really excited to see what today would bring! Well – we got something to bring to all of you at least, the brand new EBS HD360 Bass Head!
It’s easy to forget where you came from, and what brought you to where you are today. There’s clearly an increasing demand for low-cost products these days, and it may be tempting to trade what you believe in for more profit and lower the standards. We have a great and common responsibility to maintain the demand for and availability of quality bass gear.
EBS started almost 25 years ago by making one of the best rack mounted bass preamps ever made, and that’s what gave us the ticket to be part of this game! It has become a cornerstone in our philosophy to never compromise on the tone (even with our less expensive gear). We exist because of this and we believe it is important to continue to offer state-of-the-art bass gear, even when we now offer less expensive gear too. We are proud of making one of the most capable bass amps ever made – the EBS Fafner II, and we are equally proud of the improvements made on the TD660 amp, taking it to a new level compared to it’s predecessor. And now, we come ‘full circle’ with the updated version of our most sold bass amp to this day, the HD350, introducing the brand new EBS HD 360 solid state high definition bass head!
The HD350 is a fantastic bass amp already, that became a favorite among such stars as Marcus Miller, Tal Wilkenfeld and Alex Al, so we definitely did not want to change too much with the new HD 360. Still there’s always improvements that can be made, and we managed to develop the amp making it even better than it was before! The HD 360 has an outstanding preamp that handles low frequensies better than the HD 350 and also offers even higher dynamics – two really important keys to a great sound! Add to that, the ability to use the RM-4 footswitch to control the Character filter, Drive, Filter Bypass and Mute, and a mix-in filter for the effects loop that makes possible to blend the effects witht the original tone and you got the essence of the new EBS 360, High Definition Solid State amp! All kept within budget to offer the new amp at the same price as the HD 350. This is an amp for the serious bass player that never want to compromise on the tone! More info will be available soon, and the HD360 will start shipping within weeks from now. Price around 1245 Euro (same as previously).
The HD 360 is part of EBS PREMIUM equipment. That is high performance professional, roadworthy bass gear all made in Sweden with the highest demands on sound, quality and reliability – in other words, gears for the professional musician! Here’s a quick sum-up on EBS Premium gear. Lets start with the amps!
A step up from the already mentioned HD360 would be the EBS TD660. That has a similar preamp to the HD 360, but with an extended drive function featuring a tube that adds a nice tube compression to the overall tone. Instead of the 360 W RMS offered by the 360, the TD 660 is a powerhouse with 660 W RMS under the hood. The TD 660 does offer great sound with very little effort and is the perfect touring amp, and also the most common EBS model on the backline rentals all over the world.
The real flagship is the EBS Fafner II, which is a monster packed with extra features for the most demanding musician. It offers a 2-channel preamp where you can run a clear and a drive channel in parallell, or serial, tap two line signals straight from the head at the same time, offering both post- and pre-EQ sound to the front of house. It also got separate effect loops for each channel and one common. The possibility to disconnect the tube offers more variation of sound as well as a safety function if the tube breaks on a gig. You can run both the TD660 and Fafner II with the RM-4 footswitch.
There are also the EBS NeoGorm combos in three different models, the 2×10″, 2×12″ and the 1×15″. All comes with a tweeter. These combos use an almost identical amp as the HD360 built in to a combo. It also has the option to connect another bass cabinet to extend the rig.
The cabinets made in Sweden are the ProLine and NeoLine cabinets. Both made of multilayered high quality spruce plywood, with a birch baffle, offering a great combination of sound and light weight. The NeoLine also uses Neodymium speakers which makes them even lighter and a lot more efficient (louder) than the ProLine cabinets. These cabinets are covered with a resistant felt that protect the cabinets on the road. EBS also offers rack cases to match these speakers in 3 and 4U height. This year we where honored with a MIPA award nomination for the EBS NeoLine 410 cabinet as “Best Bass Cabinet”. The winners where announced today and It did not win, but it still ended up on top three which is not bad either! We will come back to win this award that has been called the MI:s Grammy Awards next year!
So what else happened today? Well, we got visited by some really great artists and friends including EBS Pedal Artist Billy Sheehan as well as cats like John McLaughlin, Gary Grainger, Jay-Tee Teterissa and of course Etienne Mbappé with his son Swaeli. We also got a lot of business done before we ended the day with the yearly EBS Mingle at the booth around the time the Messe closed down for today.
Come back tomorrow for more!
/The EBS Team
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