What the press writes about The Gibson Bass Book
Bass Guitar Magazine
“The Gibson Bass Book: An Illustrated Tribute is now on sale. Written by Rob van den Broek, a Dutch bass player, the English-language book contains over 400 pictures of 80 different Gibson bass guitars, prototypes, one-offs and custom-shop instruments. “There were books about Fender, Rickenbacker and Guild bass guitars, but no book about Gibson bass guitars” van den Broek tells BGM. “This book gives you a good idea of the diversity of bass guitars that Gibson has been building since that first EB in 1953.” With 180 full color pages and a softcover, the book can be ordered, priced € 30, from www.thegibsonbassbook.com”
Bass Guitar Magazine – January 2017
Vintage Guitars
“For Gibson bass fans – you know who you are – this is the first and perhaps only book to go deep into the bottom end. Oversized with scads of big, beautiful color images, the book’s done right.”
MD – Vintage Guitars August 2017
MusicMaker
Rob van den Broek is grafisch vormgever en was jarenlang testmedewerker van ons collegablad De Bassist. De afgelopen twee jaar nam hij echter een pauze om The Gibson Bass Book – An illustrated tribute te voltooien.
Het resultaat is een prachtig, 180 pagina’s dik Engelstalig koffietafelboek met vierhonderd foto’s van tachtig verschillende Gibson basgitaren. Er is ook aandacht voor de unieke bassen en heruitgaven die onder de naam van Gibson’s submerk Epiphone verschenen. Alle modellen zijn mooi gefotografeerd en voorzien van een korte beschrijving. The Gibson Bass Book is hiermee het internationale standaardwerk over Gibson bassen. Half december werd het eerste exemplaar uitgereikt aan Golden Earring-bassist Rinus Gerritsen (hij speelde het album “Moontan” en Radar Love, in op een Gibson EB-3) tijdens een besloten evenement in de Gibson showroom in Amsterdam. Het boek kan via de website besteld worden.
Music Maker, januari 2017
No Treble
Rob van den Broek Dives Deep in “The Gibson Bass Book”
Rob van den Broek is a bassist and a luthier. He’s also a huge fan of Gibson’s basses, which led him to publish The Gibson Bass Book. The 180-page book documents over 80 Gibson basses and 70 Epiphone basses with more than 400 pictures.
The story begins in the late 1930’s with the company’s first upright electric bass before jumping to 1953. That’s when Gibson began to mass produce electric basses starting with the EB model. Van den Broek covers the Thunderbird, EB-3, Ripper, Grabber, Les Paul bass, reissues and even the rare 20/20 bass.
No Treble – September 2017
bassmagazine
Rob van den Broek is a Dutch bass player who got bitten by the Gibson bug when he bought a 1969 Gibson Les Paul Bass way back in 2000. Through several discussion boards on the Internet he became friends with a German collector who owns just about every model that Gibson ever built. Van den Broek decided to make a book about Gibson bass guitars. Being a professional graphic designer he took hundreds of pictures of the entire collection, plus he added some of his own Gibson bass guitars and several other. The result is a book that will amaze even the hardcore Gibson fan. The book features over 80 different Gibson bass models, prototypes, one-offs, custom shop creations and ugly ducklings that rarely made it onto stages or shops. A one of a kind book with more than 400 unique photographs, specifications, history, anecdotes, trivia and… of course Epiphones are included too.
bassmagazine.com
bonedo
Die Bässe der Firma Gibson standen seit jeher etwas im Schatten des ewigen Konkurrenten Fender. Dabei hat die Gibson-History durchaus einige Klassiker hervorgebracht – man denke nur an den legendären Thunderbird, den EB-2, den EB-3, den Grabber usw. Über diese Szene-Schwergewichte hinaus tummeln sich aber auch etliche deutlich weniger renommierte Bassmodelle im Portefolio von Gibson. Über all diese Modelle – erfolgreiche wie auch kam bekannte “Rohrkrepierer” – hat der Niederländer Rob van den Broek vor einiger Zeit ein ganz wunderbares Buch herausgebracht: “The Gibson Bass Book – An illustrated tribute” ist ein faszinierendes Werk zum Stöbern, Staunen – oder einfach nur zum Zeitvertreib! …
…Ich muss gestehen, ich bin wirklich hellauf begeistert von diesem englischsprachigen Werk! Ob als Bettlektüre, als Zeitvertreib auf Reisen (z.B. auf Tour!) oder auch nur als Schmökerstück während einiger zu überbrückender Minuten – dieses Buch wird sicher nicht nur Gibson-, sondern interessierte Bass-Fans jeglicher Couleur fesseln.
Das Buch kann zu einem mehr als sensationell günstigen Preis von gerade mal 30,- Euro über folgende Webseite bezogen werden: www.thegibsonbassbook.com
Bonedo.de – January 2018
Gitarre & Bass
The Gibson Bass Book kommt als schlicht & schön designtes Paperback im Grossformat, und liefert auf knapp 180 Seiten alles Wissenwerte zum Thema. Autor Rob van den Broek, der übrigens die grafische Gestaltung selbst übernommen hat, geht das Thema erst mal sympathisch subjektiv an – AN ILLUSTRATED TRIBUTE heisst der Untertitel, Und Gibson-Bass-Fan Rob widmet sich in der Materie wirklich mit Emotion…
Gitarre & Bass – December 2016
Skype interview
with Bass Musician Magazine
In March 2017 I did an interview via Skype with Raul Amador of Bass Musician Magazine, to talk about The Gibson Bass Book.
That was a new experience for me, as I’ve never Skyped before and I’m certainly not used to doing interviews (in English).
But Raul did a great job editing the video with some images of Gibson bass guitars that are mentioned during the converstation.
I probably should have said some things differently, or maybe I shouldn’t have said them at all 
But all in all I’m excited about the skype-video being online!
Thank you Raul Amador!
Curious about the book? Buy it here
