The neck of a bass should have a slight , VERY slight bend on it. Flat wound or tape wound strings can get very dull, very quickly, which is one of the reasons they fell out of favour in the mid 60's.

If I remember correctly, the Gibson EB 2 is the same as the Epiphone Rivoli, which I had from about '67 to '70. You will get a very smooth sound from that with flat wound strings, but very bass-y.

Adjust string height at the bridge end until you have a good compromise between string height and fret buzz - trial and error.