Thunderbird Club

[BklynKen]

Just imagine something suddenly dropping the temp of your undies to freezing.

Sounds kinda exciting.

 

[MCF]

Even i'm down to one bird since july. Gave the one i had built, named Tigerbird, to a friend of mine who 1-wanted a thunderbird bass, 2-wanted to get into bass playing. After the mods i had done, & hardware upgrade, it felt & played better than before. I'm glad he owns it, its getting much better use than it ever did. & i still own my heavily modified epiphone goth bird. Debating if i add a volume & tone control (perhaps in form of tone select switch vs a pot). Tbd.

If i built myself another bird, itd be all white with chrome pickups wired in series like the 70s.

If Gibson makes the ‘21 NR pickups available for separate purchase next year, and it may well happen, those would be a likely pick for a white Tbird.

 

[Miles_ONeal]

Sounds kinda exciting.

Exciting covers a lot of ground.

 

[PhR75]

Question, and I hope not to offend anyone are the bassist and guitarist hyper-active or high on drugs? Looks like they have fire ants up their pants/trousers...

Well, I think both Grant and Bob had some kind of drug proglems at that time which eventually broke up the band but I don't think they (or Greg the bassist) were any kind of speedfreaks. I think it just came naturally.

 

[PhR75]

@BklynKen , have you (or anyone) tried the MXR M77 pedal? "Custom Badass Modified Overdrive" as its name is in its whole glory (rather stupid name). It seems to have a good rep and is basically a Tube Screamer style pedal but with some added bonus like a 100hz cut/boost and a low/mid boost.
MXR® CUSTOM BADASS™ MODIFIED O.D.

 

[PaleAngel_90]

Sounds kinda exciting.

Kinky, lol.

 

[PhR75]

I made some comparison clips of these two basses:

T-bird had the neck pickup on only. The settings were the same for both. Can you tell which bass is the first and which is the 2nd on both clips? I'd guess the clean sounding is pretty obvious, at least on this group.

 

[PaleAngel_90]

I made some comparison clips of these two basses:
View attachment 4915131

T-bird had the neck pickup on only. The settings were the same for both. Can you tell which bass is the first and which is the 2nd on both clips? I'd guess the clean sounding is pretty obvious, at least on this group.

1st P-bass 2nd T-bird, I think.

 

[Nocturnal]

This is exactly the place to post this. I found this photo of the wiring of a Gibson Blackbird. Hope that helps. @Nocturnal has one, but his was previously rewired to standard VVT.

Yes, mine has been modified to V-V-Killswitch. I don't think a pic of the electronics on mine would help. But if you need it, I can post it after work today.

 

[ThaCoast]

Hi all, posting this in here, hope it's ok, but I want to wire one of my basses like the original Nikki Sixx Blackbird - two pickups, one on/off switch, no volumes, tone, etc...

Does anyone who has one of these know how the wiring works? Do I connect both pickups to the switch and then the switch to the jack? Any insight would be greatly appreciated, thank you

Ive done this mod to my epi goth bird. Ill post a link on wiring.

Where it says output from controls, simply wire the pickup leads to the switch. You can use an spst or half of a dpdt on/off switch.

Best of luck!

Pics of the bass you gave away?

Ill see if i can find a picture & post it soon.

Edit:
How the bass finished the first build round

^^^chrome hardware, thick neck, uneven frets, rattling truss rod.

How it ended before gifting it away

 

[BklynKen]

@BklynKen , have you (or anyone) tried the MXR M77 pedal? "Custom Badass Modified Overdrive" as its name is in its whole glory (rather stupid name). It seems to have a good rep and is basically a Tube Screamer style pedal but with some added bonus like a 100hz cut/boost and a low/mid boost.
MXR® CUSTOM BADASS™ MODIFIED O.D.

Sorry, no. I'm usually skeptical of any of these sorts of pedals playing nice with bass.

 

[PhR75]

Sorry, no. I'm usually skeptical of any of these sorts of pedals playing nice with bass.

You mean "guitar" pedals?

 

[BklynKen]

You mean "guitar" pedals?

Basically, yeah. Especially distortion ones.

 

[PhR75]

Basically, yeah. Especially distortion ones.

I used to be but Bad Monkey was a pleasant surprise and CM-2 even more. Jacques Tube Blower had even more low end but the overall tone was a bit too harsh to my liking.
I'm getting the Spark Booster on loan from a friend next Saturday, will be wiser about it then.

The blend feature is useful but I've noticed that to me it's a constant twiddling to find the right balance. I used to have a DAM Ezekiel clone and while it sounded good I was never satisfied with the balance.

Anyway, thanks again to you to all the help and suggestions this far!

 

[BklynKen]

I used to be but Bad Monkey was a pleasant surprise and CM-2 even more. Jacques Tube Blower had even more low end but the overall tone was a bit too harsh to my liking.
I'm getting the Spark Booster on loan from a friend next Saturday, will be wiser about it then.

The blend feature is useful but I've noticed that to me it's a constant twiddling to find the right balance. I used to have a DAM Ezekiel clone and while it sounded good I was never satisfied with the balance.

Anyway, thanks again to you to all the help and suggestions this far!

Cool! What's your ultimate goal here?

 

[dagrev]

The phrase “this bass has one sound” (a.k.a., “a one trick pony”) has always frosted my shorts. Fingers vs pick and where you strike the strings[1] - from the bridge up at least to the 12th fret - gives most any bass a wide variety of sounds. Never mind playing with whatever controls are available.

I’ve known this since I started experimenting with a cheap acoustic guitar when I was 13. I can’t recall anywhere I enjoyed playing all over the strings than my Greco, but it’s been true of every guitar or bass I’ve played.

1. String brand, type, and gauge make a big difference, too.

There you go using logic again.

I confess, I don't think I ever noticed a difference in string gauge, but like most things, such an aspect likely has to make some impact. Don't think I ver A/B sets either, so it may be more there than I realize with some strings.

 

[dagrev]

Sounds kinda exciting.

Some things we don't need to know, Ken....

 

[dagrev]

I made some comparison clips of these two basses:
View attachment 4915131

T-bird had the neck pickup on only. The settings were the same for both. Can you tell which bass is the first and which is the 2nd on both clips? I'd guess the clean sounding is pretty obvious, at least on this group.

Softly with not so great speakers, I'm guessing the first was the Pbass, second Thunderbird. Had a set of DiMarizo's in a Pbass in the 80s and they were great pickups.

 

[PhR75]

On both clips?

 

[JJR58]

We HAVE to make this a yearly event!

I'm trying to scheme here on my end to make it happen.