Thunderbird Club

[TBird1958]

don’t remember trains this long since growing up in FL…

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Anymore yes, than can be really long and the equipment has gotten very large in the last 20 years. 12,000hp in the first shot, 24,000hp in the middle pic, just stay some distance back!

 

[Engle]

I have a Canada Day Carshow gig tomorrow and (stupidly)volunteered to pick up the rental PA gear. I forgot these subs are 120lbs!
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They sure sound good with the matching mains though.

 

[Chucky Stiletti]

My house in Colorado was at nearly a 9000 foot elevation (1.7 miles high IIRC) about 25 miles up in the mountains from Boulder. It was a day hike round trip to the timberline where the oxygen was so thin trees couldn’t grow. The school I attended was a K-12 and total school enrollment including all the faculty was 250 people, my graduating class would have been about 15 kids. Grades 9 through 12 total could just barely field a single football team with no backup quarterback and only a couple of B string players. Lived there about 5 years.

We moved from there to San Jose while I was in high school. Talk about culture shock! Our school there had a graduating class about twice the size of the entire K thru 12 school I attended in Colorado.

explaining to someone who has never been out of FL that it’s possible to look at snow capped mountains while diving through the desert always warrants a “deer in the headlights” look….

 

[Chucky Stiletti]

Hey all,

I thought it appropriate to let the rest of the club know what is happening re the Best Coast GTG set for August 4th through the 6th in Hollister/Santa Cruz California. It has been a few weeks since we mentioned it in the open Club thread.

It is shaping up to be well attended. Our Queen and Frank will be in from Seattle. Jeff is coming in from New York. Miles is coming from Round Rocks, TX. Andy is coming from Chandler, AZ. Irv is coming from Vancouver.

NoCal locals Dave, Geo, Ringhammer and hopefully Kara will be there for some or all of the festivities. Not sure if @D.M.N. will be be able to make it from SoCal. But George is driving up.

So if anyone else can come, let us know and we’ll fill you in on the details.

Edit: And of course Chucky will be there as we’ll be spending some of the time at his home.


Ha! I selected the blurry one from the library. Oops. TGIF.

 

[Chucky Stiletti]

Anymore yes, than can be really long and the equipment has gotten very large in the last 20 years. 12,000hp in the first shot, 24,000hp in the middle pic, just stay some distance back!

some had engines in the front, back and middle….. never seen middle…

 

[icefly]

Raw tone, no pedals, no effects.

 

[GBassNorth]

@icefly
I lived in the middle of nowhere on a mountain about 5 miles from Ward, Colorado from 1969 to 1974.

During that time I went to a K thru 12 school in Nederland, Colorado (a few miles from the famous Caribou Ranch recording studios). That was the 5th grade through 9th grade for me. The school bus stop was about 2 miles from my house and the bus ride to the nearest school, which was located at about a 9,000 ft elevation in Nederland, was about 20 miles each way.

When I was in the 8th grade they built a separate Jr/Sr high school, so we no longer had the K to 6th graders to contend with. A couple of months before I graduated the 9th grade my dad was transferred to San Jose, CA (he worked for IBM, which stands for “I’ve Been Moved”). So I finished the 9th grade and the rest of high school in San Jose.

Just did a quick check to see what enrollment at Nederland looks like these days, it’s about doubled since 1970 and is now at about a whopping 500 students total k-12.


When I transferred into Oak Grove High School in San Jose it was so over crowded (about 4000 students IIRC) they had to run on split sessions (9th & 10th grades were morning session and 11th & 12th grades were afternoon session). The following year half the students were moved to a new school (Santa Theresa High) so we dropped down to about a 2000 person school, still ten times the size school I was previously accustomed to.

 

[TBird1958]

some had engines in the front, back and middle….. never seen middle…

It really helps with train control which is all at the front, the railroad term is "distributed power units" or DPU's. With engines bunching the slack as the train moves thru sags and over hills they' re much less likely to "pull a knuckle" ( destroy a coupler). Thing is, there's only two guys on the whole train and there's been a push to reduce that to just a one man crew or automated, nothing but trouble if anything goes wrong.

 

[Miles_ONeal]

Did you get a second opinion?

Multiple opinions on all parts. Often from voices no one but me heard.

 

[Miles_ONeal]

don’t remember trains this long since growing up in FL…

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It's not worth sending an engine across the desert without a lot of cars.

 

[Miles_ONeal]

I can't do any form of hallucinogens since that very last time.
Although i will say 2 of the 3 times were actually quite enjoyable.

I never had a bad trip or I'd have stopped. I had a couple of friends who froke out, one terribly (he'd dropped tabs every 4 hours for a few days).

 

[PhR75]

A new song under work?

Yeah, or several ideas and hopefully some new ideas will pop up too.
I tracked some drums today at the rehearsal space. Very simple stuff with a crappy sound on purpose. Rundgren-early 70's style so the drums are very compressed and almost distorted. I doubletracked the part. It's not easy to play that slow but at least it's easy for me to play with me!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CuIPfriI4Y2/?igshid=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng==

 

[MCF]

It was my favorite back in the day. I way overdid it and fried my mind. I consider it a true miracle I got my mind back.

I was and still am a Hippy dippy with short hair and a suit. But drugs just weren’t my thing. Beer, whiskey, wine.

 

[MCF]

The rest of the family goes away for a few days and you have the house to yourself. What you do? Start drinking and watching TV? Or take the advantage of the living room?
View attachment 5110439

That setup doesn't mean you can't drink...

Screw TV. Crank Thunderbirds!

 

[PhR75]

Screw TV. Crank Thunderbirds!

Speaking of which...

The non-reverse got the VP pickups and it's almost like a new bass. Sounds a bit darker and chunkier than the VP (it has a bit older strings too). A comparison clips attached, pickup location picks here:

 

[Miles_ONeal]

Screw TV. Crank Thunderbirds!

Thunderbirds are our crank.

 

[Engle]

explaining to someone who has never been out of FL that it’s possible to look at snow capped mountains while diving through the desert always warrants a “deer in the headlights” look….

In Vancouver you can ski and golf on the same day for several months of the year. I don't do either

 

[dagrev]

I have a Canada Day Carshow gig tomorrow and (stupidly)volunteered to pick up the rental PA gear. I forgot these subs are 120lbs!
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They sure sound good with the matching mains though.

I'll likely forget by tomorrow so, Fête du Canada to all our Northern brethren!

 

[dagrev]

Multiple opinions on all parts. Often from voices no one but me heard.

As long as there was a consensus. It's always right.

 

[dagrev]

Speaking of which...
View attachment 5110609
The non-reverse got the VP pickups and it's almost like a new bass. Sounds a bit darker and chunkier than the VP (it has a bit older strings too). A comparison clips attached, pickup location picks here:
View attachment 5110616 View attachment 5110615

I think the brighter VP pickups can benefit from being closer to the neck and still retain nice clarity and punch, but gain some depth without getting hallow or boomy as some can.