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Thunderbird Club

You can probably relate to this. SoCal was Rick Nelson’s turf. We grew up watching him on Ozzie and Harriet reruns after school. Rick was a pioneer of the L.A. country rock sound. Randy was his bassist and sung harmony with the voice of an angel.

Here’s the short version: Life with the Eagles was tough for Randy. He drank too much. As time went on, he had trouble hitting the high notes. The final straw was when he couldn’t sing his signature song, Take It To The Limit, one night for the encore. Henley and Frey had enough and sacked him.
Slightly different twist (from Wiki)…

According to band colleague Don Felder, Meisner's time in the band was weighed down by his desire to be with his family, as well as the constant bickering between the members, which was still unknown to the public at the time. During the 1976/77 tour in support of the album Hotel California, Meisner was plagued by ill health and exhaustion, as the band toured frequently for over eleven months. Meisner also preferred not to be the center of attention, and said: "I was always kind of shy ... They wanted me to stand in the middle of the stage to sing 'Take It to the Limit,' but I liked to be out of the spotlight."[26] The band was starting to feel the strain in a long tour, and Meisner was unhappy – his stomach ulcers had flared up, and his marriage was also gradually disintegrating.[27] He had been arguing with fellow member Glenn Frey about his signature song, "Take It to the Limit", during the tour, as Meisner was struggling to hit the crucial high notes in the song.[28] At their show in Knoxville, Tennessee, Meisner decided to skip the song as an encore as he had stayed up late and caught the flu, and Frey and Meisner then became involved in an angry physical confrontation backstage.[28] After the altercation, Meisner was frozen out from the band,[27] and Meisner later said: "That was the end. . . I really felt like I was a member of the group, not a part of it."[26] Meisner decided to leave the group after the final date of the tour and returned to Nebraska to be with his family. His last performance was in East Troy, Wisconsin on September 3, 1977.[29] The band replaced Meisner with the same musician who had succeeded him in Poco, Timothy B. Schmit, after agreeing that Schmit was the only candidate.[30]

Meisner formally quit the band in September 1977,[10] citing "exhaustion".[31] On the subject of his abrupt resignation from the band, Meisner later said, "All that stuff and all the arguing amongst the Eagles is over now. Well at least for me."[32]
 
I thought this interesting as well…

Years ago, when asked “Who was the most talented vocalist in the Eagles band” Don Feldner replied…

“Don Henley could sing the New York phone book" but I am telling you, the reader, that song for song, Randy Meisner has, indisputably the most naturally gifted and soulfully beautiful voice of the entire EAGLES membership.
 
Slightly different twist (from Wiki)…

According to band colleague Don Felder, Meisner's time in the band was weighed down by his desire to be with his family, as well as the constant bickering between the members, which was still unknown to the public at the time. During the 1976/77 tour in support of the album Hotel California, Meisner was plagued by ill health and exhaustion, as the band toured frequently for over eleven months. Meisner also preferred not to be the center of attention, and said: "I was always kind of shy ... They wanted me to stand in the middle of the stage to sing 'Take It to the Limit,' but I liked to be out of the spotlight."[26] The band was starting to feel the strain in a long tour, and Meisner was unhappy – his stomach ulcers had flared up, and his marriage was also gradually disintegrating.[27] He had been arguing with fellow member Glenn Frey about his signature song, "Take It to the Limit", during the tour, as Meisner was struggling to hit the crucial high notes in the song.[28] At their show in Knoxville, Tennessee, Meisner decided to skip the song as an encore as he had stayed up late and caught the flu, and Frey and Meisner then became involved in an angry physical confrontation backstage.[28] After the altercation, Meisner was frozen out from the band,[27] and Meisner later said: "That was the end. . . I really felt like I was a member of the group, not a part of it."[26] Meisner decided to leave the group after the final date of the tour and returned to Nebraska to be with his family. His last performance was in East Troy, Wisconsin on September 3, 1977.[29] The band replaced Meisner with the same musician who had succeeded him in Poco, Timothy B. Schmit, after agreeing that Schmit was the only candidate.[30]

Meisner formally quit the band in September 1977,[10] citing "exhaustion".[31] On the subject of his abrupt resignation from the band, Meisner later said, "All that stuff and all the arguing amongst the Eagles is over now. Well at least for me."[32]
He was one hell of a bassist and vocalist. Nelson was crushed when Randy left for Poco. The Stone Canyon Band was for all intents and purposes done.

Listen to Randy here:
 
Nothing like JBL D140s……:bassist:
52B9D6E8-B126-47C9-83E7-AB98633F67A4.jpeg

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Yep. The hot leg (leg that is soldered to the tab) on yours looks pretty close to grounding out on the pot housing as well. I ended up lifting mine a bit with a small screwdriver, I don’t think there was enough room to slip a piece of paper between the hot leg and pot. Kinda surprised it never grounded out.

At least it's low voltage so no danger of arcing.
 
Thunderbird Thursday follies.......
A big "Thank you" to Will @Gaolee for dinner tonight, seems I'll have a hitchhiker on my trip to Hollister!

vBT4YRw.jpg


It'll ride in style, Subies rule!
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I can confirm that in fact the EB13 with the push pull pots is in fact darker in normal mode (push pull pot in down position) and does acquire both a voicing change and brightness when the pot is pulled up.
The question I have on this wiring scheme - does activation of the push/pull pot actually take one of the humbucker coils out of the circuit, or is it just activating a dedicated tone cap for that particular pickup, or is it doing both?
only real way to eliminate one of the coils is to bypass it with a wire…..the cap does this for higher frequencies and shunts them to ground so instead of exciting the instrument they get suppressed which is why it sounds darker…..
the voicing change happens because you can “tune” the response of an inductor with a cap….. the tuning formula is Fr = 1/2PI x square root of the product of L (inductance) and (capacitance) where
Fr= resonant freq
PI= 6.28

The holy grail parameter (for me) has always been inductance of a Thunderbird pickup and have never been able to secure that very elusive number, although through work, I could set up a measurement, I haven’t gotten around to it hoping I can find a published number the way Ohmic numbers are but have not been that lucky. It is fairly safe to say that for a linearly wound coil, the inductance is directly proportional to the resistance but because so many different winding methods are used it’s not a safe assumption. That leaves an empirical approach……from a Bill Lawrence paper I read, pickup inductances range from 2 to 10 Henries (some higher) so assuming half way inductance (5 Henries) and the .01 value of that cap (from Irv’s photo) and using the above math gives me a response of 712 Hz….
upload_2023-7-27_21-33-2.jpeg


So, in short :laugh: when you flick that pot you shunt some high frequencies to ground AND add a filter response centered at 712 Hz that will inevitably alter the original voicing….
Really hoping this makes sense…
Sorry for the verbosity….
 
only real way to eliminate one of the coils is to bypass it with a wire…..the cap does this for higher frequencies and shunts them to ground so instead of exciting the instrument they get suppressed which is why it sounds darker…..
the voicing change happens because you can “tune” the response of an inductor with a cap….. the tuning formula is Fr = 1/2PI x square root of the product of L (inductance) and (capacitance) where
Fr= resonant freq
PI= 6.28

The holy grail parameter (for me) has always been inductance of a Thunderbird pickup and have never been able to secure that very elusive number, although through work, I could set up a measurement, I haven’t gotten around to it hoping I can find a published number the way Ohmic numbers are but have not been that lucky. It is fairly safe to say that for a linearly wound coil, the inductance is directly proportional to the resistance but because so many different winding methods are used it’s not a safe assumption. That leaves an empirical approach……from a Bill Lawrence paper I read, pickup inductances range from 2 to 10 Henries (some higher) so assuming half way inductance (5 Henries) and the .01 value of that cap (from Irv’s photo) and using the above math gives me a response of 712 Hz….
View attachment 5139445

So, in short :laugh: when you flick that pot you shunt some high frequencies to ground AND add a filter response centered at 712 Hz that will inevitably alter the original voicing….
Really hoping this makes sense…
Sorry for the verbosity….
Fascinating! Not sure I understand it all, but it certainly gives me food for thought.
Thanks for going into the detail behind the answer. It has me thinking now of some interesting options for tone shaping.