Thunderbird Club

[JIO]

I’ve watched this several times and still get goosebumps. Just thought I’d share. Need to click watch it on YouTube.

wow -

 

[JIO]

...how about this?

 

[Bassmike62]

A passive filter thingy. I can’t remember the term off the top of my head - but one of those things that cuts all the frequencies below a certain point from getting to the amp and specifically the cab speakers.
Low Pass Filter? Is that right?

Yep, sounds like an LPF awright. Name would fit.

 

[Miles_ONeal]

Excellent post Miles. Thanks for taking the time to do it. Can you put it in the Wiki?

Grrr. I copied and pasted it, which worked great. But when I edited it, the thumbnails became “view attachment” links.

 

[RedVee]

Yep, sounds like an LPF awright. Name would fit.

I’m advised the it’s a HPF actually. Passive because no battery needed. Not as attractive as Kylie but still.

 

[Stealth57]

...how about this?

Curry Flurry goes Nuit Nuit.

 

[GonePlaid]

A few shots from last night, I played my Cataldo 7enderbid and my Studio Bird made it's stage debut.

The Cataldo sounded pretty good, the Gibson was fantastic, that bass just "hit' perfectly last night. I've never been a huge fan of TB Plus pickeps, but with this bass and SIT Power Steels they're simply awesome.

 

[GonePlaid]

I’m advised the it’s a HPF actually. Passive because no battery needed. Not as attractive as Kylie but still.

Not much is...

 

[5StringBlues]

We got mechanized death! Obviously I'm a million pages behind..

Red Asphalt was the graphic title of what we had to watch

 

[5StringBlues]

Hi I'm Troy McClure! You may remember me from such drivers educational films As the decapitation of Larry Leadfoot, and Alice's Adventures through the windshield glass!

 

[Count Bassie]

Yah, it erupted on my page similarly... who knows. "likes" is now "Relevant somethingorother...

These changes are like putting the couch in the kitchen. Lol.

 

[Count Bassie]

In case anyone was wondering what those sparkly Epiphone birds look like on stage

That's cool. It's not "too pretty", you see the shape.

 

[Count Bassie]

The GTG inspired me to work on one of my favorite albums. This has all the lines isolated.

I love that tune.

 

[PhR75]

New amp day. A friend of a friend had this AH200 for sale.

I took it for a test drive and you can guess the rest.

It hadn't been used for a while but everything worked well. No crackles or scratchy pots or anything. Plenty of volume with two cabs (which I rarely need) and reproduced my sound easily. All my Lab heads are in need of a restoration at the moment so this will be a very good alternative to the DR103 for those "money gigs".

 

[TBird1958]

New amp day. A friend of a friend had this AH200 for sale.
View attachment 7003034
I took it for a test drive and you can guess the rest.
View attachment 7003035

It hadn't been used for a while but everything worked well. No crackles or scratchy pots or anything. Plenty of volume with two cabs (which I rarely need) and reproduced my sound easily. All my Lab heads are in need of a restoration at the moment so this will be a very good alternative to the DR103 for those "money gigs".

I Love my Trace Elliott! Kind of looking for another one, they just have a great, inherit tone about them.

 

[Tommygun_ted]

That's cool. It's not "too pretty", you see the shape.

Yeah, it looked pretty cool under the lights. Almost like twinkling stars

 

[JJR58]

These changes are like putting the couch in the kitchen. Lol.

 

[PhR75]

I Love my Trace Elliott! Kind of looking for another one, they just have a great, inherit tone about them.

What model you have?

 

[Engle]

Is there already a “how to replace your pickups” tutorial on TB? I couldn’t find one. Here’s a quick run-through on upgrading my Epi IV pcikups. I’m pretty sure there’s a better place for this, but I wasn’t sure where (not the Luthier’s Corner, IIUC). I’ll add very basic sound clips later; I have somewhere to be and have to figure out how to turn a GarageBand file into something I can share on TalkBass and everyone can hear.

The pickups on my 2012 Epi IV weren’t bad; they just weren’t great. Since it was Epiphone’s lowest price Thunderbird, the only surprise was how good they sounded. But compared to many other Thunderbirds, they lacked a bit in the mid, and had less definition and clarity. Andy (I think) pointed out that EY sells a drop-in replacement modeled after Gibson pickups. It wasn’t 100% clear which Gibson pickups, but at the price (less than $70/pair), why not?

The EYs look identical from the top, but not the bottom. They came with nickel screws so I re-used the old black screws. The EYs have heavier connection wiring with better shielding. I was a tad concerned at first, but Epiphone had bored big holes for the wiring so it wasn’t a problem. The EY pickups did not include foam or springs, which I should have thought of but didn’t. I removed the foam from the old pickups with a razor blade scraper and superglued it to the new ones.
View attachment 7002688
To my surprise and delight, Epi did not have a cutout channel under the pickguard; they routed the neck PU wiring through the bridge PU hole, with one large tunnel from there to the control cavity. The old pickups are both marked as to which is which and have color-coded wiring (red for neck, black for bridge).
View attachment 7002689View attachment 7002691
The control cavity is painted - I assume it has some shielding quality but it’s an odd color so I’m not sure. I didn’t think to check its conductivity. A bit crowded with long wires. I like a bit of extra on the pickups but the purely internal wiring should be shorter. I’ll fix that when I upgrade the pots (these are starting to get noisy). The closeup with the red & black wires shows how large the hole is to the control cavity.
View attachment 7002709View attachment 7002710
I swapped each pickup start to finish separately other than soldering the new wires in place. I used my trusty Weller; these are great and last forever. This one has built, modded, and repaired dozens of amps. I unsoldered a PU lead and shield/ground, made a slip knot in heavy duty thread, put it on the lead, clamped hemostats on the other end of the thread so it couldn’t go too far, and pulled the pickup out. I then cut off the foam, glued it to the new pickup, waited a minute, pulled the lead into the control cavity, installed the pickup, and inserted the screws with just enough turns to hold it in place.
View attachment 7002714View attachment 7002715View attachment 7002716View attachment 7002717View attachment 7002718View attachment 7002719View attachment 7002720
There’s a problem with the last photo. The cleanest way to route the longer lead was around the outside of the cavity, but that leaves the shield (ground) touching the output jack’s tip (signal) portion, which shorts the pickup output so you get no output. I rerouted it in the final version.

Nice work Miles! Looking forward to hearing the comparison clips.

 

[Nocturnal]

New amp day. A friend of a friend had this AH200 for sale.
View attachment 7003034
I took it for a test drive and you can guess the rest.
View attachment 7003035

It hadn't been used for a while but everything worked well. No crackles or scratchy pots or anything. Plenty of volume with two cabs (which I rarely need) and reproduced my sound easily. All my Lab heads are in need of a restoration at the moment so this will be a very good alternative to the DR103 for those "money gigs".

Nice score!! I love Trace stuff! I own a Trace RAH350SMX head and that thing is a beast!

I Love my Trace Elliott! Kind of looking for another one, they just have a great, inherit tone about them.

Is there a particular model you are looking for?