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Thunderbird Club
- Thread starter TBird1958
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- club thunderbird
"Library music" was a term I first encountered when an album called "Rubber Riff" by Soft Machine was released. It wasn't originally by them but had most of the same players the band had at the time (Karl Jenkins, John Marshall, the recently passed Mike Ratledge etc). Music that was made to license to commercials, documents, films, etc. but not composed with a certain film in mind.
Yesterday I watched a documentary about library music and the labels that released it in UK and Europe and got intriqued especially by the ambient synth stuff there is.
And the above clip? Composed by UK session bassist Dave Richmond (off "Melody Nelson" fame to mention one) and apparently has Brian Bennett from The Shadows on drums. Used in a porn-flick and aftershave commercial, at least.
Sorta like a Thunderbird Thursday.
I went through some cases last weekend that haven’t been opened in a couple of years.
This one is the DBZ diamond.
I removed the active EMG TBHZ pickups and installed the Epiphone 760’s from a first generation Embassy.
It sounds awesome.
Cheers!
I went through some cases last weekend that haven’t been opened in a couple of years.
This one is the DBZ diamond.
I removed the active EMG TBHZ pickups and installed the Epiphone 760’s from a first generation Embassy.
It sounds awesome.
Cheers!
Interesting. I would have loved to have been there.Frank and I attended a members function at The Museum of Flight this evening, drinks, dinner, and discussion, this time staff and the curator choose to speak and show pictures of items of interest to them from the Museum's collection. One of the most interesting was this Speed Graphic camera that happened to be the personal property of Sgt Lee Embree, who happened to be aboard a B-17 flying from California to Hawaii on a fateful December day in 1941. He photographed the war in the Pacific and afterwards came to live in Pt. Angeles, WA to the age of 92.
Quite a piece of history, his wiki Lee Embree - Wikipedia
My paternal grandfather (who passed away before I was born) was a machinist on a tender and also a Navy photographer. My Dad only has a few of his pics. There are some in obscure books from the twenties, thirties and forties. He took some of the Point Honda disaster. Others were taken at the Philadelphia shipyard and at Treasure Island.
I like the modded Goth #9 a lot. A testament that the standard Epi/Goth bolt-on pickups deserve more respect than many give them.
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Not counting the prior threads before the limit on posts to a thread was removed. We are a chatty club.
Made them less fragile?
Who's causing coffee spewing today?If that's all he can give as a specimen he has some real problems. Drinking more might help.
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Yes they do taper on both faces. I don't have an original, so hopefully one of the guys with a 60's Reverse will chime in with measurements.
You may want to do a separate thread on the build. I'd be very interested in seeing it happen!
- Mar 13, 2008
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- Endorsing Artist Mike Lull T Bass pickups, The Bass Shop, Seattle WA.
Greco's just have a few "tweaks" of the original Gibson Reverse - Good or bad might depend on the player, the neck on a '64 is like a Thoroughbred, a Greco is maybe more of Cart Horse, neither being bad, both correct for a given occasion. The changes give a Greco its own charm of course.
You have good taste Marshall.
That #9 modded Goth is absolutely in the top 3 of all my birds on sound regardless of the type of music I’m playing. The cap mod cost all of $5 and along with a set of $45 EBCF strings and a $100 modded Hipshot bridge made this $250 Eppi a contender with basses well over the $3000 price point. If it had better tuners (stock Eppi tuners are garbage) and maybe a graphtec nut and a plek job it would be at the top of the Tbird heap in sound and feel.
The Goth is a fantastic mod platform, it’s the reason I have four of them (each modded in a different way).
Great point.
What setting to use when comparing basses for other people is always a challenge. Using a single setting across multiple basses is bound to favor one bass over another. When comparing basses for myself I try to coax the best sound I can get for a given song out of the bass using the onboard controls, right hand placement and attack. Then I do the same for the next bass and so on. It’s interesting to see where each of the controls end up when done, rarely if ever are they all the same settings. The down side is that it ends up showcasing my personal sound preference as I hear it on my amp and cab in my listening space, all of which can vary drastically from user to user. So at the end of the day it’s probably best just to use the same setting across the board, then at least it’s all relative.
I personally think bass #6 (ThunderCaster) sounded absolutely horrible at the prescribed settings, I would never play that bass at those settings. But it’s one of my best sounding basses for rock and blues by far (right up there with #9 modded Goth). The setting I normally use on that bass would be neck pup at 4, bridge pup at 2 or less and tone at 8. At those settings it’s an absolute screamer.
At the end of the day, the test I posted is nothing more than a relative sound check from bass to bass.
All great basses. BTW that’s…
three Eppi pickup based birds and a ChinaBucker bird
Four completely different string brands (Eppi, Fender, Optima, EB)
Three different string types (nickel round, gold plated round, cobalt flat)
Three Epiphone brand basses and a home build semi hollow body
Two neck through and two bolt on
Three similar pup placements one drastically different
Three similar Mahogany type neck and body builds one Maple neck and body build
Another take that I think would be interesting is the same basses, but each at what you think is its optimal tonal settings. By the way, cool bass line you used. I found it relaxing.
Thanks, I plan to do so. Still in the planning phase, gathering info.
I found a 10-year-old post with some guesstimate numbers, and a screenshot of an undimensioned blueprint that may not be authentic.
The kit is bolt-on not neckthru, and some of the stuff done to it by the maker, like a seriously off-center jack hole, may limit how close I can get to original specs.
But part of the joy is the challenge of overcoming such aspects.
I dont have tooling for a fully scratch build. Someday maybe.
I might do a few of the basses set on my favorite position for each bass tested, would be interesting to see where they come out then.
Thx on the bass line. It was just something I quickly made up to ensure each string was covered in the test and I threw in octaves as well to see how each bass handled a more complex note saturation.
Selling my '64 Reverse now. At your numbers I should be able to get around 25 Goths that sound fantastic!
I do think it's fascinating that such great results can in fact be found without spending thousands. Likely similar to food tests. People think it tastes better the better it is presented. Show someone a vintage or boutique bass and that will "see" it sounding better.
Right now, no band setting yet, but at home the Koreabuckers in the old NR sound pretty doggone good. We've all picked up basses and after a couple notes knew it had a sucky sound. This is by no means the case with those. Not so far anyway. If there is a weakness, it might be they are a little shy in the lows, but have strong low mids.
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