Thunderbird Club

[Miles_ONeal]

Not sure if this has been posted but GC has a '[Invalid or Expired Link Removed] in their used section.

 

[RedVee]

If I recorded and posted this correctly here’s a few minute recording made up of ten Tbirds back to back…
View attachment 7156188
It was a quick and dirty single take direct from the bass to an interface and into the iPad, no tone shaping other than the onboard controls on each bass, which were all set to neck volume of 9, bridge volume of 7 and tone setting of 5. Each bass was played finger style directly over the neck pickup. I tried to come up with a quick tune that would highlight each string and octaves as well. Please pardon the cruddy playing, it’s just here to give a good idea how each of the pickups in these basses compare.

Here’s the order they were recorded in:
1) (0:00 min) Eppi Purple Sparkle ‘64 - new 760ProBucker pickups, stock strings
2) (0:23 min) 2017 Eppi VP - old 760ProBucker pickups, Fender 7250 round nickels
3) (0:50 min) North ‘66 NR Tribute - old 760ProBuckers in vintage locations, Fender 7250 rounds, Wenge neck
4) (1:18 min) BaCH NR - ChinaBuckers, Fender 7250 rounds, ultra low action so there’s a bit more fret noise
5) (1:42 min) 2022 Gibby NR - stock pickups, Fender 7250 rounds
6) (2:05 min) North ThunderCaster - Fender wide range humbuckers in extreme positions (at the heel and at the bridge)
7) (2:30 min) Lull Tom Petersson Tbird - Lull pickups both at the heel and neck positions, Optima Gold round wound strings
8) (2:52 min) North BlingBird - ChinaBuckers in three positions, heel, mid and bridge, Optima Gold round wound strings
9) (3:16 min) Hot rodded Goth (cap job) - stock goth Eppi pups, EBCF strings
10) (3:40 min) FrankenGoth - Bart pups, Aggie preamp, coil switch set on single coil, treb flat, bass boosted, LaBella Black tapes

My main comment is that there seems nothing wrong with Chinabucker or Epiphone pups.

 

[Chucky Stiletti]

gotta somehow find a gig around here somewhere.....

 

[GBassNorth]

Check out the Dingwall Dbird

Now that’s a taper..

 

[Stealth57]

Is $8k reasonable for the 64 on Reverb? That’s the one with all the goodies but a professional HS repair. The finish looks clean.

 

[GBassNorth]

As Alembics go, yeah, I like this one....
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That’s actually a pretty good price for that bass.

 

[GBassNorth]

That's a cool listen. Thanks for doing that George!
I like them all, but the Thundercaster didn't have a lot of definition. What strings are on it?

IIRC the ThunderCaster has NYXL strings, nickel rounds.

The glorious thing about that bass is the massive bottom end you get out of Fenders take on a Gibson Mudbucker, especially on the neck pickup, which is right at the heel.

The shootout by design highlighted the low to high articulation of each bass at the same setting, which unfortunately isn’t the setting that highlights the articulation of this bass. The ThunderCaster is naturally a deep and dark bass, much more so than a typical Tbird. Like any bass, it can get much more crisp and clear by favoring the bridge pup vs the neck pup and cranking the tone knob vs only having it on halfway and using a right hand placement nearer the bridge. By design, it’s never going to get to the top end of a VP bass, likewise, by design a VP bass will never shake the rafters like the ThunderCaster (hence the name).

It’s truly one of my favorite birds to play in a rock, blues or reggae mix because it sets a foundation like no other, but it’s one of my least favorites to solo because it doesn’t have that acoustic or electric guitar like musical quality to the notes. It is not a bass for every application, but for many songs there’s just not much better out there.

If I get a chance maybe I’ll post a recording of the ThunderCaster run through its paces, it does what it does amazingly well.

 

[GBassNorth]

My main comment is that there seems nothing wrong with Chinabucker or Epiphone pups.

That is an excellent takeaway from this exercise. There are a lot of aftermarket pickup options we thunderbird players have, but more importantly, both Gibby and Eppi provided us with some darn nice stock pickups right out of the box. (Assuming I had the talent and desire) I could play my $250 capped Goth professionally on tour and be perfectly happy with the sound. Or, if I was so inclined, I could drop a pair of $85 ChinaBuckers into a bass and get wonderful results. 90% of the pup discussion is just splitting hairs, in 10% of the in a mix situations a different pup might make a difference to a small percentage of the listening audience.

 

[PhR75]

Had a great drum recording session three days ago and I had the sound engineer do me a loop of one part of the song. The recent interest in more ambient/experimental stuff of those Library music genre made me do this using the said loop. A bit of a Mike Ratledge tribute in there too. No bass guitar but synth bass anyway.
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Not me playing the drums. I wish I was that good...

 

[godofthunder59]

After watching @godofthunder59 's video on the Indonesian VP, I asked our local L&M to bring one in (they had a few left in the system). Everything Scott said is 100% on point; the '64 is a great bass, but at least this Indonesian made VP smokes it for tone, playability, finishing, fret work. Just a great bass and a great value too.

Congratulations on your new Thunderbird and thanks for checking out my video. Enjoy that new bird

 

[MCF]

Hey, I took some measurements of my Reverse Tbirds’s wings:
1991 Orville: 33-26mm
2017 VP: 34-30mm
My built from scratch: 32-30mm (I’m going to go to 26mm)
2014ish Epi IV 31.5-31.5mm
View attachment 7157379

What’s with this metric stuff?

 

[MCF]

Senior year of high school we used to leave about noon during the Winter grab our stuff and go skiing at Stevens or Snoqualmie Pass, a Bota bag of 151 was required to keep warm riding the chair lift - There are times that I really miss those days!

We had a “senior locker.” An empty locker we had the combo for where all our “stuff” was stashed.

 

[MCF]

My main comment is that there seems nothing wrong with Chinabucker or Epiphone pups.

Variations of humbucker goodness.

 

[MCF]

Is $8k reasonable for the 64 on Reverb? That’s the one with all the goodies but a professional HS repair. The finish looks clean.

Yes. Buy it.

 

[dagrev]

so realistic for a PB IV in excellent condition with the covers and mute and OHSC to fetch upwards of 20k I guess.......hey, if 335s of the same vintage go for at least twice that.....

Could with some dealers that have a rep for having legit instruments. Would have to wait for the right buyer who has the cash and it's must have for them. But yeah, I believe so. White also seems to have been a rare color. Saw a white one listed for well over 20k once. It was in barely played condition. It sold, but I have no idea for how much. While the IVs are more rare in reverses and NRs, I'm not sure that really affects the value like one would think with anything else. Rare basses don't have the value of rare guitars many times produced. J.T. and I were talking about that when I got my NR. I mentioned there were less than 800 tot NRs made, less than 400 IVs. (A 3rd of which are likely destroyed.) A Les Paul in those low numbers with be over $100k. He agreed and laughed and and said it was because bass players don't have than kind of money!

 

[dagrev]

I’m probably going to do George’s cap mod on the Sparkling Red LE Custom shop Epi to give it a little different tone than the Sparkling Pelham Blue one.

I have two basses that suck tone wise. An old Ibby Ergodyne and a SBMM Ray 4. Both have preamps. All my other basses are passive. Sad thing about the Ergodyne is that is has a wonderful neck. The Ray just pretty much sucks.

Sounds like a great mod. EB SRs are just not my thing. Liked my 5er better than the 4. Either one needed to stay.

 

[dagrev]

Some days I like the VP. Other days I don’t. I have decided to move it to the other house and run it through the Mesas. All I’ve played through mostly is the SVT.

Might work. I would think the SVT with it's big lows would be it's best friend. My VPs sound better (to me) through the Ampeg tube head (same pre as an SVT). I tell you a good thing to have is an BBE Sonic Stomp. Makes everything through any amp sound better. I don't know how or why, nor do I care as long as it does it.

What does the VP do that you don't like and what does it not do that you want tone wise? Capt. Obvious says it could just need a string you haven't considered before. What have you tried on it?

 

[dagrev]

I really struggled with the BA II someone installed on my Studio. It took hours to intonate and get the string height right. But that said, I haven’t touched it in over a year. And the Bird sounds awesome.

It was set up fine, just just looked like a crime against humanity for it to be on a Thunderbird. Had one on a Jazz years ago. Among other things, they can change the sound a little.

 

[BuddhaFingas]

Check out the Dingwall Dbird

Those are beautiful... very "aerodyne".

I dont think I can push this kit too far in that direction, but gorgeous designs and colors.

 

[dagrev]

We were Wild Turkey 101. Light weights

But it tasted way better.