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Thunderbird Club

#44,421
Cardinal Fang said:
That would still leave me with only three holes in my bird...

So may options. I could ask him to sell me the hardware for multiple set ups and try them all out. Make recordings and post them here, of course.



Yup. My wife is a lucky lady.
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And another option, mentioned in my first post to you, the series parallel can be wired to a push pull pot, so you could also have it all, volume/series pull - volume, no load tone pot VVT. Push pulls are great for not drilling more holes for switches.
 
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#44,424
TBird1958 said:
Regarding the tuners, I really prefer the aesthetics of larger, traditional tuners on most of my 'Birds, (that's just me tho!) so I changed out the stock Grovers on both my '89 and N.S. for Hipshot Clovers (this was well before the did them for modern 'Birds) and the edges of the clovers do indeed barely clip each other IF they are in line. Is it a big deal? Not for me as not once has it been inconvenient.
View attachment 2761359

From the back......
If you look closely you'll see that the paint has faded unevenly, also there's a somewhat sanded out paint flaw at the base of the headstock at the bottom of the photo - Gibson QC at it's finest! Also see the split in the finish starting at the top of the headstock running towards the camera, here the Walnut has dried and is shunken back a little compared to the surrounding Mahogany. It's 28 years young!
View attachment 2761360

Since I had out I slipped the bridge cover and shot the set up, and contraire to conventional wisdom you'll note that the center post is in fact lower that the two outboard posts. Like all my basses this one was set up by Mike Lull and it's a beautiful player, my others are all similar.

View attachment 2761361

On edge.......
View attachment 2761362

From the end, no "lip" around the post inserts, don't mind the random Cat Butt!
View attachment 2761363
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Nice Bird and Cat shot.
 
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#44,425
Cardinal Fang said:
After much thought and consideration while communing with my bird in the basement I've decided to go for it and get the VVT modification done. Just got off the phone with my favorite local guitar shop owner and he said he'll add two 500k audio potentiometers (which I think is just another way of saying 'logarithmic') for volume of each pick up, and one 250K tone (linear) potentiometer with a .022MF capacitor. I like the idea of switching neck/bridge/both pickups but at the same time the thought of a fourth hole in my bird doesn't feel very good.

We didn't talk about $$$ but if the work is perfect I'll gladly pay for it. I don't have any reason to think it won't be perfect, but I'm going to bring a picture of exactly what I expect to see when he's done.

Having a little anxiety about dropping it off tomorrow... so wish me luck.
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ubernator said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the birds are usually 500k for volume and tone as well. The switch I was referring to wasn't a pickup selector, but a series/parallel so you get 2 different types of sounds when both pickups are on. I suggested it in lieu of the tone knob, since most of us never turn the tone down, and some remove it from the circuit to open things up. And that is the spirit of the blackbird. Hence I suggested the S/P switch instead of tone. Series mode would rip heads off I would think.

But if you go VVT classic configuration, confirm here what tone pot to use. 500k audio is right for volumes, and im pretty sure 500k for tone as well. I will open mine up and check.

Also, consider a no load tone pot, effectively takes the pot and cap out of the circuit when the tone is all the way up.
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My Gibson BlackBird was converted to VV by a previous owner. I plan on adding a kill-switch back in the mix but have no use for a tone pot. I have a couple of VV no tone basses and do not miss the tone pot at all. Also agree with whoever mentioned the push-pull pots. I use those in some basses as well.
 
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#44,426
@Cardinal Fang -- there's absolutely nothing stopping you from adding a tone pot to your Bird should you want one, however a Thunderbird is such a full range sounding bass (not muddy) it's unlikely you'd ever use it. Perhaps on a brighter, thinner sounding bass with less bottom end you might need something to tame the gank.

With the amp turned up a bit, both my single pickup Birds can go from warm to snarly big-angry-piano™ just by varying the attack. They don't really do 'thumpy' -- for that you should try an Epi EB3L 'SG' or one of the Jack Casady basses.

Birds

Birds

Birds
 
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#44,427
hillerup said:
Not a particularly good comparison IMHO... The car seat has the adjustment to cater for all kinds of heights, widths and weights - The 3-point bridge doesn't have to account for this and seems to do the job just fine. Should anyone have special requirements, they can always mount a 3rd party bridge.
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The comparison was to illustrate that different folks like and/or need different stuff... or the same stuff different (both apply);)
 
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#44,429
PillO said:
Nope. Never officially adopted. US, Myanmar, and Liberia are the three countries that have not officially adopted metric.
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In the UK, road signs, distances, speed limits etc are all still in miles. The other imperial measurement I encountered regularly was the pint (20oz) for beer and milk, although milk is sold alongside standard metric containers as well. Some reactionary idiots have delusions of taking the UK out of the SI.
 
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#44,430
BklynKen said:
I am now officially a Fender-free household. Just sold the Jazz Bass.
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IMG_0733.JPG
 
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#44,433
kat888 said:
In the UK, road signs, distances, speed limits etc are all still in miles. The other imperial measurement I encountered regularly was the pint (20oz) for beer and milk, although milk is sold alongside standard metric containers as well. Some reactionary idiots have delusions of taking the UK out of the SI.
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Yes, but the UK is officially metric. For comparison, here in Canada, we are officially metric, but when I buy meat, I buy in units of 454g = 1lb
 
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#44,434
kat888 said:
In the UK, road signs, distances, speed limits etc are all still in miles. The other imperial measurement I encountered regularly was the pint (20oz) for beer and milk, although milk is sold alongside standard metric containers as well. Some reactionary idiots have delusions of taking the UK out of the SI.
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In the US, a pint is 16 oz. and an imperial pint is 20 oz. We're all mixed here, since you can get a 1 or 2-liter bottle of soda or a 12 oz. can.
 
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#44,439
PillO said:
Yes, but the UK is officially metric.
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Which is why I was stunned by the miles on roads. The only one that makes any sense to me is the pint glass. The pint glass is making inroads in NZ and AUS where iirc it was never a standard beer glass.

I was bemused by the food being sold by the pound in Canadia.

BklynKen said:
In the US, a pint is 16 oz. and an imperial pint is 20 oz. We're all mixed here, since you can get a 1 or 2-liter bottle of soda or a 12 oz. can.
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Unlikely to cause any fatalities if the confusion is confined to softdrinks. The idea that you'd take yourself out of the SI to return to a system of measurements that no-one uses any more (ie they differ from those still in use in the USA) ... well. Does the US system include units such as the rod, perch and chain?
 
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#44,440
kat888 said:
Unlikely to cause any fatalities if the confusion is confined to softdrinks. The idea that you'd take yourself out of the SI to return to a system of measurements that no-one uses any more (ie they differ from those still in use in the USA) ... well. Does the US system include units such as the rod, perch and chain?
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I don't think so, but we get weird stuff like yards, which are I think a little longer than a meter.
 
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