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Thunderbird Club

#65,761
Some quick pics. Very impressed so far.
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#65,763
GBassNorth said:
Looks like I'll get my DR Silver Star strings in the mail today. These are supposed to be similar to Black Beauties, which I use on my Stingrays but have yet to try on a Bird. They'll get thrown on the new Eppi VP (fingers crossed that the G string is long enough). @dukeorock seems to be getting lots of praise for the BB strings on his Bird so I'm kinda excited to see how these sound. I'll post a review after I try them out. Still lovin the Gold Optimas on the anniversary bird and the La Bella Black tapes on the FrankenGoth.

The Spectorbird (Rex 5 Pro) is still running a very broken in set of Chrome rounds on it, so it may be the next bird to get strung up. I like my birds to sound as different as possible - more sonic choices in the toolbox is always a good thing for me. Any thoughts out there on a string that would take me in a different direction than the Optima Gold, DR SS and La Bella Tapes? I've tried Cobalt rounds and hated them, don't really want to go flats on the Rex 5 string, so mostly focusing on Rounds. Maybe a string that really brings out a super deep authoritative (not flabby or muddy) low B. What string would fit that bill?
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Just installed the DR Silver Star strings on my Ebony VP. Here's the run down...

Installation
Tickled pink that the G string was long enough to make an easy three full wraps around the tuning peg. Recall the VP is enormously long for a 34" scale bass, much longer than any of my 35" basses in fact. I didn't measure the G string but I'd estimate it to be at least 50" in length, which easily allowed three full wraps on the uncut string - the long G string requirement was a major concern for me and my only complaint about the VP. Good to see that's less of an issue than I thought it would be. They do taper at the nut end, fortunately above the nut, so no issues there either. Much much lower tension than the stock Eppi VP strings. I had to back the truss rod off nearly three quarters of a turn to keep them from fretting out.

Appearance
The color is actually bright silver, not grey like most nickel or SS strings. No silks on either end and no goofy colored balls, just a neat clean looking silver string.

Feel
As mentioned earlier, very low tension. They feel lower in tension than my Black Beauties IIRC. Relatively smooth for a round wound string. Somewhere between a ground wound and round wound. Bends are relatively effortless, maybe even too easy. One could easily fret these strings sharp by accident if playing hard and not paying attention to left hand technique.

Sound
As desired, these strings tame the overly bright top end on the VP. Unfortunately they also knock out a fair amount of the grit and growl of the VP stock strings (what brand are those things?) and tame the VP to a more mild manner beast with a creamier bottom end and more subdued top end. These are not mid focused strings, they are very balanced across the board just less grit and zing. Surprisingly, they seem to allow a tad more finger noise on slides than my other black beauty strings but that might be more a function of the VP pickups, which are excessively bright. No one string stood out as significantly louder or quieter than the others.

Overall Opinion
I like the sound, they finally let me open up the tone knob a lot more than I could in the the past. Not to mention being able to leverage that odd bright bump in tone that you get on the VP when turning the volume knobs to their max setting. I was also able to raise the pups up much closer to the string for a bolder fuller sound with out having to dig in as hard as I previously did. As with most strings, right hand location plays a big part in how the string sounds but in addition to that tone control technique these strings also change tone significantly with a lighter or harder attack.

Practical Application
In a quick practice session I was able to set my tone knob mid way up (couldn't do that with the stock strings, too bright), then turn the bridge volume off and the neck at 9 while using a relative soft touch up near the neck for a very rich full bodied non muddy tone. Then with just a quick bump of the volume knob from 9 to 10 I was able to bring the strings to a much brighter and bolder tone, excellent for solo or forward in the mix work. And with just a bit of digging in the grit and growl picks up a bunch for that old school overdriven type sound. Slide the right hand over to the top of the neck pup and clarity increases without losing much of the richness. Slide further down over the bridge pup and things start to get a bit barky in a 70's disco funk kind of way. These are very responsive strings on a very responsive bass with very responsive pickups - that means tons of tone options with not only the tone knob but also the volume knobs, the hand placement and the attack. I can't think of a setting these strings wouldn't work well in. But buyer beware, they are low tension (and thankfully non floppy) strings.
 
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#65,764
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#65,775
@dukeorock I wasn't gonna mention this cuz I figgerd youda thunk of it yerself already if you were interested. It finally bugged me enough to go ahead & tell ya cuz sometimes thinkers don't think of all the right stuff at all the right times… and yer fiddle's in the shop right now.

I put a blend pot in my 'bird (V/B/T instedda V/V/T)… and I'm thrilled with it! Now, adjusting my blend (which I use more like a tone pot), is done with one knob instedda two, and I can increase/decrease the volume of a blended tone with one knob. Just thought I'd toss it out there...
 
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#65,777
godofthunder59 said:
I hesitate to post this as my video and speaking skills are terrible but here is my over due review of my Cataldo NR Thunderbird.
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Thank you. I’ve watched the 3 new videos now. Happy for more, I have subscribed your YouTube channel. :thumbsup:

GBassNorth said:
I'm sure I'll completely suck at pick, but at least I'll have an excuse - it's new to me. Can't use that excuse on my finger style playing unfortunately. ;)
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Yeah I’ve been trying pick. After ‘that Rickenbacker’ I got to like the pick...

theFixer said:
I'd love to hear your thoughts on that when you get it. I've been really curious about that model. $350 shipped is INSANE!!! Nice win!!! I was thinking they were closer to a EBMM size pickup than a Thunderbucker size. I don't mind being wrong though!:thumbsup:
Click to expand...
From memory, I like the Jazz. Twin P pickups... got to be better than J pups :)
 
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