Thunderbird Club

[mistergoats]

Hey T-bird club! My new bass came yesterday - the sorta-bird-like 2018 Gibson RD Artist in Ebony.

Here's me talking about it:

 

[mistergoats]

For fun, here's a comparison of the RD case vs. the 'Bird case.

Bird case is longer and shallower. I don't know what I expected, but it was kind of surprising.

 

[JJR58]

Hey T-bird club! My new bass came yesterday - the sorta-bird-like 2018 Gibson RD Artist in Ebony.
View attachment 2907590

Here's me talking about it:

Nice and growly!!!

 

[Gaolee]

No metal flake. Boo! Looks quite nice, but I have no money. Doing my best to source funds for the remainder of my Cataldo REV41 SnowBird need a better name.

You have a KatBird. Maybe the second one will be the Kat-aldo.

[Edit] I'm slow. G beat me to it by hours and hours.

 

[GBassNorth]

So I emailed Rotosound about the string snapping and such, just since I figure they know their strings best and curious what they'd have to say about it. This is the response. I find it weird suggesting not to cut it at all.

It is very rare for more than one string in any set to be faulty. They all have different specs, made at different times on different machines, if you get my drift.
I would very politely advise however, that you should always wind the tail of the string at least 3 times around the machine post before taking up tension. This spreads the load and avoids unwanted shear stress at the hole or slot of the tuner.
Also, you should never ever cut the tails of bass strings because this can cause the windings to relax. Many players will do this if the string is a little on the long side for their particular bass but is very bad practice. You see, the windings lock around the length of the tail and prevents slippage, which can result in loss of tone, ring or unwanted resonance.
Now, I am not suggesting you do these things Ken but mention such as standard procedure, particularly when strings break at the tuner or/and tonal loss and rattles, buzzes etc.
Do please let me know how things progress.​

LOL - Interesting note from Roto, kinda says these are the things you should be doing but I'm not suggesting you do these things. (Scratching head in confusion).

That said, their underlying logic is sound. Yes, if you clip a string you run the risk of the windings slipping on the core or relaxing as they call it. And yes, if you insert the tip of the string in the peg hole then bend it through the tuner slot and around the sharp edge of the slot to the outside of the post then wind it under tension you do run the risk of snapping the string at the slot edge where it's at a significant concentrated stress point.

However, there are easy fixes for these issues that don't require goofy "eye hazard" string ends protruding every which way or a bucket load of wraps around the tuning peg.

DR suggests you always bend a 90 degree kink in the string and then clip to length after the bend. I do it on all my strings and it does work. Before I started doing it I would find about 10% of my strings would go flat or sound dead, specifically my coated non silk end strings. So yes, you can clip but do it after the kink.

As for windings, I like 3 or 4 on the pegs. Much more than that and you run the risk of snapping a tuner shaft off (yes I've had that happen on a Warwick bass and a Kala UBass). At the very least it will look sloppy, and if you get to the point of overlapping wraps it can impact tuning as well. I'm not a fan at all of hand winding the string around the post three times before using the keys to wind the rest under tension. It can twist the string and cause it's own playability issues. I just kink, clip, insert in peg hole, bend through the slot and then hold the string tightly between my fingers while using the key on the tuning machine to wind about three wraps around the peg. By the time you get to the third wrap the ball end is getting set in the bridge and that's when the real tension starts. You'd be hard pressed to get anywhere near that level of tension just holding the string tightly between your fingers.

So my advice is to follow their logic but not their advice.

 

[Gaolee]

Obvious joke is obvious.

Ehem

 

[Gaolee]

SnowKat? ArctiKat?

ArcticKat. I like it. There's no end to Kat names.

 

[GBassNorth]

You have a KatBird. Maybe the second one will be the Kat-aldo.

[Edit] I'm slow. G beat me to it by hours and hours.

LOL - dang, wish I'd thought if that.

 

[Gaolee]

So I emailed Rotosound about the string snapping and such, just since I figure they know their strings best and curious what they'd have to say about it. This is the response. I find it weird suggesting not to cut it at all.

It is very rare for more than one string in any set to be faulty. They all have different specs, made at different times on different machines, if you get my drift.
I would very politely advise however, that you should always wind the tail of the string at least 3 times around the machine post before taking up tension. This spreads the load and avoids unwanted shear stress at the hole or slot of the tuner.
Also, you should never ever cut the tails of bass strings because this can cause the windings to relax. Many players will do this if the string is a little on the long side for their particular bass but is very bad practice. You see, the windings lock around the length of the tail and prevents slippage, which can result in loss of tone, ring or unwanted resonance.
Now, I am not suggesting you do these things Ken but mention such as standard procedure, particularly when strings break at the tuner or/and tonal loss and rattles, buzzes etc.
Do please let me know how things progress.​

Are they round core strings? I always put a sharp bend in round core strings before trimming them to length to avoid problems with the windings. If they unravel a little, the string mostly just goes dead, though. It shouldn't snap. I wonder what they think we are supposed to do with all the extra string, anyway. I don't know anybody who DOESN'T cut strings to length.

[Edit] G beat me to that one, too! Gosh! I'm really, really slow today. I'll just shut up and slink off to my corner now...

 

[JJR58]

Are they round core strings? I always put a sharp bend in round core strings before trimming them to length to avoid problems with the windings. If they unravel a little, the string mostly just goes dead, though. It shouldn't snap. I wonder what they think we are supposed to do with all the extra string, anyway. I don't know anybody who DOESN'T cut strings to length.

I don't get it either. There are some strings that are simply to long and some of the tips have to be cut off.

 

[PillO]

Hey T-bird club! My new bass came yesterday - the sorta-bird-like 2018 Gibson RD Artist in Ebony.
View attachment 2907590

Here's me talking about it:

NICE!

Have you figured out all the knobs?

 

[dukeorock]

Hey T-bird club! My new bass came yesterday - the sorta-bird-like 2018 Gibson RD Artist in Ebony.
View attachment 2907590

Here's me talking about it:

I really appreciate your video/sound review very much! I was pretty quick to dismiss this new RI because the Electronics look different from the original. Gibson have an odd habit of doing reissues that sound not a whole lot like the originals. Your clip shows that is a really aggressive, cool sounding bass to me. Thanks!

 

[mistergoats]

NICE!

Have you figured out all the knobs?

Great question. The EQ section is a little weird. There's no instruction manual specific to the controls on this model (classic Gibson).

The two big knobs are volume and blend.

Sweetwater says this - 1 x master volume (I know that!), 1 x blend (Yup, sorted), 2 x high/low EQ (not really?), 1 x mid parametric EQ (that's the 3rd knob, for sure), 1 x mini-switch (active/passive) (maybe my battery is dead, but it's hard to tell which is which).

 

[TBird1958]

Wait...
Your pedals come with a box???
*** - I didn't get any boxes with mine. That's it, I'm gonna rage post in the gen pop, TB needs to hear about this travesty!


Still one of my favorite gen pop threads. The entertainment value is high around here with posts like that one and Jimmys "string change" and "eating tacos while hunting down a stolen bass" and "help I just stabbed my cabinet".

My fave GenPop thread was : Is a Squier a 7ender? 29 pages of idiocy - priceless!

 

[BklynKen]

LOL - Interesting note from Roto, kinda says these are the things you should be doing but I'm not suggesting you do these things. (Scratching head in confusion).

That said, their underlying logic is sound. Yes, if you clip a string you run the risk of the windings slipping on the core or relaxing as they call it. And yes, if you insert the tip of the string in the peg hole then bend it through the tuner slot and around the sharp edge of the slot to the outside of the post then wind it under tension you do run the risk of snapping the string at the slot edge where it's at a significant concentrated stress point.

However, there are easy fixes for these issues that don't require goofy "eye hazard" string ends protruding every which way or a bucket load of wraps around the tuning peg.

DR suggests you always bend a 90 degree kink in the string and then clip to length after the bend. I do it on all my strings and it does work. Before I started doing it I would find about 10% of my strings would go flat or sound dead, specifically my coated non silk end strings. So yes, you can clip but do it after the kink.

As for windings, I like 3 or 4 on the pegs. Much more than that and you run the risk of snapping a tuner shaft off (yes I've had that happen on a Warwick bass and a Kala UBass). At the very least it will look sloppy, and if you get to the point of overlapping wraps it can impact tuning as well. I'm not a fan at all of hand winding the string around the post three times before using the keys to wind the rest under tension. It can twist the string and cause it's own playability issues. I just kink, clip, insert in peg hole, bend through the slot and then hold the string tightly between my fingers while using the key on the tuning machine to wind about three wraps around the peg. By the time you get to the third wrap the ball end is getting set in the bridge and that's when the real tension starts. You'd be hard pressed to get anywhere near that level of tension just holding the string tightly between your fingers.

So my advice is to follow their logic but not their advice.

Thanks. Yeah, I wind the strings exactly as you do. I replied to them asking for clarification since it sounds really weird to me. But isn't the 90˚ crimp then cutting after that just for round core strings?

ArcticKat. I like it. There's no end to Kat names.

I originally typed 'ArcticKat', but the two hard sounds next to each other sounded awkward to me, so I modified it. Probably best this way, though.

 

[TBird1958]

Hey T-bird club! My new bass came yesterday - the sorta-bird-like 2018 Gibson RD Artist in Ebony.
View attachment 2907590

Here's me talking about it:

Thanks for posting Geoff, I like how it sounds a lot, my only concern is the noisy pot, do you have any plans for it?

 

[Dadagoboi]

I don't know anybody who DOESN'T cut strings to length.

Me. On every Cataldo and all my personal basses. The only string(s) that gets cut is the one closest to the nut, and only the amount absolutely necessary. More winds give a steeper break angle. That's a good thing, especially with non tilt headstocks. Much easier with a quick release bridge or tailpiece, you just wind on the post and slip into slot when appropriate. Practice makes the job easier.

 

[mistergoats]

Thanks for posting Geoff, I like how it sounds a lot, my only concern is the noisy pot, do you have any plans for it?

I'm going to pop it open tonight and see what's going on in there. It seems like a grounding problem. It's really hummy for a humbcuker.

The irony is that photo of it being tested that came with the guitar - you'd think someone would have heard that!

 

[JJR58]

Me. On every Cataldo and all my personal basses. The only string(s) that gets cut is the one closest to the nut, and only the amount absolutely necessary. More winds give a steeper break angle. That's a good thing, especially with non tilt headstocks. Much easier with a quick release bridge or tailpiece, you just wind on the post and slip into slot when appropriate. Practice makes the job easier.

I'm all for as many winds/wraps you can get. It's just that, some strings don't allow for that.
Most do though, but i've come across a brand or two that didn't.

 

[mistergoats]

I really appreciate your video/sound review very much! I was pretty quick to dismiss this new RI because the Electronics look different from the original. Gibson have an odd habit of doing reissues that sound not a whole lot like the originals. Your clip shows that is a really aggressive, cool sounding bass to me. Thanks!

Hey, you're welcome. It's really flexible. You can dial in a wide array of tones, but overall it has a tonne of growl and sustains beautifully.

IT'S REALLY HEAVY.