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Thunderbird Club

#79,583
kat888 said:
I mean WHAT!?????

Start with the Correct Use of Soap and work your way back. No need to bother with the later stuff, they went off the boil a bit.

Look for these:
Permafrost
Light Pours Out of Me
Definitive Gaze
Parade
Song from Under the Floorboards
Click to expand...


Headphones on and searching.
 
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#79,584
kat888 said:
Is that a Maton?

For a start, it was in NZ which is the home of Jansen*. The Holden amps we had were made domestically as well. I once played through a Holden 100 + 412 and it was stupid loud. Also Gunn (combos) which may have been a Sunn knockoff, with an outrageous spring reverb which was David Kilgour's sig sound.

*As well as Abbey who made direct AC30 clones in Christchurch. There was a story going around at the time that there were lawyers hunting for the Abbey people. Put a couple of Celestion 12s in an Abbey 30 and you had a very nice -- and cheap -- amp.
Click to expand...
Very interesting. Fenders were prohibitively expensive abroad hence the knockoffs. Ironically, the Bassman circuit was not much more than a copy and paste of the application section in the back of the RCA manual. Not really intended for musical instruments hence the high level break up. Not aware of any vacuum tube manufacture in Oceania back in those days, but pricing of 5881 was such that it drove Jim Marshall to adopt the EL34 and thus the birth of the Marshall crunch. I wonder if AC15/30s were not cloned over here due to the lack of EL 84 availability..
 
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#79,585
Chucky Stiletti said:
Very interesting. Fenders were prohibitively expensive abroad hence the knockoffs. Ironically, the Bassman circuit was not much more than a copy and paste of the application section in the back of the RCA manual. Not really intended for musical instruments hence the high level break up. Not aware of any vacuum tube manufacture in Oceania back in those days, but pricing of 5881 was such that it drove Jim Marshall to adopt the EL34 and thus the birth of the Marshall crunch. I wonder if AC15/30s were not cloned over here due to the lack of EL 84 availability..
Click to expand...

I think all valves were imported from Europe or the US. I recall the price of KT88s, even then, was a principle reason we went for mosfets (we were looking at 8 x KT88, 2 OTs, insane stuff).
 
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#79,586
Ha! thinking alike...
16 of these. No need for step up (very low plate voltage) or output transformer. 300 Watts on paper..
triodeamp2013a.png
 
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#79,590
PianoOfDoom said:
I hate to say this, but I'm thinking of selling off one of my two VPs (which is why I don't mind that the prices went up!). I just picked up a pair of Ovation Magnums, so I need room on the wall.

Weird thing is, one of my VPs has Thunderbuckers in it and one is stock. I may stick with the stock one, which surprises me. I will do a more detailed test with the same strings on both, but I may prefer the stock pickups. Weird, huh?
Click to expand...
The heart wants, what the heart wants... wuddyagunnadoo:)
 
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#79,592
cellkirk74 said:
What's the common sense on the hipshot supertone for a Gibson bird? I have one on my Midtown where it made a big improvement, but am not sure if it will be a good thing on a 2012 bird too.
Click to expand...

dukeorock said:
My ‘02 ‘Bird has one and I love it. Big improvement? I dunno, but I like it :)
Click to expand...

I have a Supertone on my 2001 Bird and love it. More sustain/clarity?? I honestly can't say any more as it has been so long since the 3-point was installed on this bass. I love it and would not hesitate to install one on another Bird. It does have great sustain, but then I think Birds do in general. I did install one on the RD Krist Novoselic model that I had and I felt that it added sustain to that bass. The bridge is a bit bulky to some but it does not bother me in the least.
 
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#79,595
Christine said:
Apparently the volume pots don't act as a variable resistor as I always thought but as a voltage divider and has the tendency to roll off the high frequencies the more you use, not that I understand that. So bypassing the pot circuitry altogether should change the tone of the pups altogether to be more like what you have on the Blackbird. You could rearrange the wiring to include a low profile slide switch on the cavity cover so you can have the choice on whether to bypass the pots or use the standard wiring
Click to expand...

That is actually quite ingenious! :thumbsup:
 
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#79,600
hillerup said:
That is actually quite ingenious! :thumbsup:
Click to expand...
Simple too, 2 or 3 way switch, move the hot wire from the jack to one terminal of the switch, solder in another pair of wires from the terminal on the volume pots where the hot wire from the pups joins to the other terminal on the switch then a wire from the return terminal on the switch back to the jack.

I think that's what I'm going to do with my next builds, or at least give it a try, all there is to lose is a blob of solder
 
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