Thunderbird Club

[ThaCoast]

The pickups look about mudbucker size. Which means a Dimarzio One ought to work. That would solve pickup weirdness, but it wouldn't help with the ergos any.

Widerange humbuckers as 7ender calls them. Not exactly the same size as the Gibson Sidewinder/mudbucker.

@GBassNorth: give it a few weeks, if it still hasn't grown on you, part ways & find something that suits you. It is a weird semi hollow. Offset jazz style body, bolt on, I believe it's all maple too (don't quote me on that i'm going by memory & pictures). Sweet basses, but i'm glad i'm building my own semi hollow 335 style & 32" scale

 

[JJR58]

So, are you flyin' out to the (Best) West Coast?


I can comp you at the door

Seems i can't do a Best Coast trip till April-June.

 

[Markamb1]

Saw one for sale a few months back, only one I’ve ever seen

It was a standard finish for at least one year....the year I started really looking at one.

It has to be one of the rarest non insane finishes.... I really like it.

I totally prefer white or black but ebony stain the most.....that baby blue one someone posted was amazing though

Alright, who bought this?

B.C. Rich Custom USA Bass 1990's? White Super Rare

American BC Rich in the 80s are worthwhile

Well, like I said, "If I keep it".
Haven't decided just yet, will give it a couple more weeks of play time to decide. I have other basses that are equally odd to play and I wouldn't even remotely consider parting with them. My Warwick 5 string bolt on Thumb bass is a rock crusher from a tone stand point and a back crusher from an ergonomics standpoint. Sometimes a little PITA is worth it. We'll see if that's the case with the Starcaster.

That Gretsch bass looks country while looks and feels amazing.

 

[TBird1958]

Seems i can't do a Best Coast trip till April-June.

You'd be wise to just pack everything and make a move out of it.

 

[Engle]

Thought I'd jump into the semi hollow body pool. Just got a sweet deal on a Fender Starcaster the other day. First Fender product I've bought in the last 5 years. My last 6 bass purchases were all Gibby/Eppi darlings. It's a sweet looking bass (IMHO) and would fit well with a lot of the stuff I'm doing nowadays.
View attachment 3252834

Had it about a week now and still trying to get on with it. The ergonomics are bizarre - very heavy for a semi hollow body, does not want to stay in your lap while sitting (tries to jump forward), short scale is taking more time to get used to than normal (probably because my left hand is trying to keep the darn thing from hitting the floor while it's trying to jump out of my lap), and the headstock is heavy when strapped on. And to think, the Fender fan club complains about TBird ergos!

^That was my impression when I tried one in a store. Then I played a Casady and bought one.

 

[Engle]

I had a Michael Kelly AEB(5 string-shoulda got a 4). The thing sounded great. The folks in the big band I was playing in said it sounded very UB-y which is what I wanted. But, after playing my EB3s and TBird, I couldn't get used to the MK's thickness, esp. when combined with my thickness. Wound up selling it to a guy who played at Epcot.

I have a 4 string MK fretless ABG. It’s enormous! You have to play it real low on you hip.

 

[Chucky Stiletti]

You'd be wise to just pack everything and make a move out of it.

where are you guys playing?

 

[BadBassDrummer]

You'd be wise to just pack everything and make a move out of it.

Only JJR58. We don't need more people in the Seattle area. In fact if all the Californians would move somewhere else it would be nice.

 

[TBird1958]

where are you guys playing?

We are traveling to Port Angeles (again) to play at The Metta Room. It has a good FOH and stage, holds about 250 - it'll be fun!

 

[Gaolee]

Really want to hear a model 1 pickup in person...seems neat

Well, c'mon out to the Best Coast again. You can catch Veronica's show and then hang out in the Basement of Bad Ideas and play the EB-2 until you are all fouled up from playing a short scale bass guitar.

 

[Gaolee]

Seems i can't do a Best Coast trip till April-June.

We will all be waiting for you. bwahahahahahaha! Or maybe you should be the one saying bwahahahahahaha! I'm not sure we can keep up with Thunderbird playing aliens in the Chechen mob.

 

[Gaolee]

Only JJR58. We don't need more people in the Seattle area. In fact if all the Californians would move somewhere else it would be nice.

I was one of those people moving in and ruining the place - 30 years ago. Like Jeff, I was living in NYC before heading west.

 

[MCF]

Completely off topic: the drummer in my cover band builds solid wood drums. I helped him set up for a promo video shoot last night. This is a walnut bebop kit with calf skin heads:
View attachment 3252588

Wow. Even I can appreciate those. And I don’t know Jack about drums.

 

[GonePlaid]

Wow. Even I can appreciate those. And I don’t know Jack about drums.

I saw a biker with a helmet that had a sticker that read "I know Jack Spit"
Update: I seem to have misspelled a word.........

 

[Miles_ONeal]

Only JJR58. We don't need more people in the Seattle area. In fact if all the Californians would move somewhere else it would be nice.

We know the feeling here in Austin. Infrastructure's bursting at the seams, especially roads and water.

 

[RedVee]

Maybe you could just buy a thunderbird today because its a Wednesday... your logic is undeniable.

50 years from conception bass

Just looked it up, you’re right. That’s kinda stupid to call them all the same.

Guessing it means ‘they are all special’

Of course I’d forgotten the VP pickup has its own name

Oh, yeah, I looked that up b4 I posted. It seems like they sold about a dozen of them under various names. I wonder if any still exist. I'll bet the owners didn't argue over rounds vs flats!

There is a thread in the GP around a guy with one of these, plus many other items from the builder or his family

Just say it was conceived in 2011, delivered in 2012.

Exactly !

^That was my impression when I tried one in a store. Then I played a Casady and bought one.

I love the look and idea of the JC Bass.

I have tried an Artcore 32” scale, and it was very easy to play - I was very tempted but decided to go for a JC but it sold in the meantime.
I think the Artcore suited me because I first bought an Ibanez AEB10 when I started taking lessons, also 32” scale and a similar feel to the neck

 

[JIO]

Thought I'd jump into the semi hollow body pool. Just got a sweet deal on a Fender Starcaster the other day. First Fender product I've bought in the last 5 years. My last 6 bass purchases were all Gibby/Eppi darlings. It's a sweet looking bass (IMHO) and would fit well with a lot of the stuff I'm doing nowadays.
View attachment 3252834

Had it about a week now and still trying to get on with it. The ergonomics are bizarre - very heavy for a semi hollow body, does not want to stay in your lap while sitting (tries to jump forward), short scale is taking more time to get used to than normal (probably because my left hand is trying to keep the darn thing from hitting the floor while it's trying to jump out of my lap), and the headstock is heavy when strapped on. And to think, the Fender fan club complains about TBird ergos!

It also has something odd going on with the A and E strings on the neck pup - if you turn the tone knob to full bass and solo the neck pup then dig in on either of those two strings it farts out the cab. At first I thought I blew a speaker, plugged it into a different rig and got the same thing. Assumed they were just hot pups so I lowered the gain, helped a little but still not the right solution. Noticed the pups had been lowered all the way down into the body as far as they could go, nearly an inch air gap to the strings. So I raised the pups up to about a 2mm clearance, no change in the fart but sounded much better across the board. Fiddled with the neck tone pot and think it or a cold solider joint might be the problem, if not that it might be a microphonic pup. Typical hollowbody PITA to work on the pots since there's no control cavity access (you have to feed the entire electrical harness back through the ultra narrow sound holes to work on the pots. Fortunately they have a binding on them so less chance of mucking up the finish around the F holes.

I originally bought this bass because I wanted to drop some TBird pups in it. Not sure if that will work since the Fender Humbuckers have a completely different aspect ratio than anything Gibson uses. Might look at Dark Star options if I keep the bass. I'm into it for less than a couple hundred bucks so I have plenty of room to mod without going under on value.

The Guild Darkstars should work for your bass as they are similarly big and have narrow string spacing. (and they are cheaper than the Novaks) I recommend them as I use a single Guild BSDS in a bass I made and love the tone. Recently got this 34" scale full hollow-body US made '68 Custom Kraft "Bone Buzzer". I have a one pu '66 Conrad ss HB also and it's a blast to play and it sounds great. The BB has serous tonage with the 2 pu's. The full-scale neck has a P-like nut width with a zero fret. My second bass in the late 60's was a Vox ss (Cougar) - hollow-body basses are very cool.

 

[JIO]

Seems to me that the wiring harness could come out of a pick up rather than an f hole. Gives you a little more room to maneuver (but still a PIA).

There are tricks - but it is not exactly a fun job...

 

[JIO]

Seems i can't do a Best Coast trip till April-June.

The West coast is very long... seems like you should make the most of it while making the cross-country trip.

 

[PillO]

^That was my impression when I tried one in a store. Then I played a Casady and bought one.

Yeah, I thought about suggesting ditching the 7ender in favour of a JC. I love my JC.