Thunderbird Club

[JJR58]

The wait is over. The PinkBird landed about 20 minutes ago. Which means I am 100% useless at work for about another half hour as I gawk at it. The well used nature of the wood underneath comes through in an interesting way. It doesn't look anything like a new bass guitar. It's completely unique looking, and once it's all dressed, it will be stellar. It will be even better once it has been played enough that the finish has the usual worn spots and a little use to go along with the dents that were there all along. Pictures to follow once it's dressed up again.

Rockin good news Will!!!!

 

[JJR58]

OK, then. For you delicate souls who would be offended by naked pinkness, avert your eyes now or be sorry. You have been warned.


For the rest of you, here it is in Seattle, on the floor, on the lovely pink rat fur and fuzzy funeral shroud that Gibson cases are lined with:
View attachment 3500436
Up close, it doesn't look near as smooth as it does in the picture. It has a LOT of dents and dings, as you would expect from a 28 year old instrument that's been played a whole lot. The paint has some interesting grain to it where it interacted with the wood grain or maybe the sanding sealer. It's different, and I like it.

Lovely!!!!!!!!!

 

[JIO]

Agreed. They made the occasional Firebird that color. They called it Heather Poly or something close to that. But, it's essentially the same color. If you think about it from a marketing standpont, offering Thunderbirds in a number of colors, even if they only made a few of them in each color, would have been good for sales. Or so I would have thought. Instead, nearly all of them are burst, with a handful of white, red, and black ones. The shape lends itself to much more exotic colors, like BMM.

Three colors that go well together as a line would be Pelham Blue, Inverness Green and Burgundy Mist Metallic. All pale metallics of similar hue. Pearl white could be one as well.

 

[Gaolee]

Three colors that go well together as a line would be Pelham Blue, Inverness Green and Burgundy Mist Metallic. All pale metallics of similar hue. Pearl white could be one as well.

British racing green, and a bright metallic bottle green would work, too. Just about any outrageous car color from the '50s or '60s would work. Metallic orange, metallic electric blue, you name it. I don't know why Gibson sticks to burst on such a unique shape. Burst looks good, but so do a lot of other colors.

 

[JIO]

British racing green, and a bright metallic bottle green would work, too. Just about any outrageous car color from the '50s or '60s would work. Metallic orange, metallic electric blue, you name it. I don't know why Gibson sticks to burst on such a unique shape. Burst looks good, but so do a lot of other colors.

here's yours (BBM)

Firemist Gold Metallic would be good too...

 

[JIO]

They did Les Pauls in BMM

 

[GBassNorth]

View attachment 3500025
Played through a couple of these last night....,love them...my buddy wants 300 for the pair..

Good deal!

That's a good deal.

Too bad it has rat fur...

$300 total for the two of them is a great deal. I switched to Bergantino cabs nearly two decades ago and haven looked back since, zero cab GAS. Built like a Peavey tank to last forever, super efficient speakers, perfectly voiced crossovers and only a hint of coloration on the dark side. I may be in the minority here, but I prefer rat fur. It's so much more durable than tolex and now that smoking is pretty much out of vogue you don't have to worry about it picking up off odors. Just keep it away from cats or you'll quickly have a set of $300 scratching posts.

 

[GBassNorth]

They did Les Pauls in BMM

View attachment 3500563

I've always loved BMM with cream trim and pickguards and nickel hardware.

 

[GBassNorth]

OK, then. For you delicate souls who would be offended by naked pinkness, avert your eyes now or be sorry. You have been warned.


For the rest of you, here it is in Seattle, on the floor, on the lovely pink rat fur and fuzzy funeral shroud that Gibson cases are lined with:
View attachment 3500436
Up close, it doesn't look near as smooth as it does in the picture. It has a LOT of dents and dings, as you would expect from a 28 year old instrument that's been played a whole lot. The paint has some interesting grain to it where it interacted with the wood grain or maybe the sanding sealer. It's different, and I like it.

Quite the looker! As you noted, I bet the surface imperfections and grain under the finish give it a really cool vibe, can't wait to see it completely done.

Word to the wise, be very careful about putting the newly finished Bird in its case. Depending on how long it's already cured and the type of finish it's possible for the fabric in the case to "imprint" on the paint. I'm sure the shop that did the work or possibly JIO or Carlo can offer good advice as well. Since it sounds like it's still off gassing a bit it might even impart an off odor to the case. Likewise, until fully cured, be very aware of any normal guitar stands with neoprene padding as it can fuse to the paint and ruin the finish.

But most of all, enjoy you're baby, she's been a long time in the making!

 

[GBassNorth]

That Firemist Gold Metallic doesn't look to far off of my Anniversary Gold Bouillon Tbird...

 

[Chucky Stiletti]

The nothingness of BC..

 

[dagrev]

I now understand the logic of the Hipshot D-Tuner. I tuned the couch bass to drop D last week so that I could learn Killing in the Name of (which is much easier than expected; I was probably overthinking it). But it is just a PITA to tune down to play a song then tune back up to play something else. Maybe I need another bass to have tuned to drop D.

I have one on a bass, and have yet to use it. Likely says a lot about my lack of skill, but at least I don't get complaints. Had one of those odd basses with that superfluous string as well--cool but not needed for what I'm doing.

 

[MCF]

You should give your old shoes a Christian burial. After all; they have souls (soles).


I'm here all week folks. Tip your waitress.

No wonder I’m struggling to catch up. Got back from my trip to the UK Sunday night, played hooky yesterday (major jet lag) and made some progress, but am once again 30 pages in the hole. Hmmm, that would be a good song title...move over Humble Pie.

 

[dagrev]

OK, then. For you delicate souls who would be offended by naked pinkness, avert your eyes now or be sorry. You have been warned.


For the rest of you, here it is in Seattle, on the floor, on the lovely pink rat fur and fuzzy funeral shroud that Gibson cases are lined with:
View attachment 3500436
Up close, it doesn't look near as smooth as it does in the picture. It has a LOT of dents and dings, as you would expect from a 28 year old instrument that's been played a whole lot. The paint has some interesting grain to it where it interacted with the wood grain or maybe the sanding sealer. It's different, and I like it.

It really looks fantastic!!! It won't have to sound that good, it's looks will do the heavy lifting! Can't wait to see the less artistic "nudes" of it.

 

[dagrev]

No 'probably' about it... another toxic smell I like is solder. I also like the smell of a warm tube amp. Oh well... we aren't going to live forever.

Amen on the warm tube smell. When you smell that smell, you know it's going to sound goooood.

 

[MCF]

Just back from a haircut. The local barbershop now has a screen up on the wall and was playing a Kenny G playlist. A bit unusual for a outer suburban shopping centre. I survived.

Picked up a coffee at the cafe there, and was scanning through the menu board while waiting and was tickled to see that they have Fairy Bread under the kids section. Some little bits of Aussie life have survived thankfully.

Not sure if Fairy Bread translates to a US audience? Anyway, it is buttered bread with ‘hundreds & thousands’ sprinkled atop, generally cut in quarters. A staple of kids parties.

View attachment 3496216

(Funny to find a pic on a recipe site...)

But can you eat the sprinkles with chopsticks?

 

[dagrev]

Three colors that go well together as a line would be Pelham Blue, Inverness Green and Burgundy Mist Metallic. All pale metallics of similar hue. Pearl white could be one as well.

Yes. I'll take one of each.

 

[MCF]

Soprano sax played well is worse than alto sax played badly. Ever hear a bad alto sax player?...
...of course, that's not a nice thing to say, and maybe it's just my natural recoil to anything even distantly associated with Kenny G.

*shrug*

Yeah, but when I was in college, a lot of us feigned to like him; we would do anything to get a girl to go home with us. Gerry Rafferty was another one that worked sometimes too.

 

[MCF]

We are musicians, so we listen closely and think about music. We get excited about new approaches and sounds.

Most non musicians hear it differently. They often can’t/don’t even hear the separate instruments.

Interesting take. I started playing piano at five and have no recollection of not being able to differentiate instruments. No wonder most everyone I know thinks I’m odd.

 

[MCF]

OK, I'm back in the states and finally have a picture of my T-Bird, it's a 2018 LE Gibson with the Babicz bridge, I also put Mike Lull pickups in it. It's not a very good picture, probably because I'm not a very good photographer. The original pickups also sounded good, I just wanted chrome pickups in it. This is one of the most well made basses I've ever owned, am very happy with it, sounds and plays very nice. I play it with both volumes down a bit to cut the mids and sometimes use a rolled up cloth next to the bridge for that old time sound which it does very well, the cloth is much easier to control than foam or lumps of felt and with just enough to touch the strings it just cuts the top does not cut out too much sustain which I don't like. I'm doing this to almost all of my basses lately. I didn't want to give anyone a heart attack so I took it off the bass before I took this picture. OK, I'd like my number now, can't join too many clubs.

View attachment 3497705

Congrats!