I love the feel and scale of my Thunderbird but I find the tone has very little 'fit' I don't know if some here have any insight on drop in pickups that can smooth out the current clunky ones
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Thunderbird Club
- Thread starter TBird1958
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- club thunderbird
What are you trying to fit into?
OOoooooooooh daaaaaaamn, that looks nice in Sparkling Burgundy (at least that's what it appears to be). I still have a hankering for metallic moss, but T-birds sure look good in red.
Tell us more about which TBird you have, what strings, which amp you’re using, and describe your ideal tone. You’ll get a lot of opinions here for certain.
Gaolee
Official leathers tester and crash dummy
That's a wide open subject. Strings, pickups and all that are subjects we come back to on a repeated basis. Let's start with what strings are on it and what pickups are in it. It came from Russia, with love no doubt. Which means those could be Epiphone pickups, Gibson pickups, or something else entirely. Strings make a big difference. If you EQ for a P or J or something else, it will not work as well with a Thunderbird. The great thing about going through these subjects is that I always learn something every time we do.
I would suggest eq'ing out what you don't like first. There are a lot of pick up options out there.
But i'd play around with the amp settings first. That being said, both my Epi Bird p'up's have been stripped of the stock ones and replaced, well, one came with already replaced pick ups. Take what i say with a grain of salt. And i only saw @Gaolee's post now.
I was thinking overall. The headstock is certainly smaller!Maybe not. Vee basses have 2+2 headstocks. Body's monstrous though.[not me-or mine]
I put Lollar pickups in mine. A direct replacement. I love them.
If you are looking for a fatter, throatier tone, turn down the bridge pickup entirely, see what you think.
[Update:] Posted before my eyes were working this morning. No volume controls ... never mind. Pickup height adjustment is your friend. I crank my pickup (that would be neck pickup for you) up to the point point where it's nearly being hit by the strings.
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I have brand new, never used passive emg tbhz pickups for sale. Ive never heard them but, they seem to be a popular alternative.
From the looks of it, you might have stock Gibson pickups which I find to be nice and smooth and warm on the bottom end not overly mid focused or gritty on the top end. (Beautiful bass BTW, love that ruby sparkle finish). However, your bass doesn't appear to have any tone controls, just a kill switch or pickup selector toggle. So you'll have to do all your tone shaping on your bass rig.
Not sure what strings you're using, or what rig you have, what type of music you're trying to fit into or what your tone goal is, but I gotta say I have yet to find a type of music the stock TBird with an onboard tone control can't fit into. I would assume your bass rig has every bit as much if not significantly more tone shaping capability than the onboard control does, so I'd look to a string change and amp tweak before I dropped several hundred bucks on new pups.
If new pups are in order there's plenty of choices in the premium market (Lull, Lollar, Thunderbucker...) and some good choices in the bargain market (China buckers, Eppi VP/Embassy Humbuckers...).
With a bit more info on what you're after I'm sure this uber enabling clan here in the club can come up with great ways to help spend your money.
Been there, doing that.
Or purple nail polish. Someone in the Seattle area may know of some.
OK, another string I haven't tried! Since I'm kind of obsessed with strings right now, do you mind shedding more light on what you like about them? Is it that they are bright and bright is what you were after? How are the mids and lows? Will they make for a thick sound? Sorry, I know these are all subjective and almost impossible to really answer. Maybe what these burners sound similar to is the best way to go if you don't mind. Thanks!
And...not that you have the long awaited PinkBird back together, I think it would be nice if you passed it around here for us to all have a sip of that musical nectar!
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The string rabbit hole is probably the most subjective subject here. Aaaaaaand, it's ThunderBird Thursday, in this part of the world anyway. whateves, right?
I know, but had to ask. And your cool pics that keep showing up...make me really like them!
Gaolee
Official leathers tester and crash dummy
Now you are thinking! Most of the population here probably knows about purple nail polish. That's the kind of place it is.Or purple nail polish. Someone in the Seattle area may know of some.
Gaolee
Official leathers tester and crash dummy
OK, here it goes. They have a lot more lime green in the sound. It's not so much thick or bright as lime green instead of turquoise. The sound still has the great Thunderbird black around the edges with an electric blue edge, but there's more yellow and less blue. But not in a bad way like the even cream of creek scum green that a J can have.
There is one person here who can probably translate that. Or maybe not.
