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Thunderbird Club

#12,501
Sneezy said:
I considered this, but it is a really nice neck(Warmoth) and I'd rather find another body then another neck if I mess up.
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If you can get your hands on a table saw then the narrowing of the neck at the heal should be very easy to accomplish. Set the depth to just under the fret board and skin it a bit at a time left side, right side, over and over until you've got it down to a slip fit. I'd be a little nervous doing it but you could do a practice run on some scrap wood and see how good you are at customizing a neck width.
 
#12,509
GBassNorth said:
So Gaolee, looks like you now have your 2015 Bird. Can you give us a rundown on how the 2015 sounds vs previous birds? Do the EB pups and controls make a big difference in the bird?
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Strings are a part of it, but yes, those pickups are different. They can tone down in a way I can't get the 1991 to do. The bass is built different from an EB and is made of mahogany instead of ash and maple, so there's that influence, but I think it's a smaller influence than the pickups. It feels like a 'Bird, of course, and it can sound like you would expect a 'Bird to sound. The biggest thing is coil tapping, which gives it a bit thinner sound, for lack of a better way to put it. Even in humbucker mode, it doesn't sound like it's overdriving everything all the time, which I like to have as an option.

My brother bought the EB from me, and he thinks it is a thumpy Gibson down deep. The '15 'Bird does very similar things, but I would call it more snarling than thumpy. A P-bass with flats and a foam mute is thumpy. These are absolutely not that. I am not a fan of 7ender Jazz basses, as you all probably know. And, I'm a little surprised to say the '15 'Bird can go in that direction if you want it to. It never ends up with the whiny nasal quality that a Jazz has, so Gibson managed to pull back from the abyss.
 
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#12,510
Count Bassie said:
I think someone else around here has em also, and their report was quite favorable. "Angry piano" was part of their description, with a similar comment about not sounding like round wounds.
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That was me. I have EB Cobalt flats on the 1991, and that's probably part of the reason it sounds so aggressive. I'm not even kidding about angry piano, and I was able to listen to it playing with a piano. We were doing the opening riff for "Don't Be Cruel" with the bass doubling the left hand boogie riff. The 'Bird through an Acoustic 126 combo sounded like it was ready to rip the lungs out of the piano, while sounding very much like a piano. I was playing with my fingers. I couldn't tell you how much of the sound was the way I play, the amp, the pickups, the bass, or the strings, but it sure was great. The rest of the band didn't quite know what to make of it.
 
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#12,511
Thunderbirds are go!

A guy from a band we were playing with was also rocking a Gibson Thunderbird, first I've seen in the wild. Sounded pretty good, but not better or worse than my Epi I thought. I have realized that the bird probably doesn't have the mid presence necessary for me to run a whole heap of fuzz, I'm gonna stick to a more overdriven tone from now on.
Black and White FA.png
 
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#12,513
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So, I have been playing a long time but I don't do my own setups and I am an idiot when it comes to electronics! So what's the deal with the orange drop caps? My 14 USA Gibson T-Bird has the pictured cap. Is it an orange drop or something else. I read that Gibson was using orange drop caps starting in 2014 but who knows if that's true. Anyway what's the difference and what does it do. Also what exactly does the tone knob do, how does it work I mean I now what it does but how does it work. Btw I love playing this TBird and I have no issues with neck dive or tilting of the bass!!
 

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#12,515
I'm hardly an electronics guy, but I have done a bit of monkeying around with amplifiers and soldering irons, including wiring up a few guitars. Yes, those are orange drop caps, as far as I know. Caps are caps, in my opinion, and whatever is least expensive and has the same spec is all good in my book. A 500k pot is the same as any other 500k pot from a purely functional standpoint. From the standpoint of smoothness and longevity, there's a difference. You get what you pay for. I assume Gibson gets a decent deal on decent quality pots and uses decent quality pots. Other than that, I wouldn't know what differences they may have. My guess is that the differences are irrelevant, since you buy pots based on value and quality, not some other spec. Resistors can be a bit different from caps and pots, as I discovered modifying a Valve Junior amp, but I would just use whatever cap is the right spec. Same with pots.

Capacitors store electrical energy. In a tone circuit, think of them as acting like a shock absorber. The absorb energy, especially the higher order overtones. That darkens the sound. You can think of it as thumpier or as duller, depending on your point of view.

As a purely shade tree mechanic and electronics hack, I probably have some stuff wrong here, but with any luck, that's a start and it's enough for an actually knowledgeable person to work with to correct all of us, including me.
 
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#12,516
Gaolee said:
I'm hardly an electronics guy, but I have done a bit of monkeying around with amplifiers and soldering irons, including wiring up a few guitars. Yes, those are orange drop caps, as far as I know. Caps are caps, in my opinion, and whatever is least expensive and has the same spec is all good in my book. A 500k pot is the same as any other 500k pot from a purely functional standpoint. From the standpoint of smoothness and longevity, there's a difference. You get what you pay for. I assume Gibson gets a decent deal on decent quality pots and uses decent quality pots. Other than that, I wouldn't know what differences they may have. My guess is that the differences are irrelevant, since you buy pots based on value and quality, not some other spec. Resistors can be a bit different from caps and pots, as I discovered modifying a Valve Junior amp, but I would just use whatever cap is the right spec. Same with pots.

Capacitors store electrical energy. In a tone circuit, think of them as acting like a shock absorber. The absorb energy, especially the higher order overtones. That darkens the sound. You can think of it as thumpier or as duller, depending on your point of view.

As a purely shade tree mechanic and electronics hack, I probably have some stuff wrong here, but with any luck, that's a start and it's enough for an actually knowledgeable person to work with to correct all of us, including me.
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Thank you
 
#12,518
Bassic Playing said:
Melbourne via Yass? Yikes, that isn't a short drive.
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Approx 800 kms each way at a guess. I'm a bit out of Sydney and I stopped in the NE suburbs of Melbourne. Did a day trip to Ballarat to see the Eureka site (bucket list thing); back home tomorrow because Wedding Anniversary is the 20th. It's the 26th Ann so no big deal with presents but I think I should attend... :)
I'm hoping of going out somewhere for a nice dinner.

I took the photo for my nephew, he was pretty impressed lol. Thought I should share it here.
 
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#12,519
RedVee said:
Approx 800 kms each way at a guess. I'm a bit out of Sydney and I stopped in the NE suburbs of Melbourne. Did a day trip to Ballarat to see the Eureka site (bucket list thing); back home tomorrow because Wedding Anniversary is the 20th. It's the 26th Ann so no big deal with presents but I think I should attend... :)
I'm hoping of going out somewhere for a nice dinner.

I took the photo for my nephew, he was pretty impressed lol. Thought I should share it here.
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Nice. There's a guy in ballarat selling an Ashdown ABM 610 for $450 if your in the market. Seems to be having trouble moving it.
 

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