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Thunderbird Club
- Thread starter TBird1958
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- club thunderbird
I have a single, a double and a 5-space rack (for gigs), Hercules all the way!
Yes, at "Salt Water", the dockside bar at the Newport Harbor Hotel on the drag. Saturdays, 6-10. Know the place?
Only in that I know where it is but haven't actually been to it. We love Newport though, one of our daughter's lived there (her husband is in the Navy) and we fell in love with Newport.
We've stayed at the Hyatt but not the NHH.
I lived in Newport after coming back to my home state in '94. Meet a drummer who became a great friend there, we shared a house and played in a few bands together. Met the reggae band a couple years later.
Salt Water's a fairly up-endy little place, beers are $6 a pop, typical Newport summer fare... We get a nice crew coming in to bop and hang though. It's a good gig, they like us there. We do a lot of "Bob", of course! Lots of pretty young things, lots of Baby Boomers. Funny, there's a pretty good sized crossover into Jimmy Buffet territory...
Next time you're in Newport take a drive through a neighborhood called "The Point". Bunch of very old, well looked-after colonial style houses there that are fun to hang around the clutter of. Funky old, well built structures, lots of them built, I think, by shipwrights. It's a nice diversion from the busy, shopping-ness of Newport's touristy bustle. Go around late afternoon, as evening starts to hit. Cool vibe, otherworld-like atmosphere... Then, of course, come dig some old-school roots-reggae with Roots Reaction... Lol!
We've driven through there many times, never really stopped though. Will have to do that! Thanks!
hillerup
There are basses, and there are Thunderbirds!
I have two transmitters as well (one for bass and one for guitar) - Both are fed into my 2 channel rack tuner. I leave both transmitters on during the whole show and switch between them with a foot switch. In between songs or when I switch instruments I mute the output from the tuner with a second foot switch.
This way I won't have to fiddle switching the transmitters on/off when changing instruments and only concentrate on my playing.
Sadie keeps Lenore company whilst my fretting hand convalesces.
Heheh... I have a little dog who's fascinated by my basses and guitars. I sometimes catch him sitting in front of them, just staring at them. Haven't thought to snap a picture, though.
Oh I don't know if she's so enthralled, but she does like to "own" my stuff. Once she peed on a plywood rack box containing my mixer, bank of headphone amps and some other thing, just to mark it so the other house cat would stay away from it. Into the recycle bin they all went, and into the doghouse she went! Oops... Ha!
Hate to bump my own post..
Actually, I don't
Any comments on either the Dunlop Super Brights or the SIT Rock Brights?
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Haji
Supporting Member
SIT did a giveaway on Facebook which I was a winner of and they sent me a set. I haven't used 'em yet, and my one standard tuned bass isn't due for strings change for a while yet. I'd like to get your impressions of the Rock Brights when you get 'em on and use 'em a bit.
My Birds are strung with Dunlop Heavy Core, as we tune drop C in my band. I like 'em a lot. Like a lot a lot.
I used a Samson back in the 80's and for the most part it worked very well, hardest part was keeping batteries on-hand. Unfortunately, after my band was "Retired" I packed some of my stuff away where it sat for years and I had stupidly forgot to remove the 9-volt from the transmitter for my Samson, when I did have a look at it a few years later, battery leaked all inside the transmitter, end of my Samson wireless.
Nice! I use the power adapter better than 99% of the time. I only have a 9volt as a back up for the reciever. The 1/4" transmitter is super efficient in the use of aaa batteries. I change it every two gigs just for safety sake. That sucks that yours got ruined. They are awesome, easy to use and super dependable.
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Haji
Supporting Member
I need ta git rich so I can get some of these, just for funsies.
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Ha! Yeah, cats are like that. I used to have cats myself, but my wife is allergic to them, so no cats in my life anymore. But I love our little monster.
Hate to bump my own post..
Actually, I don't
Any comments on either the Dunlop Super Brights or the SIT Rock Brights?
I've never tried SIT strings, but I'm curious to hear what others think of them these days. I remember when SIT strings first came out back in the day and a lot of people thought they were kinda gimmicky (and I foolishly dismissed them based on that alone), but it seems a lot of people swear by them.
Haji
Supporting Member
I've not used them before, but David Ellefson has used 'em for...wow, a really long time now. He's been at it long enough to endorse any string he wants to use, so that carries at least a little weight with me. Besides, his Kelly bass is clearly related to Thunderbirds. If that ain't somethin' akin to a fact, I don't know what is.
hillerup
There are basses, and there are Thunderbirds!
Either that, or he's just being cheap and uses whatever is being thrown at him for free...
hillerup
There are basses, and there are Thunderbirds!
No worries, I was just running through the way my multimeter gets set up to measure resistance in a circuit (that is actually what you are doing). I'll write it in longer hand.
"That is (in the case of my multimeter, connect the lead from the) black probe to (the) COM (socket in the front of the unit), (connect the lead from the) red probe to (the) VOhmmA (socket in the front of the unit). I set the rotary switch to Ohms (as the multimeter will measure a number of different things depending on what setting you select) and then select the desired range (there is a function that allows you to select Ohms, k Ohms etc as appropriate to the resistance of the circuit you are testing). (For example) Pickups are typically single digit or low double digit k Ohm resistance when working (ie not broken) (so select K Ohms). Touch a probe to each end of the circuit being tested and note the display. (In this case, the leads as described below)
My TB plus pickups I just pulled out were about 9.7k Ohms.
The problem is I am not sure what your multimeter calls different things. Hope that helps a bit.
Pic of my multimeter set up for testing resistance and instruction sheet. The range referred to above is the middle button below the screen.
This bit is specific to TBird pickups that I have seen. (TBird pickups are different to a Fender pickup which will usually have a couple of separate leads coming from it.
"My TB plus pickups I just pulled out were about 9.7k Ohms.
You will notice a TBird pickup has a single lead. This is one of the Chinabuckers. The lead on a Gibson TB + is a little different but essentially the same.
As I understand it, the hot (lead ie the signal) is inside the outer braiding, which is (an) earth (lead). The hot is exposed for the last little bit (of the lead). Touch one (multimeter) probe to the end (of the pickup lead) and the other to the outer casing of the (pickup) lead and you should get a resistance reading, if you have done all the rest correctly and the pickup doesn't have a discontinuity (that is it is busted). In mine a discontinuity is indicated by a 0 reading or O/L, I can't remember.
Here is the underside of one of my TB+s from my 08 Gibson, just for reference.
This shows one shows how the pickup is wired into the basses circuit. This how the cavity ended up after I wired in the Chinabuckers into my 08 Gibson TBird. The hot (signal) is soldered to the wiper (middle) lug of the appropriate volume pot and the braided outside is soldered to the pot casing to ground the pickup.
So I finally got myself together to measure the DEEPSixx pickups I had laying around, using the above mentioned way...
I got the following readings: Resistance are 12.40 Ohm and 16.50 Ohm respectively.
I assume the 16.50 Ohm goes to the bridge position, right?
Am I right assuming those high resistance readings mean that they have a high output as well?
