Thunderbird Club

[Engle]

When I worked construction years ago, I would find tools like that on a job site. Picked up several useful items that way. The bad part is I likely left as many as I found.....

Tool karma! It all works out.

 

[Chucky Stiletti]

Trying to make us all feel bad? Nice ride, nice rig, nice bird, nice chops. Rub it in why don't you?

Some times I could feel the thunderous lows even with earbuds. I was amazed how much you had a double bass kind of sound at times.

At one point you leaned back to what looked like close to the AMX and I thought, "there goes the headstock!"

too kind BIG d!....love this club!....thanks for the feedback on the tone....@GBassNorth asked some time back for some clips with the LaBellas so I was trying to showcase the strings a little...can totally see why folks wanna pay you a vist

 

[Miles_ONeal]

thank you Sir!...
View attachment 3997986

That's not 15 40" speakers!

(But it's very cool.)

 

[Miles_ONeal]

***? Who would sell a bass with fried electronics? We are living in interesting times. I’m too old for what we’ve become.

Or it might have just been a really bad home soldering job. Too much heat with plastic covered wire...

 

[KaraQ]

My guess is that it probably was some kind of ground/power surge issue, the output jack is new, never connected, and the hole looks a bit cooked. Ground from bridge & both wires from the (original) jack are a bit cooked also

 

[dagrev]

too kind BIG d!....love this club!....thanks for the feedback on the tone....@GBassNorth asked some time back for some clips with the LaBellas so I was trying to showcase the strings a little...can totally see why folks wanna pay you a vist

I know that what you were hearing was likely fairly different from what I was getting, but the BBs sound very different through my '06 and Ampegs. Less DB sounding. I admit that i do like just using the neck PU at times with them.

I'll try to do a sound clip with the BBs on the 06 sometime. Gearing for for the move, selling two houses and starting negotiations at work to sell a property, so it might be a while.....

 

[Engle]

Had a little set back today when I dropped the nut after finishing it

I found another countertop sample that’s not such a bright white so I used that instead.

Almost ready to string up!

 

[Engle]

Goth Thunderbird update
Got the caps in the mail today, still have a couple of linear tone pots on back order. All the wiring will be done when those come in. So for now here's the test rig...
View attachment 3997860

Keep in mind the goal is to find the best pot and cap combo (to my ears) for the stock Goth pickups. The stock pups are 14.7K ohms and pretty hot. I'm after a deep dark tone with this bass and found the stock pups to be ok, not overly bright, maybe enough definition, kind of low mid focused, slightly muddy but I think workable.

On the test rig I'll have one bank of Volume/Volume/Tone controls at 500K ohms each and will compare that to another bank of controls at 250K ohms each. All the pots are CTS, volume pots are Audio Taper and tone pots are linear. I expect the 250 bank to sound a little less bright than the 500 bank, darker would be good, but it might also further muddy up the sound, not good. I'll also be testing if one bank will be louder than the other, louder would be better for what I'm trying to do with this bass.

You can also see quite a array of tone caps that I'll be testing. I've already tested a number of them with my current stock Goth set up and found .094uf to sound pretty good (compared to the stock .068uf) but this time I have a few more I can try to see if anything sounds even better.

Hopefully the back ordered pots get here soon so I can start hooking things up. In the meantime I'll try to figure out a way to record and post sound clips.

 

[Engle]

definitely an interesting one...trying to figure out what would cause that kind of damage because even with an amp it would have probably had to have been a tube amp cause to a ss amp I would think the output network of a bass would probably look like a high Z drawing minimal current.........lightning maybe?... someone intentionally (for whatever reason) plugging it into an AC outlet?... hmmm....

Dumbass kid experimenting?

 

[JIO]

Goth Thunderbird update
Got the caps in the mail today, still have a couple of linear tone pots on back order. All the wiring will be done when those come in. So for now here's the test rig...
View attachment 3997860

Keep in mind the goal is to find the best pot and cap combo (to my ears) for the stock Goth pickups. The stock pups are 14.7K ohms and pretty hot. I'm after a deep dark tone with this bass and found the stock pups to be ok, not overly bright, maybe enough definition, kind of low mid focused, slightly muddy but I think workable.

On the test rig I'll have one bank of Volume/Volume/Tone controls at 500K ohms each and will compare that to another bank of controls at 250K ohms each. All the pots are CTS, volume pots are Audio Taper and tone pots are linear. I expect the 250 bank to sound a little less bright than the 500 bank, darker would be good, but it might also further muddy up the sound, not good. I'll also be testing if one bank will be louder than the other, louder would be better for what I'm trying to do with this bass.

You can also see quite a array of tone caps that I'll be testing. I've already tested a number of them with my current stock Goth set up and found .094uf to sound pretty good (compared to the stock .068uf) but this time I have a few more I can try to see if anything sounds even better.

Hopefully the back ordered pots get here soon so I can start hooking things up. In the meantime I'll try to figure out a way to record and post sound clips.

I mainly use .047 caps - never did this sort of side-by-side analysis so am curious George, to what you come up with.

 

[GBassNorth]

Wow. Just wow. Stellar! Congrats on this one. I’m still shocked at the pleasure my Epi IVs give me. I love my Goth. Did I miss the strings? What are you running on it.... Cobalt Flats?

Yes, just put the Cobalt flats on it the other day. I wasn't sure what strings were on it when I got the bass, so I figured I'd put a known entity on to remove one more variable for the up coming tone tests.

Sounds/looks like a Covid project!

LOL - hopefully the test won't take as long as this stinking pandemic has.

George, I do wish you would move back to Ky so I can visit when you do these kinds of things. It's just not convenient to have to go that far West! I really want to see your strap collection as well. That part just sounds kind of weird....

Straps I have. I can post a pic of some tomorrow. I have a bunch more in a box somewhere that I never unpacked after the move. Since I'm not gigging anymore I normally play sitting down sans the strap unless I'm playing out with the guys.

a far superior design

With a major flaw that I had to fix, but now is a far superior design and the best looking bridge on a Goth.

I mainly use .047 caps - never did this sort of side-by-side analysis so am curious George, to what you come up with.

I've always used .047 or .022 caps on my Fenders. These particular Goth pups are very hot, so it'll be interesting to see where I end up on both the pots and caps.

PS - guess I need to get a big yellow hat (curious George reference)

 

[JIO]

LOL - hopefully the test won't take as long as this stinking pandemic has.
PS - guess I need to get a big yellow hat (curious George reference)

Meant it as a positive in the face of a negative - I've done a bunch of 'back-burner' projects over this period. Extra time filled with progress!

 

[GBassNorth]

Meant it as a positive in the face of a negative - I've done a bunch of 'back-burner' projects over this period. Extra time filled with progress!

I took it as a positive as well. One thing COVID has given us is more time to do things we never found the time to do in the past.

 

[Chucky Stiletti]

My guess is that it probably was some kind of ground/power surge issue, the output jack is new, never connected, and the hole looks a bit cooked. Ground from bridge & both wires from the (original) jack are a bit cooked also

View attachment 3998077 View attachment 3998078

looks like some "liquid damage" as well..

 

[Miles_ONeal]

AMS open box discount VP:

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[Gaolee]

You know the old saying:
Measure once, cut twice.

And the darn thing is still too short!

 

[GonePlaid]

AMS open box discount VP:

Invalid Link Removed

Proof timing is everything: I just found out my 'extra' money is gonna be going for a somewhat expensive HVAC repair.

 

[DanGouge]

Hey everyone! I just bought the ugliest, dirtiest bird on the internet. Started life as an Epiphone Thunderbird Pro. Neck pickup remove, as were the electronics. Just a kill switch and then straight to the output. No worries, I have plans for this thing. See below, more pics to follow.
View attachment 2905598

Does anyone remember this? I've had a lot going on since I posted this beast two and half years ago, family stuff that meant I couldn't justify fiddling around with this project. Anyway, this is what it looks like after being able to spend some of the summer of lockdown starting to tidy up the messed up bits of it in preparation for painting it.

 

[MCF]

Proof timing is everything: I just found out my 'extra' money is gonna be going for a somewhat expensive HVAC repair.

Totally sucks. We went through that in ‘18. 20 year old system died. Let’s just say it cost more than a ‘63 Tbird the replace. The upside is that the new one is a lot more efficient. We save about $30 to $40 on our PG&E bill every month. So it’ll pay for itself in twenty years.

 

[Miles_ONeal]

Proof timing is everything: I just found out my 'extra' money is gonna be going for a somewhat expensive HVAC repair.

Ugh. Sorry, man. Been there.