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Thunderbird Club

#175,503
Happy Tubesday!
F1022A75-AADE-4CD0-98E0-4D95E8D9F87A.jpeg
 
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#175,505
Rocker47 said:
Crazy! I literally picked one up at an L&M last weekend! I've had two in the past and didn't really give it a chance. I'll keep this one and learn how to make the patches properly this time. Keep us/me posted on how you like it! I think they're a solid piece of gear!
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Seems like it.
It sounds reaaaal nice with the Thunderbird and the only real fault I found is its slight sound cutoff while changing patches. I'm not crazy about the Enhancer and Chorus effects, but that's more related to personal taste. As for the rest, pretty easy to save/edit/change patches and banks. I'm switching between 2 sounds for now:(1) the factory patch bank 1/patch 1 and (2) using the master section as preamp (still tweaking the knob), natural compression with 10 and 1 oc settings and using the 3 pedals for effects, OD pretty much set on the natural setting. Still lots of tweaking left :-).
 
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#175,506
Bassmike62 said:
Seems like it.
It sounds reaaaal nice with the Thunderbird and the only real fault I found is its slight sound cutoff while changing patches. I'm not crazy about the Enhancer and Chorus effects, but that's more related to personal taste. As for the rest, pretty easy to save/edit/change patches and banks. I'm switching between 2 sounds for now:(1) the factory patch bank 1/patch 1 and (2) using the master section as preamp (still tweaking the knob), natural compression with 10 and 1 oc settings and using the 3 pedals for effects, OD pretty much set on the natural setting. Still lots of tweaking left :).
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You can spend days figuring out various settings that sound cool. I've had one of these for over ten years. They are not expensive, but do have some really good settings and effects. I lot of bang for the buck. I was shocked how good some sounded. Something of a pain in the butt to figure out, but cool once you do. It's very versatile. Has an ungodly number of slots to save patches to. The Guitar sims are really good too. I leave it at home now, but I've used it as a preamp and DI before with good success. Would have no problem using it again either.
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#175,509
dagrev said:
You can spend days figuring out various settings that sound cool. I've had one of these for over ten years. They are not expensive, but do have some really good settings and effects. I lot of bang for the buck. I was shocked how good some sounded. Something of a pain in the butt to figure out, but cool once you do. It's very versatile. Has an ungodly number of slots to save patches to. The Guitar sims are really good too. I leave it at home now, but I've used it as a preamp and DI before with good success. Would have no problem using it again either.
View attachment 4265512
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Never seen that one, looks quite comprehensive ?

I've been using a Zoom B3N for a couple of years as the core of my live set-up, after using individual pedals for more than 10 years. I got the Boss unit on a total whim, after talking about the guitar version to my guitar-playing brother. Disclaimer: I don't use effects that much, but like to have'em around.

All personal of course, but my long and costly trek through pedalboards and effects since 2008 led me to conclude that :
(1) I'm pretty much the only one who can tell the difference between this or that OD/Chorus/filter/whatever;
(2) There are no 100% ideal set-up, it's about the compromise you will/will not make and how long you're willing/not willing to make it;
(3) What makes it to my gig board has to be easily usable/functional/practical. No tiptoeing for this flat-foot.

Still, I love pedals :-).
 
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#175,511
Bassmike62 said:
Agreed, I never personaly heard a noticeable difference between Speakon and phone connectors. I'll be looking for a good phone jack tho. I had a bad experience with my first rig years ago, a Hartke 5500H into a 215 vx Series. The cable I initially used completely fried. It's the only time I used a phone jack connecting head to cab, all the other stuff I had used Speakons. I don't remember what cable I used then, but I'm guessing I went for whatever was at hand at the time.

The Bird is really happy with this rig !
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Not saying you did this, but often when that happens, someone used an instrument cable instead of a speaker cable.
 
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#175,513
Miles_ONeal said:
Not saying you did this, but often when that happens, someone used an instrument cable instead of a speaker cable.
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I'm extremely particular when it comes to cables-it must have a 1/4"(?mm)plug on each end.:smug:


EDIT: Prof. Google says 6.35mm
 
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#175,514
Chucky Stiletti said:
yep, a tube amp would rather see a short at the output than nothing at all which is exactly what happens these days when you pull the 1/4" out of the "Speaker" port....the female connector shorts itself to gnd much like connectors on active basses connect/disconnect the preamp battery when not plugged in.....kinda sucks for players these days cause a SS amp behaves exactly the opposite....it can run not connected to a skpr for days but any momentary output short will damage them if the amp does not feature output protection (many don't because circuitry at the output WILL affect transient response regardless of what anybody claims) which is really there to protect the speaker from a shorted output SS stage.....almost, like you gotta be an engineer to play modern instruments....:rollno:..
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The smaller amps I’ve built (and most I’ve modded) typically have 220 ohm resistors across the output jacks. (Tube amps, of course.) That’s typically enough to save the output stage without impacting tone much, though I wouldn’t plug and unplug on purpose while the amp is on. Bigger amps just get shorting jacks. Not perfect but better than wide open.
 
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#175,515
Chucky Stiletti said:
the Speakon design is clever, avoids the connectior coming off and in many cases (unbeknownst to the user) avoids guitar (line level) cables from being used as speaker cables where the capacitance in the hum reduction shield can cause output stages (especially Tube types) to oscillate and self destruct. many don’t know that a true to spec Speakon will accommodate 1/4” phono as well...
View attachment 4263235
cheaper types don’t support this option giving the erroneous “either or” idea.....
quality affordable cables?....these;
View attachment 4263237
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piggybacking here, the resultant self-destruction is likely to include one or more of: blown output transformer, fried output tubes, and/or arc’d sockets. I’ve see this take out power supply components in extreme cases.
 
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#175,516
dagrev said:
Used the white '76 ("Super Rare!) today after installing the new truss rod nut and time to adjust. I settled on Roto 66s (and even had a small blister on the left middle finger). The bass played great and sounded better than ever! Very happy camper while playing. I literally don't get all the whining on the interwebs about them being so hard on the fingers. There are more smooth strings, but Roto's don't deserve all the complaints. There's a bunch of people who need to start a Roto Princess Fingers Club it seems.
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i tried to (Roto Baby Fingers Club), but after my callouses got more built up I had to jump ship it’s out there somewhere…
 
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