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Thunderbird Club

#177,741
D.M.N. said:
What I'd like, and I've thought about the feasibility, is to have the bridge/claw, but then the height adjustable barrels of the Fender bridge. Essentially something like Scott's Badbird, where it's wider for more travel, and then instead of the screw going all the way though, have it floating like the fender with height adjustment screws on the barrels. Combining the Claw/Bridge and the Fender.
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:thumbsup: Intonating is really the biggest problem with the claw/bridge set up that I run into. I've yet to figure out an easy way to get to the screw since the string sets right on top of it. Fortunately I don't need to constantly be adjusting. If I did, I would consider something else.
 
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#177,742
GBassNorth said:
...I personally find that I can dial in the VP two point quickest followed closely by the three point. The bridges that take me the longest to set up are the ones with individual string height adjustments, mostly because I'm constantly chasing my tail trying to get the action as low as it will go on each individual string and at the end of the day I still end up no better than my three points.
Click to expand...
Same here. While I love having individual string height adjustment, like you, I don't find I have any better set up with it than a bass with claw/bridge. So in that case, the thing darn near ideal and simply looks more cool than anything out there!
 
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#177,744
BklynKen said:
We're on page 8888.
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Must be Thunderbird time.

2cJicxp.jpg
 
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#177,746
dagrev said:
:thumbsup: Intonating is really the biggest problem with the claw/bridge set up that I run into. I've yet to figure out an easy way to get to the screw since the string sets right on top of it. Fortunately I don't need to constantly be adjusting. If I did, I would consider something else.
Click to expand...
Intonating? "We don't need no stinkin'....."
 
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#177,750
Having that conversation when your Thunderbird sound is turned into a tweety-bird sound. Not meant to post this in contradicting the don't bash sound men rule. It is about trying to have that kind of conversation that needs to be had once in a while, of if it should. That's my intent anyway. Backstory: So, I was finally able to squeeze in a little bit of a conversation with our sound guy. He doesn't play an instrument but has done a lot of reading on his own about mixing and is knowledgeable about it. The problem that I run into is that he sees his job as to make the overall sound be as good as possible (no argument there), but even if that means altering what individual players want their tone and instruments to sound like. For example, my bass going through my Sansamp VT DI sounds horrible in FOH.* I would absolutely be embarrassed if I had a rig that sounded like that. It is nothing like my amp and even nothing like my DI would sound flat. I understand there is a bigger picture but at some point I think it is lost that in a gig setting anyway, people come to hear what the band sounds like not what the soundman sounds like. Thus the tricky conversation that often needs to be had.

We had a conversation while we were rehearsing and I mentioned that our acoustic guitar player's guitar sounded good but sounded really thin (new LR Baggs DI). He said that it does when it's buy itself, but in the mix it sounds good and stands out. I realize there's truth in that and don't dispute it in anyway. My first thought was, yeah that's true, things sound differently in a mix and you have to consider the big picture without question, but what about when the guys playing by himself--is it OK for his guitar to sound thin/bad at that point? I realize it's all a balancing act but I often wonder if the sound of the band gets sacrificed for some end product that's in somebody's head?

Later we were discussing his new DI and I mentioned that it was nice that it had some equalization to it for him to make his guitar sound a little better if he needed it too. (It's a decent acoustic but doesn't sound like a Taylor or other more top-of-the-line guitars.) I said I realize that you don't want it to mess up the FOH, but I mentioned that has been the age old struggle with performing live. A band develops a certain sound, and wants to have their instruments sound a certain way individually and thus collectively, then they go play someplace and the sound person fits them into a box and basically changes their sound to a large extent. Not always, but a fair amount of time. I told him I've never played any place that I recall the soundman coming and listening to my rig and saying, "oh, that's what you want your bass to sound like" and trying to get that sound in the FOH. I was talking with my wife about it on the way home and she's experienced something similar at times with her keyboard. I told her it's frustrating at times because you spend a couple thousand dollars on an amp and a cabinet and want to sound a certain way, then it gets tweaked and you sound like you have a $125 bass and $75 amp. Realizing there are some things that do clearly sound bad and need to be weeded out, but altering the band's or individual's tone is a precarious thing. Something I suppose we have to just live with. Fortunately we are acquaintances and I would never seek to tell him ultimately had to run sound, but by the same token I wouldn't want him telling me what my bass ought to sound for those hearing it either.

My question is, how do we balance this given we each have jobs to do? Just give up and say it is what it is? What's the best, even proper attitude to have when your Thunderbird ends up sounding like a Tweety-bird?


* I live with this because I refuse to give up my amp and cab, therefore I am putting a fair amount of real bass sound out into the room. How far I never know but at least there is some solid bass happening in the front of the room.
 
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#177,751
dagrev said:
Having that conversation when your Thunderbird sound is turned into a tweety-bird sound. Not meant to post this in contradicting the don't bash sound men rule. It is about trying to have that kind of conversation that needs to be had once in a while, of if it should. That's my intent anyway. Backstory: So, I was finally able to squeeze in a little bit of a conversation with our sound guy. He doesn't play an instrument but has done a lot of reading on his own about mixing and is knowledgeable about it. The problem that I run into is that he sees his job as to make the overall sound be as good as possible (no argument there), but even if that means altering what individual players want their tone and instruments to sound like. For example, my bass going through my Sansamp VT DI sounds horrible in FOH.* I would absolutely be embarrassed if I had a rig that sounded like that. It is nothing like my amp and even nothing like my DI would sound flat. I understand there is a bigger picture but at some point I think it is lost that in a gig setting anyway, people come to hear what the band sounds like not what the soundman sounds like. Thus the tricky conversation that often needs to be had.

We had a conversation while we were rehearsing and I mentioned that our acoustic guitar player's guitar sounded good but sounded really thin (new LR Baggs DI). He said that it does when it's buy itself, but in the mix it sounds good and stands out. I realize there's truth in that and don't dispute it in anyway. My first thought was, yeah that's true, things sound differently in a mix and you have to consider the big picture without question, but what about when the guys playing by himself--is it OK for his guitar to sound thin/bad at that point? I realize it's all a balancing act but I often wonder if the sound of the band gets sacrificed for some end product that's in somebody's head?

Later we were discussing his new DI and I mentioned that it was nice that it had some equalization to it for him to make his guitar sound a little better if he needed it too. (It's a decent acoustic but doesn't sound like a Taylor or other more top-of-the-line guitars.) I said I realize that you don't want it to mess up the FOH, but I mentioned that has been the age old struggle with performing live. A band develops a certain sound, and wants to have their instruments sound a certain way individually and thus collectively, then they go play someplace and the sound person fits them into a box and basically changes their sound to a large extent. Not always, but a fair amount of time. I told him I've never played any place that I recall the soundman coming and listening to my rig and saying, "oh, that's what you want your bass to sound like" and trying to get that sound in the FOH. I was talking with my wife about it on the way home and she's experienced something similar at times with her keyboard. I told her it's frustrating at times because you spend a couple thousand dollars on an amp and a cabinet and want to sound a certain way, then it gets tweaked and you sound like you have a $125 bass and $75 amp. Realizing there are some things that do clearly sound bad and need to be weeded out, but altering the band's or individual's tone is a precarious thing. Something I suppose we have to just live with. Fortunately we are acquaintances and I would never seek to tell him ultimately had to run sound, but by the same token I wouldn't want him telling me what my bass ought to sound for those hearing it either.

My question is, how do we balance this given we each have jobs to do? Just give up and say it is what it is? What's the best, even proper attitude to have when your Thunderbird ends up sounding like a Tweety-bird?


* I live with this because I refuse to give up my amp and cab, therefore I am putting a fair amount of real bass sound out into the room. How far I never know but at least there is some solid bass happening in the front of the room.
Click to expand...
Jeez! Yer making me really grateful that none of the places we play have FOH. We provide our PA; we don't run instruments through the PA(we can, we don't-by choice). Our rooms don't require it.
I've been to a bunch of concerts where it's quite obvious the sound tech is looking at his board and listening through headphones, but never removes them to hear what the audience is hearing. Frustrating as hell-especially when I know what the bass part should sound like and all hear is the &^%$#@! kick drum.
 
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#177,752
dagrev said:
Having that conversation when your Thunderbird sound is turned into a tweety-bird sound. Not meant to post this in contradicting the don't bash sound men rule. It is about trying to have that kind of conversation that needs to be had once in a while, of if it should. That's my intent anyway. Backstory: So, I was finally able to squeeze in a little bit of a conversation with our sound guy. He doesn't play an instrument but has done a lot of reading on his own about mixing and is knowledgeable about it. The problem that I run into is that he sees his job as to make the overall sound be as good as possible (no argument there), but even if that means altering what individual players want their tone and instruments to sound like. For example, my bass going through my Sansamp VT DI sounds horrible in FOH.* I would absolutely be embarrassed if I had a rig that sounded like that. It is nothing like my amp and even nothing like my DI would sound flat. I understand there is a bigger picture but at some point I think it is lost that in a gig setting anyway, people come to hear what the band sounds like not what the soundman sounds like. Thus the tricky conversation that often needs to be had.

We had a conversation while we were rehearsing and I mentioned that our acoustic guitar player's guitar sounded good but sounded really thin (new LR Baggs DI). He said that it does when it's buy itself, but in the mix it sounds good and stands out. I realize there's truth in that and don't dispute it in anyway. My first thought was, yeah that's true, things sound differently in a mix and you have to consider the big picture without question, but what about when the guys playing by himself--is it OK for his guitar to sound thin/bad at that point? I realize it's all a balancing act but I often wonder if the sound of the band gets sacrificed for some end product that's in somebody's head?

Later we were discussing his new DI and I mentioned that it was nice that it had some equalization to it for him to make his guitar sound a little better if he needed it too. (It's a decent acoustic but doesn't sound like a Taylor or other more top-of-the-line guitars.) I said I realize that you don't want it to mess up the FOH, but I mentioned that has been the age old struggle with performing live. A band develops a certain sound, and wants to have their instruments sound a certain way individually and thus collectively, then they go play someplace and the sound person fits them into a box and basically changes their sound to a large extent. Not always, but a fair amount of time. I told him I've never played any place that I recall the soundman coming and listening to my rig and saying, "oh, that's what you want your bass to sound like" and trying to get that sound in the FOH. I was talking with my wife about it on the way home and she's experienced something similar at times with her keyboard. I told her it's frustrating at times because you spend a couple thousand dollars on an amp and a cabinet and want to sound a certain way, then it gets tweaked and you sound like you have a $125 bass and $75 amp. Realizing there are some things that do clearly sound bad and need to be weeded out, but altering the band's or individual's tone is a precarious thing. Something I suppose we have to just live with. Fortunately we are acquaintances and I would never seek to tell him ultimately had to run sound, but by the same token I wouldn't want him telling me what my bass ought to sound for those hearing it either.

My question is, how do we balance this given we each have jobs to do? Just give up and say it is what it is? What's the best, even proper attitude to have when your Thunderbird ends up sounding like a Tweety-bird?


* I live with this because I refuse to give up my amp and cab, therefore I am putting a fair amount of real bass sound out into the room. How far I never know but at least there is some solid bass happening in the front of the room.
Click to expand...
Challenging to say the least. The sound man can make or break you, no easy answer on this one.
 
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#177,753
dagrev said:
Having that conversation when your Thunderbird sound is turned into a tweety-bird sound. Not meant to post this in contradicting the don't bash sound men rule. It is about trying to have that kind of conversation that needs to be had once in a while, of if it should. That's my intent anyway. Backstory: So, I was finally able to squeeze in a little bit of a conversation with our sound guy. He doesn't play an instrument but has done a lot of reading on his own about mixing and is knowledgeable about it. The problem that I run into is that he sees his job as to make the overall sound be as good as possible (no argument there), but even if that means altering what individual players want their tone and instruments to sound like. For example, my bass going through my Sansamp VT DI sounds horrible in FOH.* I would absolutely be embarrassed if I had a rig that sounded like that. It is nothing like my amp and even nothing like my DI would sound flat. I understand there is a bigger picture but at some point I think it is lost that in a gig setting anyway, people come to hear what the band sounds like not what the soundman sounds like. Thus the tricky conversation that often needs to be had.

We had a conversation while we were rehearsing and I mentioned that our acoustic guitar player's guitar sounded good but sounded really thin (new LR Baggs DI). He said that it does when it's buy itself, but in the mix it sounds good and stands out. I realize there's truth in that and don't dispute it in anyway. My first thought was, yeah that's true, things sound differently in a mix and you have to consider the big picture without question, but what about when the guys playing by himself--is it OK for his guitar to sound thin/bad at that point? I realize it's all a balancing act but I often wonder if the sound of the band gets sacrificed for some end product that's in somebody's head?

Later we were discussing his new DI and I mentioned that it was nice that it had some equalization to it for him to make his guitar sound a little better if he needed it too. (It's a decent acoustic but doesn't sound like a Taylor or other more top-of-the-line guitars.) I said I realize that you don't want it to mess up the FOH, but I mentioned that has been the age old struggle with performing live. A band develops a certain sound, and wants to have their instruments sound a certain way individually and thus collectively, then they go play someplace and the sound person fits them into a box and basically changes their sound to a large extent. Not always, but a fair amount of time. I told him I've never played any place that I recall the soundman coming and listening to my rig and saying, "oh, that's what you want your bass to sound like" and trying to get that sound in the FOH. I was talking with my wife about it on the way home and she's experienced something similar at times with her keyboard. I told her it's frustrating at times because you spend a couple thousand dollars on an amp and a cabinet and want to sound a certain way, then it gets tweaked and you sound like you have a $125 bass and $75 amp. Realizing there are some things that do clearly sound bad and need to be weeded out, but altering the band's or individual's tone is a precarious thing. Something I suppose we have to just live with. Fortunately we are acquaintances and I would never seek to tell him ultimately had to run sound, but by the same token I wouldn't want him telling me what my bass ought to sound for those hearing it either.

My question is, how do we balance this given we each have jobs to do? Just give up and say it is what it is? What's the best, even proper attitude to have when your Thunderbird ends up sounding like a Tweety-bird?


* I live with this because I refuse to give up my amp and cab, therefore I am putting a fair amount of real bass sound out into the room. How far I never know but at least there is some solid bass happening in the front of the room.
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Your band needs a soundman who is part of the band.
 
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#177,755
Count Bassie said:
Your band needs a soundman who is part of the band.
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Yes, and we try to think of it that way. This situation is a church setting, so we're "friends" to some extent and some conversations like this one seem to have larger contexts that have to kept in mind.

But I fully agree with what you say. Years ago when various friends played in different bands, we would do sound for each other when possible because we knew what each other wanted and did sound like. Just thinking about how to have the sound guy to think of it that way instead of we have a job and he has a job is challenging. "Hey ____, in listening to the FOH, how can we get "our" sound out there without making it sound bad and mess up what you're trying to achieve?" I guess is a place to start. I hoping to hint today that us just playing notes on our instruments is not all there is that we want and do. Our tone and sound is almost as important as the notes being played.
 
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#177,756
dagrev said:
Yes, and we try to think of it that way. This situation is a church setting, so we're "friends" to some extent and some conversations like this one seem to have larger contexts that have to kept in mind.
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Can you please explain this church gig stuff? I don't know anything about it, but I hear about people talking about gear for it like rock gigs.
 
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#177,760
Platypus13 said:
View attachment 4293354 View attachment 4293355 View attachment 4293356 After a couple months of release dates getting pushed back back back, my Epiphone Thunderbird 60's bass in tobacco burst arrived yesterday!!! It was almost a bummer as when I got home, the box on the porch was half open and looked beat to hell. When I opened it up, there were a just few scattered pieces of kraft paper padding in the box. The bass itself was contained in a single layer of foam and an inner cardboard surround, but still, what a lame packing job!!! This is the first spanking new instrument I've ever bought, and I'm kind of astonished at how lousy of a job a big store like Musician's Friend, who has all the resources, did packing this.

I looked over the bass very carefully and it doesn't appear to be worse for wear. There was a sticker on the foam wrapping that said something like "careful - important parts enclosed" All that was in the box was the bass itself and a plastic pouch that has an owners manual, an Epi bumper sticker and a poster of Epi's current catalog. Anyone out there who's bought a new one recently know if I'm missing anything? If anything was loose in the box, it surely would have fallen out. It came strung and it was only slightly detuned, like a half step or so. Could that have put strain on the neck/headstock if it got banged around during transit (it was only in transit for two days) Also, could it have sustained any damage that isn't visible/ apparent now, that could show up down the road? It sounds great and all three pots move smoothly and quietly. Trying to figure out if I should pitch a fit to MF and send this one back for a replacement?

Now about the beast that is this Thunderbird 60's bass. Holy moly, this thing growwwwls!!! The pups are badass and tonally, this bass is massive with wide variation! Physically it's also quite impressive. This is my first Thunderbird and I've read about how big they are, especially the headstock, the size of which teeters on comical. Pictures can't do it justice. That being said, it hangs quite comfortably. I've always thought Tbirds were sexy as hell, but in person it's just so bitchin'! I can't believe I was almost going to cancel this one and get an Embassy instead. Not to knock the Embassy, but this bass makes me feel all kinds of tingly! Wow, does it make a HUGE sound, total boss of a bass!!!

Sorry the pic isn't better. I'm about to demo our first floor, so everything is kinda crammed into a corner.

Also, because I know this is an issue, I bought this case for it from the good people at Music Warehouse in NJ. Price is good, they ship super fast and it's a great bag. The Thunderbird fits the case no problem and the 20mm padding is dense. They offer a 30mm padded one as well for like $20 more. Proline TB-20 Black Thunderbird Bass Guitar Bag | Music Warehouse | Reverb
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I've been playing only Thunderbirds (not counting sitting in for someone else using a borrowed instrument) for several years now, and they still make me tingly!
 
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