Quote from Forum Archives on November 3, 2003, 9:06 am

Posted by: bruno_luse <bruno_luse@...>

Hi Graham!

The Gibson thunderbird is often considered to be the most successful bass
that Gibson ever made, and as far as I know it is definitely the only long
scale bass that they ever made in quantity, apart from the Thunderbird II,
which has the body wings swept the other way around.

For a time I was very interested in getting one of these basses, mostly
because of what I read about them and the fact that I'm into Christian heavy
metal - ask Andy Long, he knows 🙂

I've played one of the re-issues from Gibson, and these are my thoughts:

- The bass is very playable, in particular because of the neck, which is
extremely slim and easy to get around on.
- It sounds good! I'm told that the originals had a very distinctive cutting
tone because of the mahogany that was used, but the one that I played had a
more middle of the road sound: it's nice and fat, but with a bit of an edge.
The pickups are Gibson humbuckers, and seem to be nice and quiet.
- They do have that tendency to 'neck dive' because of the small body and
the large headstock, and I think this is something that your son should
consider. It may not be annoying in the store but I wouldn't want to have a
bass which doesn't stay where it is when I go to turn pages or make notes
etc.
- The neck is extremely thin between the nut and the headstock, and many of
the originals necks would break in this place if the instrument was dropped
or if the headstock was banged against something. I'm not sure if Gibson has
reinforced this area on the re-issues, but again, something to think about.
- The body is VERY SMALL!!! I had trouble finding a place to rest my right
forearm which playing. I would think this would be less of an issue if your
son plays mostly with a pick.

Overall, I think this is a good bass, very distinctive sounding and about as
distinctive looking as you could get, but it would not be a good all-round
instrument. Remember that Gibson t-birds are *best* known as hard rock and
heavy metal basses, as opposed to ones like Fender Js and Ps, which have
been successfully used in just about every style of music.

Do I remember correctly that the Epiphone version is bolt on?

I think you should try and find a Fender Aerodyne Jazz bass for your son to
try - it is a VERY good looking bass, all black with matching black
headstock and white body binding, sounds fantastic and has both P and J
pickups, so it's incredibly versatile.

>We also tried a Yamaha RBX370 which
>was very impressive at GBP250 and an Ibanex BTB300 which was a little more
>but a very well made bass with the simplicity of one pickup plus a tone and
>vol pot.

I think Yamaha basses are well made and good value for money - in Singapore
almost everybody starts on a Yamaha bass! Ibanez basses I don't know enough
about to comment.

God bless,

Bruno

Bruno Goh Luse <
www.musicianguitarist.com/bruno/index.html

St George's Church Singapore
www.stgeorges.org.sg/

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