Epiphone Rex Brown Thunderbird

[uwe]

Maybe the folks at Epiphone/Gibson don't even know the bicentennial T-bird had completely different pickups than the sixties Tbird.

And they're not the only ones.
In november 2023 I got a phone call from a German pickup maker who had taken up the plan to make a Thunderbird pickup. He wanted to know where he could obtain pickup covers. You'd expect a pickup maker/electronics specialist would have done some research on what he was going to imitate. But he had no clue whatsoever. Hadn't even noticed the different screw pattern on the covers. Let alone that he knew the bicentennial humbuckers are sidewinder pickups.

And also Thunderbird players don't always know the difference. Two customers of mine have been playing a 1978 Thunderbird for years, but had no idea the sixties Thunderbird had completely different pickups until I told them they did.

I guess we are a bunch of trainspotters over here at the Outpost ;-)

Both the 60ies and the Bicentennial pups have a nice vintage vibe and real sonic charm, but compared to a TBird with a modern day TB Plus they are a bit like vinyl to a CD: They lack subsonic oomph. Those pups stem from the 60ies and 70ies, they were not engineered to work in a down-tuned environment and in competition with a double bass drum hammering out sixteenth notes at 150 to 240 bpm (or even faster). People see Pete Way in a 45 year old live clip with UFO and think that a TBird is a heavy metal bass even for today - it's not. Music has changed, drums have become louder and there are a lot more lower bass frequencies in modern recordings and live concerts.

That is why I'm surprised that the scheduled Epi Rex Brown Sig TBird wasn't beefed up with a massive sounding active circuit. People who buy it will scarcely be playing Wishbone Ash tunes with it.

[Dave W]

Thanks to a post by Uwe, I now know who the hell Rex Brown is. I'm no longer blissfully and deliberately unaware but a still don't give a rat's arse.

[uwe]

No worries, I don't have a single Pantera CD. When they became big, I couldn't follow that music anymore. Worst of all Judas Priest then fell under their spell too and began to sound just like them on the two albums they did while Halford took his 10-year-vacation. And to top it off, Halford's solo ensemble Fight also copied the Pantera sound.

I know that they were hugely influential + that the late Dimebag Darrell has become a metal guitar icon, but their brand of brutish and heavy-handed metal never did anything for me. I like my music with some elegance and swing.

[TBird1958]

No worries, I don't have a single Pantera CD. When they became big, I couldn't follow that music anymore. Worst of all Judas Priest then fell under their spell too and began to sound just like them on the two albums they did while Halford took his 10-year-vacation. And to top it off, Halford's solo ensemble Fight also copied the Pantera sound.

I know that they were hugely influential + that the late Dimebag Darrell has become a metal guitar icon, but their brand of brutish and heavy-handed metal never did anything for me. I like my music with some elegance and swing.

I don't much care for almost all metal, it just leaves me flat, not saying it doesn't take skill to play it, but I find it utterly and completely souless and void of any real redeemoing quality.

[westen44]

I find it hard to believe there may be people out there who don't love the metal song "Why Are You Closed?" 

[Basvarken]

No worries, I don't have a single Pantera CD. When they became big, I couldn't follow that music anymore.

I know that they were hugely influential + that the late Dimebag Darrell has become a metal guitar icon, but their brand of brutish and heavy-handed metal never did anything for me. I like my music with some elegance and swing.

Same here.
I had never heard of Rex Brown until Gibson decided to release a Thunderbird signature for him.

[Dave W]

Only metal band I've ever seen in person is the Twin Cities' own aptly named Dumpster Juice.

[godofthunder]

  I got to mess with one a bit last night. Made in China not Indonesia like the 60s Tbirds. While not for me I think pretty favorably of it. https://youtu.be/o3aDfiqgwxU?si=dHebqZVq0TeJ8LON

[Basvarken]

so they're definitely not bicentennial sidewinders at all

[Ken]

Cool, Scott. Any noticeable difference in build quality between it and the Epiphone '60s one?

[godofthunder]

   I've been tracking China vs Indonesia Epiphone build quality for a while now through the inventory coming into the store. I have to say that I am very impressed with what is coming out of Epiphone's China plant, as I understand it Epiphone owns the China plant while in Indonesia the work is contracted. The new MIC Jack Casadys are great. I'll be honest though a lot of customers see the made in China stinker and won't touch 'em.

[Ken]

That's a pretty funny typo you made there in context (China stinker).  If Epiphone made left-handed basses, I'd absolutely be checking them out.

[4stringer77]

Rex should have just had these made in his home state of Texas. I mean half of China has already come through that open border. I bet those Chinese solder joints are still made out of good old lead too. Considering how much manufacturing has left China, they better step up their game. From what I've seen, most of the Chinese products are coming at steep discounts to make up for all the competition they are getting from Cambodia and Vietnam. As long as Epiphone can prove Uyghur slave labor isn't used, it's all good. I'm going to keep my wallet shut for the time being though as I'm still holding out hope for a Semiquincentennial anniversary Thunderbird in 26'.

[uwe]

Wasn't their brand of music called "power metal" or something?



I'm not doubting their ability to play (with one reservation: Dimebag's solo at 03:00 is to me largely out of time/sync with the backing track, but maybe that is intentional or my concepts of keeping time and rhythm are archaic), but the overt rawness and angularity of the music is grating to me, perhaps you have to be an angry adolescent to feel different. I can see though why it appealed to people that otherwise liked street rap.

Do I dislike all heavy metal? Not really though differentiating between hard rock, heavy rock and heavy metal can get philosophical real fast, but to me a band like Saxon is heavy metal (and they think they are too). And though no one in his right mind would call them elegant or chord-happy + harmony-drenched, the music retains some old-fashioned melody and accessibility.



When Judas Priest fled into Pantera territory (desperate to stay relevant in the Nu Metal onslaught of the 90ies) after the departure of Rob Halford, I tried hard to like what they did, but I just couldn't. It was to me a terrible barrage of machine-like riffage devoid of any reasonable melody.

[uwe]

  I got to mess with one a bit last night. Made in China not Indonesia like the 60s Tbirds. While not for me I think pretty favorably of it. https://youtu.be/o3aDfiqgwxU?si=dHebqZVq0TeJ8LON

Frankly, it doesn't sound much like the Gibson model at all where you could definitely hear a  "yeah, that sound makes sense for Rex Brown"-color unusual for a TBird:



Again, the most Rex Brownish thing on the Gibson model were the active electronics and they do away with those for the Epi? That's a con job IMHO. If cost calculation was the issue, it would have made more sense to give up on the neck-thru construction and retain a slightly more budget version of the active circuit instead. Or just one active pup.