I wanted to post this earlier but didn't have time to take the required pics
my lovely wife asked for a few ideas for Christmas gifts and at the end of my list, I jokingly put an ad for a Epi Tbird Pro IV with no expectations of her buying it. anyway, after the family finished exchanging gifts, we sat down for our tradional Christmas breakfast of french toast, eggs and sausage. after breakfast we went to sit around the tree but as we left the kitchen, my daughter distracted me while my son ran upstairs. when we made it to the living room, there was the bird propped up against one of the chairs! to say the least, I was shocked and was speachless. I felt sort of guilty getting this gift but after playing it for awhile, I decided it was ok
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it needed a setup but that's par for the course. I had played a few at guitar center and was impressed with the build and overall quality. not as nice as a gibson but much better than I expected. it's tone can ranges from psuedo-mud to extremely bright. I asked gibson about the preamp specs, but haven't heard anything yet, although they did say the pickups were a 'new special design'
. so far I've only played it at home and I'm curious to see how it does in a band setting. it's a fairly nice bass and as Uwe mentioned in another thread, the upper fret access is just fine. my son likes to play jazz chords and uses frets 12-16 all the time and he was able to do his thing with ease.