The Last Bass Outpost
Gear Discussion Forums => Gibson Basses => Topic started by: Blackbird on November 25, 2013, 08:52:09 AM
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http://www.wildwoodguitars.com/products/140001145.php?CategoryID=0&n=0#
Looks sharp.
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Dang, I was really hoping I wouldnt like the new color but I kind of do. Better start pinching pennies.
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I thought it was made of walnut! Would have weighed a ton, but been something different.
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???
I must be doing it wrong, I see a Silver Epi and the 50th Anni 'Bird. What did I miss?
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(http://i42.tinypic.com/2mfj7s8.jpg)
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...........Klink, ve are zending you to ze Russian Front!
General Burkhalter, let me assure you..................
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Good ol' Google:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:r35bK5CyOkAJ:www.wildwoodguitars.com/products/140001145.htm+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
Cached page gets uppity if you try to enlarge the pics though, so here they are:
(http://www.ifb.co.uk/~matthew/pics/walnut_bird/thunderbird_w1.jpg) (http://www.ifb.co.uk/~matthew/pics/walnut_bird/thunderbird_w2.jpg)
(http://www.ifb.co.uk/~matthew/pics/walnut_bird/thunderbird_w3.jpg)
(http://www.ifb.co.uk/~matthew/pics/walnut_bird/thunderbird_w4.jpg)
Open the images in a new tab or download 'em to see 'em full size...
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It'd sure look nice with some chrome parts..........
Where's that dead horse...... >:(
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Now that's pretty, but I tend to like the natural look rather than most painted Tbirds.
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Okay, the wood looks nice.......It's just time for Gibson to get off their stodgey asses and do something fun, like metallic olive.
It's the best looking bass ever made and yet they do so little with it :-[
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Bassists will be riding in the back of the bus as long as Henry J. owns Gibson.
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Hmmm... I dunno Dave.
Gibson has been releasing new bass guitars at a breakneck pace lately
I have the feeling they've been doing more for bassists in the past few years than they have in the twenty years before
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Hmmm... I dunno Dave.
Gibson has been releasing new bass guitars at a breakneck pace lately
I have the feeling they've doing more for bassists in the past few years than they have in the twenty years before
I'd rather they slowed down a bit and did 'em right. Sorry. I've already ranted my head off about the gold EB. Just awful. It seems right now that Gibson are intent on testing my brand loyalty to the max, is that doing bassists any favours, because it's not doing me any favours, I can tell you that.
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It'd sure look nice with some chrome parts..........
Where's that dead horse...... >:(
Tell me, do the Nasty Habits receive a tax break for offering a job to a heavily sight-impaired bassist and where does your guide dog go when you are on stage? ;D
Those black pups and the matching hardware look great on that walnut.
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Looks nice, but I'd prefer the old natural finish. What's that inlay at the 12th fret?
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Argh, I looked at this pictures 50 times and just now noticed they brought back the pink and brown case, I'm not sure what to think now ;D
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Tell me, do the Nasty Habits receive a tax break for offering a job to a heavily sight-impaired bassist and where does your guide dog go when you are on stage? ;D
Those black pups and the matching hardware look great on that walnut.
Be gentle with the old woman Herr Gruppenfuhrer.......... :)
I did say it looks ok as is in an earlier post, it would be nice to have a choice tho.
I have recently eschewed the guide dog for a walker and a steady diet of creamed corn :P
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Hmmm... I dunno Dave.
Gibson has been releasing new bass guitars at a breakneck pace lately
I have the feeling they've been doing more for bassists in the past few years than they have in the twenty years before
You've been listening to Uwe, haven't you? ;)
There are two ways of looking at it. True, they have issued a lot of new models, more than they have in the prior twenty years. OTOH most of them are slight variations using existing hardware, and they have studiously avoided any kind of genuine vintage reissue. Yet they have no trouble doing all kind of vintage reissues or vintage original spec models on the guitar side.
They're also issuing some short run models on the guitar side, and it seems to be controversial. I saw a new guitar model that interested me, only 600 to be made worldwide. In reading about it on guitar boards (including Gibson's own forum) quite a few people think these short runs are nothing more than a cynical marketing strategy: issue guitars that will never be seen in most stores, that will have to be bought without being played, hoping for suckers to buy for future collectability. That may be an unfair judgment, but there's probably some truth to it.
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I'd rather they slowed down a bit and did 'em right.
+1. They should consider treating The Coolest Bass Ever Made with the same respect they show to the Les Paul, ES-335 and SG. They know how to do better.
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Buy thirty new Gibson basses blind off the rack, put them in a time machine and send them back to bassists in the early seventies, they would be raving about each one of them and Bass Player would run a full feature on the magnificent new TB Plus pup. That's the truth, everything else is just rose-tinted nostalgia. Grabber II, Ripper II and the G-3 Tribute are all better-made than their ancestors and sound rounder, more consistent and more assertive too.
Hey, and Dave, don't knock the Dutch kid if for once he agrees with me!
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Buy thirty new Gibson basses blind off the rack, put them in a time machine and send them back to bassists in the early seventies, they would be raving about each one of them and Bass Player would run a full feature on the magnificent new TB Plus pup. That's the truth, everything else is just rose-tinted nostalgia. Grabber II, Ripper II and the G-3 Tribute are all better-made than their ancestors and sound rounder, more consistent and more assertive too.
Hey, and Dave, don't knock the Dutch kid if for once he agrees with me!
TB Plus pickups are nice, I love them in my IV. Just a great sound that works in a live band situation straight out of the bag. So agreed, I'm sure people back in the 70s would have been very excited about them.
I would rather have the original G-3 though. But we all know why that is and how sour my experience with the new one was. I have tried both, and there's no rose tinted spectacles here - all happened in the last 5 years. I can't begin to tell you how underwhelmed I was by the Grabber 3 '70's Tribute. Never mind the faults of the two that had brief stays in my house - that flat satin finish was just that - flat and was missing the last stages of care and attention (and buffing) that normally happens. It just looked cheap to me and it pains me so much to speak ill of my favourite brand, but I was really put off. That satin finish honestly reminds me of sticky backed plastic, if you want to get all 70s about it. I doubt very much if you transported me back to the 70s too that my opinion would change either.
You stand an original G-3 next to a Tribute and my eyes and my ears would be drawn to the old gal every time. I'm not old enough to be nostalgic about it the first time round :)
But you know way more about the relative merits of them all, so perhaps I should curb my insolent tongue ;)
Can't comment on the others, having played neither the new or original ones.
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Well, if the G-3 I bought last year was sent back the 1970s a hell of a lot more bassists would have been playing them that's for sure.
I'm really, really bummed you had bad experiences with yours. Mine is easily in my top five favorites. My buddy played it at home, then at a show, then a bunch of shows and ignored his Ric the entire time he had it.
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That G-3 I sent to Uwe was a very good sounding bass - I don't get out to try "other" basses much lately - That G-3 was impressive and sadly unnoticed. Gibson did a good job on it.
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Am I missing something again?
The bass does not look like walnut stain or walnut wood?
Is this a joke of some kind?
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Buy thirty new Gibson basses blind off the rack, put them in a time machine and send them back to bassists in the early seventies, they would be raving about each one of them and Bass Player would run a full feature on the magnificent new TB Plus pup. That's the truth, everything else is just rose-tinted nostalgia. Grabber II, Ripper II and the G-3 Tribute are all better-made than their ancestors and sound rounder, more consistent and more assertive too.
Hey, and Dave, don't knock the Dutch kid if for once he agrees with me!
Uwe...you can say how great the new Gibsons are all you want...But you just can't beat Old Wood. Period. Unless of course you are Yamaha with their wood aging process.
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Buy thirty new Gibson basses blind off the rack, put them in a time machine and send them back to bassists in the early seventies, they would be raving about each one of them and Bass Player would run a full feature on the magnificent new TB Plus pup. That's the truth, everything else is just rose-tinted nostalgia. Grabber II, Ripper II and the G-3 Tribute are all better-made than their ancestors and sound rounder, more consistent and more assertive too.
Hey, and Dave, don't knock the Dutch kid if for once he agrees with me!
You don't know that. It's just your own confirmation bias. Blindfolded, there would almost surely be some who would choose the more modern version and some who wouldn't. Even so, preferring one version to another isn't limited to tone.
Am I missing something again?
The bass does not look like walnut stain or walnut wood?
Is this a joke of some kind?
It's a regular T-bird in construction, w/mahogany wings. Looks like a light walnut stain to me.
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Am I missing something again?
The bass does not look like walnut stain or walnut wood?
Is this a joke of some kind?
Ditto. Looks to me like a light mahogany or koa.
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I'm really, really bummed you had bad experiences with yours. Mine is easily in my top five favorites. My buddy played it at home, then at a show, then a bunch of shows and ignored his Ric the entire time he had it.
I'm bummed about it too, I don't think I'll mention it ever again. I've said my piece a couple of times even though it pains me to do so. Draw a line.
So I think I'll just sit back and wait for Gibson to reintroduce basses to their tubs of grain filler and their buffing machines ;)
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Ditto. Looks to me like a light mahogany or koa.
It's a regular bird with a light transparent walnut stain. Look at the grain of the body wings, that's mahogany, not koa. And definitely not walnut wood.
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Didn't bi-centennial birds look like that? It's how I remember them.
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Didn't bi-centennial birds look like that? It's how I remember them.
As far as I know, they were all burst, black, white, or natural - no stain. And with chrome hardware. ;D
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They "walnutted" over time as the clear gloss yellowed.
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That's the truth, everything else is just rose-tinted nostalgia. Grabber II, Ripper II and the G-3 Tribute are all better-made than their ancestors and sound rounder, more consistent and more assertive too.
Aside from the build quality item (which I am skeptical about given the amount of fit/finish complaints on new Gibsons we see around here, but I can't speak to personally.... the few vintage Rippers/Grabbers/G3s I have seen were damn solid, though I suppose 40 years of use can hide finish imperfections), isn't any judgement about the sound completely subjective?
I mean, I love vintage mud. The new SG bass sounds great, but my vintage EB3 does a thing I really like that the SG can't. Yes the SG is more versatile and sounds 'better' in a typical this-is-how-we-bass way, but when you have multiple instruments, I would think that a certain specialization is actually more useful than having a bunch of jack of all trades, and I don't particularly care to sound like anybody (everybody) else anyway (I go to great lengths not to). Since the pups are so different on these updated G-series models (not reissues, given the "II" moniker - I appreciate them making this distinction) this may very well be an improvement in many ways (technically; on paper etc), but those old ripper pups (mini-muds as they were sidewinders) had their own special thing, which some people may legitimately prefer, as did the original (Bill Lawrence) G3 pups (I really love those, the new ones may be very good too, I haven't tried them yet). To chalk it up to pure nostalgia is not entirely fair. Though I understand their decision (being different has not served Gibson so well in the bass market historically), I do think that Gibson is missing an opportunity here by letting these old pup designs languish unused (could they not be updated and improoved with modern materials and manufacturing but still retain a basic character and advantages of the original vs a completely differant design?). There is a market for them as clearly shown by consistently rising ebay prices on vintage units as well as clone reissues by other makers. Gibson has been one of the most innovative companies as regards bass pups and it's a shame that they are abandoning much of that heritage to try to be more Fender/Musicmanish (this is, paradoxically, also something that has historically not always worked out for them so well).
Also, I find that 'round' and 'assertive' are, if not quite mutually exclusive descriptors, not exactly things that are easily reconciled in my mind, so your description is a little confusing. To me, round means mellow in a sine wavey way, with good bass response and extension, while assertive conjures thoughts of mid-forwardness, maybe even a little aggressive brightness or clank. I have a hard time imagining a sound that is both of these things. .. but that's the eternal problem with descriptions of tone.
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Sometimes a non-round sounding bass can be really assertive, granted. But TB Plus pups offer lower bass than their predecessors and more sophisticated presence while at the same time retaining mid-range crunch and boom. So they get themselves heard without stepping on anybody's frequency toes. Anybody ever tried playing a Bicentennial and competing with a double-bass drum attack?
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Anybody ever tried playing a Bicentennial and competing with a double-bass drum attack?
Actually I have, in a very loud heavy metal band. It cut through like a hot knife through butter. Both my Bicentennials are like that. It amazes me when I hear some of you guys say they don't.
(https://scontent-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/230030_10151345931152578_1826229692_n.jpg)
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It amazes me when I hear some of you guys say they don't.
I think a lot of that depends on the amp and cabinet. When I got SWR cabinets in the 90's my Thunderbirds didn't cut through nearly as much as they did through a sealed 8X10, even with the same head (GK800RB). These days I have a sealed Ampeg 4X10 and a ported SWR Goliath 4X10. Totally different sounds. To my ears, a Thunderbird through a sealed cabinet and plenty of power (tube head or not) and I hear it just fine.
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Yep, thru my GK's my '76's have plenty of everything, typically I'm dialing the bass back to noon, with the low mids at 1:00, there's way more than enough volume with a 700RBII.