Gould NR T-bird

[Freuds_Cat]

Found this while web trawling.

[Basvarken]

What scale is it? Medium?

[Freuds_Cat]

I dont really know anything more about it. Just found the pic and thought it interesting beacause I haven't seen a Gould before.

[godofthunder]

  I have seen these before, I think on ebay uk. Sure looks like a short or medium scale. It looked like a very low budget afair might be fun for modding. A Bach Bird is much much better.

[Droombolus]

Placing of the bridge PUP seems a little out of whack ...... 

[TBird1958]

I owned one for a short while.................It's not a good bass.
I would just say to all considering one to just move along, Those basses have too many really profound problems to be fixed - the BaCH one is far, far better. If anything we should all be greatful to Rob again for his efforts in getting a nice affordable Non Reverse Thunderbird in the market for us. 

[dadagoboi]

Placing of the bridge PUP seems a little out of whack ...... 

Pups in the right place relative to a Tbird, shortscale makes it look off.

I owned one for a short while.................It's not a good bass.
I would just say to all considering one to just move along, Those basses have too many really profound problems to be fixed

Mark, think you might list the major shortcomings so we could be better able to make up our own minds?  Looks as good as a shortscale Gibson Reverse at this point depending on price.

[TBird1958]

It's been 3-4 years now, but I don't recall the bass with any fondness.....

It really balanced badly ( That's saying something for me! I can pretty much "man up" when it comes to neck dive, the only bass I've owned that was worse was an Aluminum neck Kramer V), the neck isn't routed into the body very far at all ( it is a bolt on neck too) and it's definately not a short scale bass. The neck was more P than J which is a personal but that didn't make me want to keep it either. The pups were at very best weak, low output with no endearing tonal quality, and their postion on the body didn't help make it a better sounding or playing bass either, what the photo doesn't really give you is a sense of the size - it's a big bass, and if you compare it to a Gibson or a BaCH you'll see how far forward on the body the bridge is, again, this only contributed to the awkward playabilty.
QC is average for low end Chinese manufacture, nothing awful, again not great tho, think cheap. Gould isn't distributed in the U.S. so the one I got came to me from a dealer in the U.K., dealing with him was pleasant - in fact that's about the only thing about this bass that I do recall that went well. It was about 350.00 before shipping.
For similar $$$ BaCH is far better, I don't think there's an easy comparison to the short scale Gibson ( I'll post my thought's about Uwe's elsewhere, but I will say the my first impressions are that it's actually a pretty nice bass.   


   

[dadagoboi]

Thanks, Mark!

[Dave W]

It's been 3-4 years now, but I don't recall the bass with any fondness.....

It really balanced badly ( That's saying something for me! I can pretty much "man up" when it comes to neck dive, the only bass I've owned that was worse was an Aluminum neck Kramer V), the neck isn't routed into the body very far at all ( it is a bolt on neck too) and it's definately not a short scale bass. The neck was more P than J which is a personal but that didn't make me want to keep it either. The pups were at very best weak, low output with no endearing tonal quality, and their postion on the body didn't help make it a better sounding or playing bass either, what the photo doesn't really give you is a sense of the size - it's a big bass, and if you compare it to a Gibson or a BaCH you'll see how far forward on the body the bridge is, again, this only contributed to the awkward playabilty.
QC is average for low end Chinese manufacture, nothing awful, again not great tho, think cheap. Gould isn't distributed in the U.S. so the one I got came to me from a dealer in the U.K., dealing with him was pleasant - in fact that's about the only thing about this bass that I do recall that went well. It was about 350.00 before shipping.
For similar $$$ BaCH is far better, I don't think there's an easy comparison to the short scale Gibson ( I'll post my thought's about Uwe's elsewhere, but I will say the my first impressions are that it's actually a pretty nice bass.   


   

But aside from that, how did you like it? 

[PhilT]

I've seen other Goulds in shops in the UK and they've never struck me as something I'd want to buy. They tend to be in shops that focus on selling to clueless parents for "little Johnny wants a guitar" type presents.

Not, I hasten to add, that I would put Mark in the clueless category, parent or otherwise. It's just something you need to see before you buy, not from pictures. Though that burst looks like it might be hiding something at the edges, like plywood.)

[TBird1958]

It was a *risk* that I was willing to take at the time, I sold it for what I paid and considered it as experience.........