Early Explorer

[Bionic-Joe]

http://www.pwogs.com/msvg_workshop_skunk_Explorer.html

[Barklessdog]

http://www.pwogs.com/msvg_workshop_skunk_Explorer.html

Really cool story & great pictures.

[Bionic-Joe]

Yeah...I was talking to the owner of the real one today...Man...he's taking his time verifying and studying and documenting it's History....WOW!! And He told me that It sounds Like a Thunderbird...not what you would expect.......

[EvilLordJuju]

Anyone know who this is. It seems to be the same room (same amps) as the guitar player article, so perhaps the then owner Tony Dukes? Any ideas? These photos were being sold in a used bookstore in Boston.





That plant needs a drink... and maybe some daylight.

[clankenstein]

this may have been asked earlier,but why are there 3 controls?

[godofthunder]

 They used guitar bodies the middle control is a dummy.

[uwe]

LOL - typically practically-minded Gibson!

[uwe]

He told me that It sounds Like a Thunderbird...not what you would expect.......

With a mudbucker near the neck and short scale? No way. Unless his reference is to those very early 63/64 TB IIs which did sound a little muddy. At least mine does. Certainly not your classical TBird sound.

[Bionic-Joe]

Well....He said it isn't muddy like those pickups usually are. It has a nice almost trebly tone. I'm just relaying what he said, tough guy!!! Heh! Heh! Heh!! Hey Uwe, is yours a short scale?

[uwe]

Yes, unfortunately! Nothing wrong with a shortie, but an Explorer cries for a long scale IMHO. Of course, when those first Explorers were made, there were no Gibson long scales so it wasn't an option. And by the time the TBird came out, the whole modernistic line had already flopped commercially and been deleted though I have read that Ray Dietrich's TBird design was based on the Explorer which he liked best from all the (failed) modernistic guitar shapes Ted McCarty showed him when he asked Ray to come up with something new. Looking at an Explorer and a TBird and thinking of how some people even mistake the two that might be true.

My short scale Explorer actually sounds a liitle TBirdish, but then it has Bicentennial TBird pups in similar positions as a TB so what do you expect other!

[senmen]

Guys,
I need to step in again....
Well as for the controls of the original Explorer bass I don't think that the middle pot was a dummy because I have seen old photos of Wayne Bullock with that bass and those show clearly that the last pot position is without any knob and could possibly also be an input jack....

Oliver

[sniper]

Baby, on your way up front please bring one of those cheap Chinese copies of the early Explorer basses up front will you please? Those things are selling like hotcakes.

[patman]

Goes to show you can learn something new everyday...I always associated Wayne Bullock with Hammond organ in Lonnie's band...I never even knew he played bass...I just looked up the credits on Wikipedia...

I even had an original copy of "The Wham of that Memphis Man"...haven't seen it in years, I'm sure its long gone.

[Bionic-Joe]

I think that one of those knobs is the baritone switch...or maybe a knob? I'm going to build one. I'm beyond obsessed now...I'm on a mission... i'm going to make it like the original with an EBO pickup and a choke/baritone push pull switch. Bidding on a mahogany  EB-2 neck and I plan on building a Korina explorer Body...banjo tuners...the works...
  Years ago I played an EB-2D with the choke...I was blown away at how cool it sounded...for a short scale bass...

[uwe]

A thread from the crypt - now resurrected!!!