Pictures! 2012 Gibson Non Reverse Thunderbird

[the mojo hobo]

Can't imagine you would have been quite as choosy with your nose flattened against a window of a music shop offering these exactly in today's shape and form in 1968!

But the current SG is just like it was in 1968

[Chris P.]

I don't like it with black hardware. Gimme the faded Explorer!

[Dave W]

In answer to your RANT!!!!!!!!!!! :

It's the same body shape, but with different hardware and electronics, it's not a reissue. Likewise with all of the other "reissues" you mention.

Yet Gibson has no problem at all making reasonably accurate reissues of their guitars, even though most of them aren't to vintage original specs. No problem at all, even with perennial poor sellers like the Firebird.

Guys like Roman @ BaCH, Carlo, Scott, and Steve @ Thunderbucker have been able to come up with hardware and electronics more in keeping with the original, but Gibson with its much bigger resources can't manage to do this except with guitars. It's a direct slap in the face to its bass customers. They will give their guitar customers real choices, but when it comes to bass, you'll take what they dish out and like it.

Guess they figure their bass customer base is complacent enough to accept this, and they're probably right. But IMHO it's no way to run a business.

[Bionic-Joe]

In answer to your RANT!!!!!!!!!!! :

It's the same body shape, but with different hardware and electronics, it's not a reissue. Likewise with all of the other "reissues" you mention.

Yet Gibson has no problem at all making reasonably accurate reissues of their guitars, even though most of them aren't to vintage original specs. No problem at all, even with perennial poor sellers like the Firebird.

Guys like Roman @ BaCH, Carlo, Scott, and Steve @ Thunderbucker have been able to come up with hardware and electronics more in keeping with the original, but Gibson with its much bigger resources can't manage to do this except with guitars. It's a direct slap in the face to its bass customers. They will give their guitar customers real choices, but when it comes to bass, you'll take what they dish out and like it.

Guess they figure their bass customer base is complacent enough to accept this, and they're probably right. But IMHO it's no way to run a business.

I fully agree with you, Dave. Why is it that Fender can reproduce 95% accurate reissues but Gibson can't???

[copacetic]

he stars, moon, sun and universe were in full alignment when the Fender bass was designed, hence it's moniker as the most revolutionary instrument of the 20th century. Very simple instrument actually. They got it right the first time and the variations are objects of scrutiny and they have quite a quality control that is really surprising. I agree with both Uwe and especially Dave's points here on this one. To me Gibson basses of late are all platforms that need modifications and tweaking from the get go. In the last 10 years I have bought 4 new gibson basses and they all needed some form of extra work that should have been done in their shop before hitting the streets. The local Gibson rep and authorized reapairmen here in the Bay Area all agree that it is disgusting that their bass department is not as dedicated to their basses. Just think if they were.

[Basvarken]

I fully agree with you, Dave.

+1

[the mojo hobo]

In answer to your RANT!!!!!!!!!!! :

It's the same body shape, but with different hardware and electronics, it's not a reissue. Likewise with all of the other "reissues" you mention.

It's not a re-issue. I don't think we have been told what this bass is called yet, but I'm guessing it will be something like Thunderbird Studio Non-Reverse, and not mention re-issue at all. The'll go on about how it combines the best features of Gibson basses through the ages or something like that.

Fender has no problem making re-issues because they didn't change anything! Same with Gibson guitars; nothing changed there either.

And I don't think Gibson has a bass customer bass. No matter what they do, they just don't sell a lot of basses. Maybe if they would do a P body with TB plus pickups... (I know, they did that already, but the pointy headstock made the Bass IV untradional and unattractive. I'd probably still have mine it it had a 4 in line headstock.)

[uwe]

The differences of the reissue, sorry  ,

"so-called new bass looking a bit like one they already had some decades ago, but of course much uglier"

are slight to anybody but the most fervent trainspotters. Most esteemed members of this cherished forum don't even have the eyesight anymore to tell whether "an old one" or "a new one" were played on stage viewing it from the back of a small hall with less than daylight lighting.  

If the 1987 TBird wasn't a reissue of the sixties TBird which had been reissued once before in the seventies, then I don't know what it was. Most likely a reissue of the Jazz Bass then?

Semantics aside, you guys don't want reissues, you want make-believe replicas. And since when have guitar reissue policies been a standard for sane people like bassists? The detail and voodoo "original parts" obsession of our lesser 6-string brethren has always amused me, it's largely a sign of insecurity and their inborn wish to be and sound like someone else, but I don't blame them given the little toys they have to manhandle. I thought we were above that and a little bit further onwards in evolutionary terms ...

[Highlander]

[Muzikman7]

In one of my books on Fender and Gibson, there is a statement to the fact that Gibson was never intrested in making basses. The only reason was to have something to market to compete with Fender, to this day I don't think Gibson wants to bother their biggest seller is the Les Paul.

[Denis]

Thanks for the link, Scott! I like 'em! I can't enlarge thge pics on my crackberry enough to see real detail but I think they look good. No nitpicking on my end; I just want mine to sound great and to have been built well. Can't wait to see them in person! Since I have no new Tbirds I've no preconceptions on how it will sound.

[slinkp]

I think they're pretty.

[Dave W]

The differences of the reissue, sorry  ,

"so-called new bass looking a bit like one they already had some decades ago, but of course much uglier"

are slight to anybody but the most fervent trainspotters. Most esteemed members of this cherished forum don't even have the eyesight anymore to tell whether "an old one" or "a new one" were played on stage viewing it from the back of a small hall with less than daylight lighting.  
...

I disagree completely. The differences are obvious to anyone who knows anything about Gibson basses. You don't care about those differences, you will accept whatever they put out, and that's fine; you don't need to justify it, and I don't think you'll change anyone's mind by pretending that the differences aren't major.

[uwe]

Far from it, I relish the differences rather than not caring for them. If the Non Revs were exactly the same now as 45 years ago, I'd be collecting for production dates which is almost as sinful a collecting for fins. The variation within Gibson's wealth of different bass types - unbeaten by any Western producer - makes collecting them so gratifying. I want there to be variances from the old because I already have the old. Which is fine, that was then but this is now.

Dave, come on, a different, still vintage bridge with an idiosyncratic Gibson look and pups that are the modern day development of the sixties pups (and intended that way) are not "major changes". It's essentially the same bass, not a bolt-on maple neck with active circuit and piezo bridge plus medium scale. Let's not get carried away.

Can we all agree that the new Non Revs are a very gentle update of the old? And except here, where any type of deviation of mostly coincidental production traits is perceived as eternal sacrilege (they really should habe mispositioned the bridge on the new ones too, don't you think?!) by pious analysts, most normal bass players will see them as a refreshingly different nod to the past and qualify them as "vintage looking"?

"True Gibson patriots disdain new Non Rev for featuring a 40 year rather than a 45 year old bridge. Spokesman Dave W: It's just amother proof how Gibson shows disrespect to its bassist customers. Forum up in arms."

Any bets on what bridges the late 73 Non Revs would have used to general acclaim had they still been in production then? Of course, those would be near worthless today ...

[Dave W]

"You don't care about those differences" means it doesn't bother you that they change things at will (on basses only, of course -- guitarists get some respect from them). And you have confirmed that.

No, I don't agree that it's a "gentle update." The Firebird Studio NR qualifies as a gentle update. All Gibson did here was take current electronics and hardware and throw it on a NR Firebird body.

To Gibson, bassists are like Oliver Twist saying Please Sir, I want some more. The audacity!