Walnut Bird

[66Atlas]

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 

[TBird1958]

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? 

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 

[Dave W]

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.

[cmaj]

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.

[uwe]

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!

[neepheid]

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.

[Denis]

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.

[TBird1958]

 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.

[Barklessdog]

Am I missing something again?

The bass does not look like walnut stain or walnut wood?

Is this a joke of some kind?

[Bionic-Joe]

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.

[Dave W]

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.

[amptech]

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.

[neepheid]

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

[Dave W]

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.

[patman]

Didn't bi-centennial birds look like that?  It's how I remember them.