NancyJohnson

Sansamp RBI into one side of a Matrix poweramp here. Best set up I've ever used and I'd never go back to a one box amplifier. The poweramp also gives me the option to run dual channels via a floorboard as well.

[quote name='Low End Bee' timestamp='1488545556' post='3249870'] Now I've got a bass from this lot myself and it's really good. But I have to say these gumby looking things on the end of the necks aren't pretty. Especially as a 5er [/quote] I always thought the headstocks were OK, but find the angled machines offputting. Banjo tuners would be good.

I'm conflicted and not actually certain whether I should be getting moist over a console. It looks like something from a 50s sci-fi movie. Sure, it has [i]provenance[/i] but that doesn't mean if you plug The Dead Kennedys into it they're going to make Dark Side Of The Moon II. My money is on the purchaser coming from the new rock money. Grohl. Billie-Joe. I love that they're throwing in a vintage photo of Pink Floyd promoting DSOTM. Hardly, a pound of free sausage meat with every turkey, is it?

I've just been looking through Google for images! The SVT logo on the fascia was italicised and coloured; it had a red V in the middle of SVT; it looked like the one below, although I don't recall there being Ultra Hi/Lo buttons on it and I thought there was a knob marked as being 'presence' (although looking at the plethora of online images, I guess there probably wasn't). The standby and power switches, while similar, were a bit bigger/squarer. Rightly or wrongly, I went into the 0db input. I had about five minutes to try and get an agreeable tone and found it very difficult to dial up anything decent; my regular signal chain is fairly simple, Sansamp RBI into a power amp...I just thought the Ampeg would replicate this easily. No growl, no dirt, nada. It almost sounded like I was playing with flats.

[quote name='James Nada' timestamp='1488487353' post='3249465'] Not the winner, but... [URL=http://s712.photobucket.com/user/badgerpigdog/media/Gibson-Steinberger-20_20-ad.jpg.html][IMG]http://i712.photobucket.com/albums/ww127/badgerpigdog/Gibson-Steinberger-20_20-ad.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [/quote] I've had a slow burn for a 20/20 for a while now. I think Gibson only made about 150.

Gigged last night and after schlepping my quite modest Barefaced/rack through narrow corriders and up five flights of stairs, I'm told the first band on were supplying the bass ampage. My eyes beheld an Ampeg rig; an old SVT nestling atop a pair of tatty cabinets. Compared to the gear around it, it looked like Chicago's Willis Tower viewed from Lake Michigan. Never even touched an Ampeg in 30 years of playing and on the orders of the sounds guy, I returned my amps to my car. You know, the name of Ampeg is surrounded by legends...didn't Geddy use Ampeg? Great, I thought, let's drive this motherf*cker and see what my Thunderbird sounds like. Or not. I had about five minutes with it before our set and couldn't get any kind of drive or dirt out of it, the tone/presence controls barely did anything and it didn't seem to own it's frequency if that makes sense or 'throw' in the slightest. Sure it was loud, but that was about it...there was none of this monsterous tone that has been alluded to in the countless articles I've read over the years. Having used the same bass for recording via DI, it has a pretty acceptable tone recorded flat, but I couldnt actually accept that it could have sounded worse when amplified. It's difficult to describe the experience as anything other than underwhelming.

Amazon are selling 14077 sets for £32.00 at the moment...that's about a tenner or so off. You're welcome. Px

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1488357605' post='3248109'] Oh... I didn't know about. It must be these? Thanks for the heads up. [/quote] That's them. I think there's more mixes...years ago I went to a record fair in Reading and saw a promo CD that had at least four bass/drum/vocal mixes, but I was all spent up, so couldn't but it. Damn you Alice In Chains bootlegs.

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1488308253' post='3247796'] Are you talking about this (Among others), NancyJohnson? [/quote] Nope! I just checked on my NAS. On tge CD single for Snowblind, there's isolated bass/drum/vocal mixes of Snowblind and Trans-Island Skyway.

Just on the Fagan/bass thing, I'd highly recommend the bass and drum mixes that turned up on the b-sides of some of the Kamakiriad period singles. Beautiful stuff.

[quote name='HengistPod' timestamp='1488208933' post='3246793'] As a final note, I like the 3-point bridge. It's part of what a Thunderbird is all about. I tried the Hipshot bridge but found it to be an enormous slab of metal which made very little difference to my sound. So it lives in a box now. I like to feel the 3-pointer under the edge of my hand, which is now suitably calloused on the fleshy bit at the base of my pinky. [/quote] Try the Babicz. It's a joy.

Best mate played rudimentary guitar. I knew someone who had a Jedson bass and a WEM Dominator combo I was able to borrow.

[quote name='Kiwi' timestamp='1484105999' post='3212735'] Try living and being an entreprenuer there! I'm lucky I still have my sanity and hair. Being informed that there Chinese way of doing things and then seeing sh*t hitting the wall after my advice wasn't heeded has made me less tolerant...not more worldly (and this isn't my first time here). I could go on for hours about why this is the case. Mostly I believe it's the education system - it focuses exclusively on remembering facts and passing tests, not on understanding and problem solving. My niece is 12 and works until 11pm each night on homework (and she has a near photographic memory so never needed to study much in the past). It's a relentless grind for them with no room for personal development and I feel sorry for the poor bastards. The education system produces machines, not thinkers. Still...some, like my inlaws, can't help but think outside the box . In terms of generally working with Chinese, some allowance needs to be made for skill levels not being as high as in western countries and details get overlooked very easily. It's much more efficient to give them an example of what is wanted if so much of what is expected lies in attention to detail. It's then easy to point to the bits that are key to quality. Then they need training time to gain confidence and experience through repetition. As you say they're very eager to please. Once they've got the hang of what is expected, they turn into machines and can work relentlessly and very consistently - (as they are expected to by the education system). As for the topic of IP, it's a source of considerable frustration for myself. Trying to develop proof of concept without the manufacturing partner stealing those ideas is almost impossible to enforce legally. Yes there are confidentiality agreements that can be set up but the courts here generally like to have a pop at western interests on the basis of principle if there is an opportunity. So even if you took a company to court, used Chinese representation and had all the paper work in place, the courts might delay a decision indefinitely. [/quote] Until last September, I worked for a subcontractor deeply embedded within a global-Chinese telecom business. While you want to come across on a forum as understanding and politically correct, sadly I can't on this matter. I found the environment not unlike being beamed onto a Borg cube; a hive mindset where you really only have two choices when working with them; their way or not your way. Pleasant enough to your face (or if you're lucky enough to engage with one of them alone, away from the nest), I found them wholly untrustworthy in business and despite assurances during meetings, they would deny everything and do the opposite of what they'd agreed to do. I won't go into their toilet habits or the constant hawking up and flobbing into plant pots. Oh, sorry. I did.

[quote name='Spike Vincent' timestamp='1487935516' post='3244282'] Neck dive. Inherently unbalanced design, when you strap it on the headstock decides it wants to touch the floor. [/quote] Nope. Don't get it. Sorry.

A friend if mine had a CD shop around the time Nevermind came out. He was offered boxes of Nevermind by the label as the album tanking and they were looking towards clearing overstocks. Bargain bin filler. Curiously, same thing with Dookie by Green Day.

[quote name='Norris' timestamp='1487785738' post='3242918'] RnB has always confused me. It doesn't sound like any rhythm and blues I've heard. It seems to be such a wide genre too - so many turns are described as an 'RnB artist" [/quote] It's the whole misappropriation of genres titles. To me, R'n'B is late 40s/50s stuff, like Ray Charles, Bo Diddley and to an extent the white British derivation in bands like The Who and early Rolling Stones. The stuff my parents listened to. TLC and Rhianna are not R'n'B. And don't get me started on Garage.

[quote name='Spike Vincent' timestamp='1487757265' post='3242412'] The Tokai Thunderbirds are extremely nice well made quality instruments,but they take neck dive to the level of an olympic sport. [/quote] Neck what?

[quote name='Harryburke14' timestamp='1487672008' post='3241618'] I want a thunderbird but after playing an epi one at PMT yesterday I found it hard to get on with given the neck being so long. [/quote] This doesn't really make a lot of sense. At 34", the scale length is comparable/the same as that of a Jazz/Precision. OK, sure the body shape might add to the illusion that the neck keeps going, but it doesn't! Just check Google for photos of Fenderbirds...lots of Thunderbird bodies with Fender necks on them.

Musically, Japan. The early period only, mind. Adolescent Sex/Obscure Alternatives/Quiet Life. More recently, Motion City Soundtrack.

Gibson have had some fairly crazy/unconventional designs historically and there's been plenty of redesign to get a bass from a fundamentally guitar design (Firebird/Thunderbird et al). While I really like the weirdness of the Moderne and Futura (also the original Explorer with the V-shaped split headstock), I honestly don't know how a Moderne or Futura bass would size up...I seem to remember someone building a Futura bass (google confirms this) and its a monstrosity! I suppose the best you could do is check out some old Hamers to see what you can achieve; they seemed to pillage through old Gibson designs and make them their own for a bit.

[quote name='MacDaddy' timestamp='1487673683' post='3241646'] it's not like Gibson are going out of their way to advertise or promote the new EB Bass. Although a couple of people are sat with it, it's not mentioned in the Gibson USA 2017 New Model Year video. [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1aIPdOdXdI"]https://www.youtube....h?v=v1aIPdOdXdI[/url] [/quote] I'm not one for dissing on anyone's ability, we all have to start somewhere, but for the love of god couldn't Gibson have gotten someone/anyone [i]better [/i]or perhaps more[i] adept [/i]than Noah Sierota (from Echosmith) to play that EB? It doesn't actually look to bad in that clip. Christ on a bike. Fender = Geddy Lee, Yamaha = Billy Sheehan, MusicMan = John Myung. I could go on. They could have flown me and Neeph over. At least we've been buying and playing their instruments for a while.

While I favour Thunderbirds, Gibson really missed a trick limiting them to (primarily) sunburst, black or ivory finishes, or the odd walnut or cherry ones (let's not talk about the gold monstrosity), especially considering the variety on the six string front. I have a mate who owns a Yamoto Thunderbird in sapphire blue and it is gorgeous. Look, while there's some lacklustre basses in this year's range, it's not like you can't pick up a Gibson bass; there's always availability. So 2018. What would I like to see? In the unlikely event that the 20/20 will reappear(!), then a faithful Thunderbird II reissue, using the nitro 60s custom colour palette. Two part bridge, oversized headstock, chrome. F*ck it, relic it if necessary. What do I know?