Epiphone Gothic Thunderbird

[Delberthot]

Bout time I did a review for my Gothic Thunderbird.

A very different animal to the standard Epiphone Thunderbird IV. Main differences include:

1) Jazz bass width neck ( 1.5" ) as opposed to the standard 1.73"
2) Mahogany body rather than alder
3) Ceramic pickups rather than Alnico (I'm assuming that's what they are)

Some people have noticed that the pickup spacing is different as well but I don't have a standard to check it out.

For the Eagle-eyed, you may notice that this bass is very similar to the Nikki Sixx Blackbird. That's cos they begin life as the same bass. The main differences being the pickups, the controls (or lack of) and the Blackbird Optigrab.

[u][size=4]Fit & Finish[/size][/u]

This bass is very well put together. The neck joint is very tight and everything is situated exactly where it should be. There are no rough fret ends on this bass - in fact I've never come across any rough fret ends on any Epiphone bass I've owned.

The headstock is joined to the neck by means of a scarf joint which makes it more solid than the single piece Gibson ones, or indeed the Epiphone Explorers that use a single piece of wood for the entire neck. Single piece necks are weaker and therefore can suffer a break more easily.

This bass is finished in what could only be described as the easiest to mark finish ever created to go on a guitar. Its a dull matt paint finish with no apparent laquer top coat. After some time you may find that areas that you are constant contact with become shiny. Scratches are so easy to make, you could even make one with your fingernail. It wouldn;t be deep but it would show up on the finish

This bass uses the common 3 point bridge found on on most Gibsons and Epiphones. They're terrible. a pure pain in the proverbial to adjust. They are floating so there is minimal contact with the body which we are always led to believe is essential for a bridge to transfer sound from the strings to the body in order to resonate and so on.

One issue that many Epiphones suffer from is the inserts that hold the bridge in are prone to coming out. This occurs especially when you try to lower the action most of the way down - you may find that as you turn the screw, the insert starts coming out with each turn. The solution is to glue them in. Why they don't do this in the factory I don't know.


[size=4][u]Playability[/u][/size]

Thunderbirds are completely different to play than your usual Fender or Fender clone by the fact that you have a large upper bout at the bridge end where you would normally have a nice contoured part to rest your forearm on. This requires a different technique which also combats neck dive

The pickups on this are very growly, helped in part by the mahogany body to produce a very gnarly animal which can very easily overdrive your preamp. The solution is either to lower the pickups quite a bit or use the active input/pad on your amp.

The neck is superslim, like the slimmest Rickenbacker neck you've ever played and like the Rick, the taper from nut to body end is very small which makes it more comfortable to play in my opinion

The heel on the body is quite bulky so it is difficult to easily get up beyond the 17th fret - in fact its almost impossible. Then again, you're a bass player, why would you ever want to above there anyway


[size=4][u]Weight & Balance[/u][/size]

This is a heavy bass. I'm not sure exactly how much but its a lot heavier than it looks, helped by that mahogany body.

And on to the big issue (nothing to do with the homeless) - neck dive! Right, for a bass to balance properly you really need the front strap button to be around the 12th fret. This bass has nothing after the 16th fret so that's why it will try to hit the floor any time you let go of the bass.

The 3 best things you can do are firstly to buy yourself a big wide ass neoprene strap like a Comfort Strap. I have a Brooklyn Gear one that I bought from Stringbusters many moons ago which is more or less the same strap. This will also help to combat the fact that its a heavy bugger. I am by no means a big hard man, well I am big, but I can comfortably wear this bass all night using this strap. Use anything else and you'll be in pain in short order. I still have vivid memories of using a standard leather strap when I had my Stingray and having to take the strap off my shoulder and rest it on the other one after a while cos there was no padding to absorb some of the weight

The second thing is to move the front strap bottom as close as you can to the magic 12th fret position. The closest you can get it is on the end of the heel which gets the strap to about the 14th fret if you use straplocks which helps push it out that wee bit further



The only snag with this is that you need a strap with a very narrow end in order to comfortably be able to get it on. What I did was to find myself a strap with a very narrow end, cut it to about 3" long and connect it to my comfy strap by means of a nut and bolt using a couple of washers I had left over from a previous set of Dunlop Strap locks.

The third and final thing is to buy a Hipshot Supertone bridge. The sheer weight of this will also add bulk to the end of the body, helping combat the neck dive ever further. It is a hell of a lot easier to adjust, offers string width adjustment and is a solid mass of metal which helps to solve our string to body transfer problem that the Epiphone bridge on stilts causes.


[u][size=4]Sounds[/size][/u]

If you want a bass that will cover most styles of music then this is it. I use it in a wedding/function band where I could be playing King's of Leon one minute, the Scissor Sisters the next then onto Nat King Cole (was a merry old soul) and it has never let me down.

It will do thuddy, clear and crisp, nasal Jazz bass sounds, grindy rock and whatever you want to throw at it. The best setup for me is a low action so that when I dig in with my fingers or use a plectrum I get a bit of rattle and clank.

The sound when using the bridge pickup solo'd is the best. I very rarely use the neck pickup. Just a slight amoung to fatten up the tone a bit


[u][size=4]Overall[/size][/u]

This is my third Thunderbird. I sold my first one when I couldn't get it to balance properly and didn't consider another until I was sure I could get it to balance properly. With the above mods which are very easy to do you can create a very playable, not to mention very cool bass.

The Pro models are coming in at £250 and this one retails at £199. I'd still take this one over the pro for 2 reasons, namely: 'Proper' Thunderbirds are passive and secondly; I've heard so many stories about the terrible fretwire they are using on them causing premature fretwear. The first bit is of course only my own opinion and they could be easily changed to passive. The second one is worrying if frets are wearing out so quickly on what looks like a cracking bass.

Gibson/Epiphone basses have never been as popular as Fenders so are never going to hold their value that well - for example I've seen 1960 Precisions going for £4000 and a Gibson EB2DC for the same period fail to make half that amount. A 1975 EB-0 going for 2008 Fender MIA money as well is another example. You get the idea.






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Edited October 16, 2011 by Delberthot

[blind pilot]

cool review, i am waiting on my t-bird to be delivered, am looking forward to it !

Any links for the best place to get one of those bridges?

[blind pilot]

[url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-Hipshot-SuperTone-Bass-Bridge-Gibson-BLACK-/330470275198?pt=Guitar_Accessories&hash=item4cf190387e"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-Hipshot-SuperTon...=item4cf190387e[/url]

oooooo bargin innit!

[buelljack]

I love my Thunderbird! Been out gigging the guitar and the 'attack' and feel of it are great. I havent made any mods to stop the neck dive, its just something I have accepted, and quite like the look on some of our vids where we finish a song i play the last note and let the guitar just drop, come across as a very 'F You' hard rocker thing. But thats just me.

I do want to add the Goth to my stable though!