Gibson 1979 Bicentennial Thunderbird Bass

1979 Bicentennial Thunderbird. Opaque ebony finish, 34" scale. Mohogany thru-neck, very narrow up top. Rosewood fretboard. Tuners are reverse-thread Kluson. Has 2 passive "sidewinder" nickel plated humbucking pickups, two volume, one tone. Give the features "8".

I've used it to play hard rock and dance-pop. I play mostly with a pick, sometimes fingers. It sounds much better playing hard rock. It has a really nice sound when you play it solo, especially on both pickups, quite rich, if a bit on the weak side. Playing with the band, however, is a different story. On both pickups, the sound is completely lost. I found that I recovered a bit of punch if I shut off one pickup. The bridge pickup cuts through the mix better, but the neck pickup has a more pleasing sound; deeper, as you'd expect. To make the signal stronger, I tried raising the pickups towards the strings, but this caused problems with the bridge. The bridge is of that 3-point anchor Gibson design, and the saddles have varying heights for feel. The strings are therefore at various heights as they pass over the pickups, making the signal for the E and G strings stronger than the A and D stings. The pickups are weak to begin with, and if you raise them to compensate, you get about the right signal from the middle stings, but then you ruin the sounds of the outer ones. I wound up filing down the saddles for the middle strings to make the heights a little more even over the pickups, and this helped a bit. I've concluded that, sound-wise, it'd be a nice bass if you'd never played a better one. Sadly, there are many better ones around.

Well, as I said above, I have a bit of an issue with the 3-point Gibson bass bridge: I think it's a really stupid, cheap design. I think it works especially badly on the Thunderbird. I used to have a Gibson Ripper back in the day, and I don't remember it giving me so much grief. However, I also remember that the pickups weren't so shitty on the Ripper. Moving on, I do really like the neck. The narrowness is really nice, and it's comfortable all the way up. The example I own has seen a lot of use and is really broken in.
The body style, which is the instrument's big selling point, is a bit of a hassle. For one thing, it's huge; which is kind of fun, since you feel so badass with it. It is a bit neck-heavy. This hasn't caused me too many problems, but it is wearying to stand with it over your shoulder for too long, at long shows or rehearsals. A bit like having a piano around your neck. Also, the upper bout at the rear sort of protrudes exactly where your right forearm wants to be when you're picking. I tend to compensate by altering my technique, but this negatively affects my playing. It's hard to play towards the bridge for any length of time.
Speaking of playing towards the bridge, the knobs are mounted too close to the G string. When you pick vigorously around the G string, I find that I am often inadvertently rolling off the volume knob for the neck pickup. The standard knobs were large black knobs. I replaced them with smaller top-hat knobs, which has not completely solved the problem, but it is an improvement. The guy who sets up my guitars for me says that this is the reason that Nikki SIxx has bypassed the controls on his T-birds. No kidding.

I don't entirely trust the durability of this bass. On one hand, it has seen a lot of use from a lot of owners before me, and it seems to have withstood it fairly well. I do worry about the neck; as is well known, T-birds seem to be weak around the headstock/neck joint, so I'm careful that way. The finish is worn through where the forearm and upper bout meet. There is some wear on the back - but these days, that's the cool look, isn't it? Otherwise, the finish is checked and dulled in places.
The neck is sensitive to the weather - I've had to adjust the truss rod a little more frequently than I'd like. Certainly more than on my P-bass, which I last adjusted almost a year ago. Would I gig with it without a backup? It's already been demoted to backup, so the question would probably more appropriately be: do I bother bringing it to gigs?

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I've been playing for 15 years. Over that time I've had quite a few basses, but now I have only a 2001 American P-bass and this T-bird. I kind of bought the T-bird thinking I'd make it my main bass, and I thought I'd relegate the boring ol' P-bass to backup duties. However, time has shown that the P-bass, though not as flashy, is by far the better instrument.
I love the T-bird's look, and I love the neck. Apart from that, the rest of it is pretty sub-par. The pickups are weak, the ergonomics suck. I'm going to hang on to it 'cause it's cool and rare, but I can't imagine ever really using it again seriously, either as a studio or a live instrument. It's got some good features, yes, and maybe it has its place somewhere, but overall, my opinion has to be summed up as: "it's a nice bass - as long as you've never played another one."