Thunder, Thunder, Thunder.... (NBD)

ICBM

Funkfingers said:

Arguably, the Firebird/Thunderbird was a reaction to the Fender Jazzmaster and Jaguar offset waist designs. 

Allegedly they were designed by flipping over a Jazzmaster, drawing round it and then tidying up the result. Fender’s lawyers argued that it was a patent infringement... and Gibson changed the design, although ironically the ‘non-reverse’ Firebird looks even more Fender-like.

The odd thing is that being a person of the shorter persuasion, I find Firebirds unplayable - but Thunderbirds are fine. I’m not sure why - I think it must be more to do with the bridge position than the neck. It’s tuning a Thunderbird with it on a strap that’s the problem...

The reverse offset waist seems to really work for me with a bass - the Rick 4001 also has one, although it’s not obvious at first. I had a ‘76 Thunderbird which I bought for £100 with a badly-broken neck and repaired - selling it when I wasn’t playing bass at the time was one of my less brilliant decisions. (Early 90s, so not quite as cheap as that seems today, but still cheap!)

I’ve always hated the black hardware on the modern Gibson and Epiphone Thunderbirds though - I know they’re now almost exclusively a hard rock bass, but to me it just looks wrong. I should probably just get an Epiphone and change it all, they’re remarkably inexpensive for the quality of them.