u/amanita_celeste

Greetings once again fellow offsetters.
So I bought this Gibson Firebird pickup off a guy in Oslo who had swapped his set for a set of PAF’s.
I had it laying around for some time before trying it out as I didn’t know much about them and thought they were just like regular mini humbuckers.

Boy was I wrong, and positively amazed.
As many of you already may know — the Firebird pickup is pretty unique in it’s own way. Construction wise it has two alnico bar magnets placed like rails on a hotrail, and probably some more mojo I don’t know about cause man, those rumours are true …
It sounds like a Telecaster on steroids.

(BRIDGE PICKUP) SOUND:
With the traditional set of 1MEG pots in my favourite JM it shines and chimes beautifully when you pick lightly, but snarls and twangs when you dig in. The highs are crisp and metallic, the lows are boxy(?) I know, all these weird ways of describing sounds, right? Boxy in a good way, like the acoustics of a wooden box — but sharp and clear, very articulate.
It’s a very clean sounding pickup, but not transparent sounding like a lipstick pickup. Way more in the ballpark of a Tele bridge pu. Not microphonic at all. Quiet, no squealing on high gain.

SERIES/PARALEL SWITCHING:
Middle position paired with the Curtis Novak JM-V does not deviate much from a traditional middle-position JM sound. Very much in the same ballpark, maybe just a tiny bit louder. Very sparkly and and clean. In series — it’s a whole other beast. (Wiring two pickups in series produces a longer path with increased resistance, adding volume while preventing the highest frequencies from getting through. With series wiring, the output of one pickup goes into the input of another pickup, while with standard parallel wiring, each pickup takes its own path to the output. Besides being noticeably louder, series wiring emphasizes low and midrange tones). The Firebird pickup is noticeably louder and hotter than your standard single coil pickup, even a bit louder than my loudest Tele pickup. Series switching really brings this to the front, so now you have a really loud guitar that can easily be compared to a more Cobain-esque sound ala SuperDistortion pickups and alike. Those sparkly highs are now gone, and in it’s place you’ve got more of a big humbucker sound. It’s actually comparable to a hot neck pickup in a hollowbody guitar. But if you dial down that bass on the PTB (passive treble and bass) system it sounds more like a Les Paul. Either that or with tone controls/EQ.

GAIN/OVERDRIVE/FUZZ:
Played through high gain Fender Amp and/or Boss BD2– Sounding like a cross between a P90 and a Telecaster pickup, but as expected— no hum.
It has more body than a Tele but more sparkle than a P90. Good sustain, mid range is just perfect, meaning it’s very balanced. Lots of character when you strum open chords, those highs really shine. Less spiky than your traditional JM-pickup. Single-notes sounds very Tele-ish. Big Muff at 10 sounds just as’ you’d expect it to — big and wooly but with clear note definition, quite trebly even when drenched in that good ol’ shoegaze.

10/10 score, perfect sound for my rig and personal preference.

Oh and here’s a video showcasing the guitar. I am not a pro YouTuber and didn’t have any good mics at hand so it is what it is.

Oh, and it has one barritone string for the low E.
I figured I’d make the most of those distinct highs and lows that the lipsticks are famous for. Aftermarket Bigsby — works GREAT! Neck is from an AVRI Fender. Had to route out the body to fit the lipsticks as those are of the longer variant. Roller bridge, vintage tuners. 250k pots.

I was initially very intrigued by the idea of putting Thunderbird pickups in a Jazzmaster. They are short and wide — just like your regular JM pickups. Even uses the same wire type. In theory this could*** mean that they sound allot like beefed up Jazzmaster pickups. And they are beefed up alright, but the problem is … Well a couple of things.
Check the last Thunderbird post if curious.
Long story short: not quite my style, missing that twang.

But I couldn’t let them go just yet. It’s just too cool of a concept. So I built a new JM around it. And here she is, voila.

Harley benton body (light weight, aesthetically pleasing, smaller). Squier Stratocaster neck from 1996 (one of my fav necks. it just has that feel— like the J Mascis neck, close to perfect). Modified wider style tune-o-matic (filed the grooves for smoother string travel and adjusted the radius to fit the neck)
Weird ass Gretch style vibrato (I don’t even remember the brand … it’s marked «x» so probably designed by someone who likes rockets and awkward gestures. And of course the pickups: Epiphone Thunderbird pickups.

My approach here was simple — magical thinking is way more interesting than logic alone, so I leaned into that part of me that believes that every single part (mostly) affects the sound. This is gonna sound silly but bare with me: I chose the lightest sounding neck, the trebliest body, the brightest bridge and ALL the mojo. 1meg pots and here we go. DAMN.

That bridge pickup bites like a *****.
The neck is tamed somewhat but highs are ice picky here aswel. Color me clusterfucked, cause I am amazed. (Yea I just made that up). It was jangling all over the place, but now the issue is … the treble pickup has very little bass response. But the neck pu stays the same in that regard— boomy. I figured changing the pots would be the most quantifiable solution for this problem. Hell, while I’m at it: let’s experiment! Slapped a extra base plate under that bridge pu. We don’t want to get too logical. Bingo. 500k hit the mark. She’s a beast but she can make sweet love too. Balances brilliantly between the pickups. Interestingly the bridge pu is louder now. Can someone explain why my trick worked?
Neck pickup has DEEP bass on the thick strings and very clean highs on the thinner ones. Makes for some interesting ideas when playing. But the overdrive sound is … insane. Especially on that neck pickup, sounds Hendrix’y but way more ompf. I look forward to playing in a two-piece with this one and hybrid pick the jazz out of that master. 10/10

Sunburst Jazzmaster 1965 body with modern neck (stainless steel jumbo frets, brass nut), Mastery bridge, Curtis Novak JM-V neck pickup, Gibson Firebird bridge pickup (newly installed) Series-parallel switching, 1meg pots, PTB — Passive Treble & Bass system.

Black Jazzmaster (J Mascis signature) painted, simplified and perfect. JM65 pickup (yes its very old, the magnets are all rusty) Alnico II Mini humbucker, modified tune-o-matic bridge, modified trem, 500k pots, no rythm circuit.

If you had to pick one?

Like many of us, I was lurking around YouTube when I noticed a couple of my favourite offset guys putting Thunderbird pickups in their JM’s. They sounded amazing through their rig (with compressed YouTube sound lol) So I figured I wanted them in my main guitar.

I bought these off eBay, they were Epiphone branded and specs were on point. I even took the covers off to see if everything was right— and it looked perfect.
Installing them was easy, but you will need to screw a couple of new holes in the body.

I chose my main guitar for this (Old 60’s JM body with a more modern neck with stainless steel frets and brass nut. 1meg pots but replaced the rhythm position with a series/parallel switch, and the rollers are now a bass and treble filter inspired by Leo Fender’s PTB / passive treble and bass circuit.

THE PICKUPS:
First of all— they are extremely unique. They will make your guitar sound like nothing else.

The neck pickup is boomy and big with lots of chime in the high end register. But (waddayaknow) it sounds really bassy. It kinda hits some of the frequencies that a JM pickup would, but it doesn’t really have that «twang», it lives way more in humbucker territory especially on the thicker strings. You can tell that the wide pickups actually do pick up a wider area of strings. Not particularly focused sound, wide and big with clarity. Sounds absolutely AMAZING with fuzz. I’d give the neck pickup a 8/10.

The bridge pickup was (sadly) a bit underwhelming.
Main thing being it’s lack of output. You have to have it very close to the strings in order to not sound super thin and also balance with the neck pickup. But even when you do that there’s still something missing. The sound is very scooped and sounds abit castrated. But don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad or unusable sound. You can tell there’s something there— it’s very transparent sounding, meaning it doesn’t seem to color the tone much. To many this might be a good thing, but I think it lacks a bit of character. The highs are tamed compared to regular JM pickups but the definition of each string is less pronounced and it sounds generally very compressed. This pickup shines with some light drive on it, maybe a preamp. My Boss BD2 sounds very good at a medium gain setting with this pickup, but it saddens me that I have to add pedals to be happy with it. This pickup gets a 5/10 from me.

Middle position is definitely where the magic lies with these pickups. You’ve got chime for days, perfectly balanced bass and treble, big resonant sound with lots of detail and clarity. It actually sounds just like a trad-JM middle position but BIGGER. I love this sound, 10/10.

Now, I’ve tried messing around with different amps, pedals and adjustments to the guitar but I can’t seem to make it work for me the way I wished to. Again, these are interesting pickups with a very unique sound but it just doesn’t fit with my style.
The lack of twang, the boomyness and the unbalanced output is a deal breaker for me.
Another thing is that if you’ve got several other single-coil type guitars in your rig you will most likely have to adjust both EQ and volume between swapping guitars because despite the somewhat weaker bridge pickup these thunderbird pickups are generally way louder than any single coil I own (yes even P90).

I’d give these pickups an overall 7/10 score.

Parts build to fit specific needs. I already own 12 other guitars and every single one does it’s own unique thing. I wanted this to fit my punk/heavy and artsy/lo-fi needs, so if you’re wondering about certain specs keep in mind that it’s aiming for a specific sound altogether.

-Squier Mustang body (with hardtail bridge) swapped the bridge for a TOM bridge first and later a Tele-style bridge with brass saddles.
- Fender Mustang neck (player II?) bough it used from a guy in Oslo. Tuners are also Fender branded.
- Aftermarket bigsby with lots of McGyver esque solutions and fixes, this thing SHOULD NOT WORK but it works excellent lol. At first the strings got stuck on the new Tele bridge saddles but then I lubricated the slots and now it’s amazing again. It works like a Bigsby should, subtle wobble with lots of vibe. (Maybe you guys have some tips for new bridge saddles that works well with a tremolo?)
-PUCKUPS: Ceramic hot P90 in the bridge, it has a really crispy clean tone and sounds huge with distortion. The neck pickup is actually a ceramic single-coil taken from an old Teisco (or atleast something similar, I don’t really remember the brand but its def that kind of guitar) it has a really thin and plunky sound to it, instant lo-fi vibes. It sits dangerously close to the strings to compensate for the P90 as this neck pu is very low output. But it has a very specific sound that I love for certain types of music. Pairs surprisingly well with the bridge pu in the middle position— really glassy and sweet fender-esque tone.
-ELECTRONICS & MISC: 500k pots, three-way toggle, bone nut, two string trees.

—->>> PROBLEM SOLVED: it was the bridge. The string got caught up in the saddles. Temporary fix with a dan of vasoline.

So i switched from a TOM style bridge to a Trle style bridge thinking it would have better intonation and work better with the bigsby. Turns out I was wrong about that last part. It makes an awful lot of noise now and it does NOT stay in tune, I’d say it’s waaaay worse than with the TOM bridge.

I’ve tried putting some foam material inside the bigsby spring. I’ve switched ti heavier springs in the bridge (the thing was moving allot). There are U shaped grooves for the strings to pass through on the bridge plate. Neck is shimmed, action is good. Nice tension on the bridge from the strings. How can I fix this??