NGD Epiphone Joe Bonamassa Firebird I

That's a nice looking guitar. It's got a futuristic Cadillac hot rod look from the past to it. Three alien thumbs up !!!
 
gball said:
One thing I am a little jealous of Gahr...I have 2 Firebirds and no banjo tuners! The 2016 has Steinbergers and the 2019 has regular 6-in-line Grovers. You got banjo's on your first whack.
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Haha! I think Joe Bonamassa was very particular about the tuners. He wanted Kluson banjo tuners, even though it would mean the price would be a bit higher.

Ideally I would have wanted the classic sunburst model, but I dig the gold color as well. They don't pop up for sale that often here, and definitely not nearby. At roughly $470 (today's exchange rate) I am pretty damn happy!
 
I just got to test it plugged. I woke up with a series case of the sh**s today, which means I'm actually not allowed to go to work. In breaks between my runs for the bog, I have been able to play a little.

It sounds very nice, basically just what I hoped for. Really bright and spanky but with plenty of power. The volume control is very responsive (the guy I bought it from swapped out the original one for a CTS pot), and it clears up really well when turing it down. The tone pot is a must on a guitar like this, and it makes it versatile way beyond the apparent restrictions of a single pickup. My amp is pretty bright to begin with, so I can easily pierce your eardrums with his monster...

For test purposes at home, I set the amp volume to 4 (which is really way too loud for living room playing, but with no one else at home, screw it). With the tone rolled off to around 4 and the volume on 7-8 I get a very nice rhythm sound for some dirty blues. Turn the guitar volume down to 5-6 I have a nice and spanky clean sound with just a smidgeon of breakup. At 10 I have a sweet bluesy overdriven sound. The amp is a bit of a one trick pony (a single volume pot for each of the two channels with a single common tone pot), but it delivers exactly what I need. I'm just sad I can't play it as loud as I should when at home. It should really be blasting at around 6-8, but that's just way too loud for my neighbors, even if they are old and nearly deaf.
 
Gahr said:
I just got to test it plugged. I woke up with a series case of the sh**s today, which means I'm actually not allowed to go to work
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Who would have thought a dodgy stomach would be such a good thing...

The guitar sounds like what you wanted, and these one pickup guitars are always so versatile.

I bet your dirty blues sounds great.
 
Drumoid said:
That's a nice looking guitar. It's got a futuristic Cadillac hot rod look from the past to it. Three alien thumbs up !!!
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The automobile associations are not very far fetched. The Firebird designer, Raymond H. Dietrich, came from the car industry and did work for Lincoln and Packard among others. The Firebird definitely makes me think of cars with large fins.
 
Gahr said:
The automobile associations are not very far fetched. The Firebird designer, Raymond H. Dietrich, came from the car industry and did work for Lincoln and Packard among others. The Firebird definitely makes me think of cars with large fins.
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Legend is Ray also designed the Firebird pickguard logo. Which is freakin' awesome.

I want the shirt:

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Here's a short sound clip I made in GarageBand. Both the rhythm and lead guitars are recorded using an SM57 close to the cone, slightly off axis, and with an SM58 as a "room mike" about 6 feet away from the amp, just to give it some depth. I used a little bit of the GB built in compression. The reverb is from my Catalinbread Talisman plate reverb (and then the slight room feel added by the second mike). One take on both the rhythm and lead parts. The close miked tracks are panned to about 90° to the left and right (rhythm and lead, respectively), the room mikes just slightly off to the left and right to separate the tracks. I never messed around with the microphone placement at all. They were just placed rather randomly, and run through my Focusrite Scarlett 2i2. The sound is not as powerful as what i hear in the room, but I still think it is pretty decent.

Just noodling some B. B. King-inspired licks on top of a "Soul Serenade" (King Curtis) rhythm guitar. Hope you like it.

Soul Serenade (Epiphone Firebird sound test)
 
Very nice playing and good sounds too.

The attack on the rhythm dominates at times; there's plenty of piercing treble available. Interesting characteristics; pretty different from the SG and LP sounds. An excellent inclusion into your stable.
 
Mr Grumpy said:
Very nice playing and good sounds too.

The attack on the rhythm dominates at times; there's plenty of piercing treble available. Interesting characteristics; pretty different from the SG and LP sounds. An excellent inclusion into your stable.
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There’s no real mixing done at all here. I just set the mikes up, recorded it, added some compression and then uploaded it to Soundcloud. I guess I could have done a lot of stuff to make it more balanced etc., but, like you say, I think it shows off its unique features.
 
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That’s a different sound from what I’ve listened to from you @Gahr . A fresh, new, tool for your toolbox!
It sounds good to me! I could work with that in a mix! It sounds so.....nostalgic...like some really cool energetic blues guitar.
Thank you for sharing!
 
Thatbastarddon said:
That’s a different sound from what I’ve listened to from you @Gahr . A fresh, new, tool for your toolbox!
It sounds good to me! I could work with that in a mix! It sounds so.....nostalgic...like some really cool energetic blues guitar.
Thank you for sharing!
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Nostalgic. I like that description. Thanks, man!
 
Its Gorgeous Gahr--- absolutely the BEST looking JR Model Epiphone ever produced --IMO
 
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