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Test flight of my 'new' Bird


gijs

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Firstly, two very nice peroformances there, good stuff ! The harmonies sound lovelly and your playing is very smooth and fluid. Youve obviously been doing this for a while.

 

The Bird definitely sounds great in your hands, and its clearly a Gibson. However as I suspected the tone would be quite bright with the Elxirs 80/20's. It does sound good, but if I had to have a guess I would have said its a Dove rather than a Bird. I was sort of missing some of the woodiness of mahogany that I love so much. But nevertheless the tone was very good anyway, no question.

 

If you like the brighter shades then you seemed to have picked the right strings. Personally on my mahogany guitars it's PB's all the way as I need to feel and hear the warmth and woodiness of mahogany.

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gijs, Sounds super. I use Elixer 80/20s on my H'bird and they lose the jingly sparkle after a couple of days and that's the sound I am sure you also go for.

Put slotted Colosi bone pins on mine a couple of months ago as a first step. This month, I change the strings and put on the compensated bone bridge. Now, as far as I'm concerned (and I don't need any validation) the guitar will always sound better than the guitarist! Which is the only sound I'm looking for! Great Job - now enjoy!

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Thanks for these tests gijs. As you might know I'm not the biggest Elixir-person on the planet, but it's obvious the guitar sounds good.

 

How about that song. Is it your own breed. I really liked it -

Don't hesitate to send another when/if you return to uncoated strings.

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Thanks for all the compliments guys!

 

About those strings: I had been using EJ16s for quite some time, but I find those so harsh sounding, especially when new. As I was discussing strings with the shop keeper he said he always used 80/20s bronze's on all of his mahogany guitars, so I decided to give them a go. Unfortunately he only had them in coated version at that moment, and I absolutely hate the sound of coated strings. But he said to just try these specific ones. And to my surprise they do sound nice....at least to my ears [wink]

But I do want give the uncoated 80/20s a go one time.

 

Em7: the song is '20 Years' by The Civil Wars, check it out here:

 

Beautiful duet by a guy and girl. In lack of a female voice a did both in my version [smile]

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Nice stuff! [thumbup]

 

Try out the PB's and if you can record the same pieces it would be fun to hear the diff even if just thew the computer speakers vs live (the best).

 

Thanks again!!! Love that Bird. Maybe if I can get to MT this summer, and take a tour of Bozeman factory, I could talk them out of one for a price.

 

Aster

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The bone pins do make a differenece. Although subtle, it just gave a little extra more presence, the tone is a bit nore alive.

 

Good idea to let the strings settle and then make a new recording. I will report back here in a week :)

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gijs, Don't let anyone rain on your parade - your H'bird is awesome and your playing really shows her off. It would have been statistically impossible to put on a set of strings that didn't get someone here to suggest you could have done better. It's your guitar, you get to pick the strings. Pun intended.

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Strings and things are so different. I'm just interested in the sound changes with all the strings. I too think it sounds great, and I would agree it sounds more like my Dove and ain't nothing wrong with that. I love the sound of my Dove.

 

No rain on that Hummingbird's parade here from me, don't think anyone else either. We're all just listening, enjoying, & experimenting.

 

Aster

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That is also how I interpreted all responses. Fellow idiots who can spend hours discussing and experimenting rosewood vs bone pins, coated vs uncoated strings, mahogany vs rosewood [biggrin]

 

Btw: look how horney these bone pins with pearl inlay look:

 

photo%20(3).jpg

 

Combined with the TR cover it is now totally bling [biggrin]

 

photo%20(1).JPG

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Hi Aster, I got these pins from a Dutch store The Fellowship of Acoustics. They do sell via the internet (www.tfoa.eu), but perhaps shipping would be a little too expensive for such a small item?

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Your Bird' sounds really great, very open and rich. Still on the brighter side, but thats not a bad thing, it does sound really good ! [thumbup]

 

A week later, but I haven't been able to play much as I was gone for three days. So the strings haven't broken in completely yet. But here's a new recording:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyAC_3Zhm-8&feature=g-upl

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