Epiphone Thunderbird E1 Bass Guitar - Vintage Sunburst Reviews

I ordered a Thunderbird off Reverb but it came in a Sweetwater box w/ "demo" taped on it. Was not expecting that sweet Sweetwater candy to come with it! Immediately replaced stock strings with my go-to D'Addario black nylon tapewounds. Sounds *expletive-ing* amazing out of the box with just a bit of fret buzz on the first and seconds frets of the D and G that I'll need to truss out eventually. I've never played a bass with such great SUSTAIN, wowee, and this is with the bolt-on neck Epiphone model; I can't imagine what the solidbody Thunderbird pros must be like in that department.

Neck dive was one of the main things that held me back from ordering a TBird earlier. It exists, but isn't nearly as bad as I worried it would be, and I was able to iron it out changing my posture slightly. As for intonation on the stock pickups, I've had to sink more time in to adjusting EQs to match the tone I'm shooting for. If I raise the bass, it really leans into the muddy, sludge territory, which is fine for Dethklok-style bass. If I lower the bass to 9, mids to 10, and treble to 3, and with a little bit of compression, I can pretty consistently pull off a Silversun Pickups or The Pixies-esque tone with quite clear intonation.

I've seen and heard of a few bass players that play more ambient/shoegaze-y/indie pop sort of lines pick these up once, put them down, and never try them again. On some level, I get it; these are a few ounces heavier than jazz and P basses and the top of the neck rests noticeably further from the core of my body if I don't change my posture to accommodate for it. I'm not much a fan of P basses or mustang basses because they feel a little too small and Fischer-Price for my taste and my Thunderbird gives me the opposite feeling. With the awesome sustain, I can play leading lines on the G string that droning Ds and As add amazing color to.

YMMV, but this feels like it will be my main bass for a while to come.

For $, Epiphone knocked it out of the park with this Thunderbird. Plays smooth, good material, good for a beginner or a seasoned bassist, in my opinion.

I was going thru all purchase history, and I cannot believe I got this art bass, for the price, I got it. It is so nice it is a bit scarey nice. Like the Also Firebird '22 I bought, and It satisfied my heavy metal friend, more than other purchases. Firebirds will scream at you and throw dishes. ha, i am so glad I got to find my Collection from Sweetwater Music com. pmt plans, long and short.peace

I ordered this guitar a couple of weeks ago and I am very happy with it. I know people always say that a guitar is "great for the price" but this bass would be solid even if the price were higher. The finish is beautiful and it plays like a dream. I got a lot of compliments on it when I used it this past weekend. Epiphone is doing great work as a company and it shows in this instrument. Of course the guitar came ready to go right out of the box and the service was first class (as you would expect from Sweetwater.) I even got it earlier than it was scheduled to arrive. I made point to order this bass from Sweetwater and I will order my next instrument from them as well. Nice work!

Excellent bass, 'nuff said.

This must be the best bass you can buy on this planet at this price. Always wanted one of these. Saw one in a store (it just looked amazing AND expensive). When I saw Epiphone on the headstock, and the ultra low price I was very skeptical. Shortly after picking it up I was walking out the door with it. (I paid for it :)

The action with a little tweaking is perfect. The neck is one of the best I've ever played on any bass. The sound is huge. Similar to a Rick but slightly darker and with more growl. Put some Rotosounds on it and it's perfect for Prog Rock. Kind of a lead bass sound, but also very versatile. The volume and tone controls work very well together, and give you a very wide range of tones.

The finish is awsome - looks like a piece of expensive living room furniture. I love this bass - it's my number one now. How Epi can make this so good for so cheap is beyond me. They did everything right on it. A classic!

I picked up this bass to start recording some metal/rock songs I've been working on. I hadn't really owned a bass before this beyond the cheap Washburn I got in high school or the even cheaper beginner Epiphone I borrowed when I filled in as bassist for my friend's band few years ago for a few shows, so I guess I'm not the best authority on what makes a fantastic bass.

All of that being said, as someone who knows music and has played it for years, this bass is very solid for the price. The tones are nice and dark and it plays very well. I love the slim neck and the overall look and feel. Yes, it does take a second to get used to the non-traditional shape, but it's a non-issue for me.

Bottom line, if you are a serious bass player, I doubt this would be your first choice, even for a bass in the affordable range. But if you are looking for just a good bass that gets the job done and looks super cool, this is the one. I've loved it so far.

Started off with a Yamaha rbx170. It was great but it wasn't really cutting it for me. Found this one... Tone is great and I love it. pickups are smooth and comfortable, and the neck feels good in my hands. A bit of neck dive, but after a few days i stopped feeling it. Although the body shape looks weird and its rather clunky, it feels very nice. The only thing i'd complain about would have to be that it doesnt fit in many gig bags. Found a big one and it just barely fits in it. all in all, very much worth it.

Excellent value beautiful sound cool case

I got this bass after my old beginner bass wasn't cutting it for me, mine was in Arctic White. Pretty much everywhere I went, people were complimenting it, it has looks that can kill. It plays well, I enjoy the tone of it, but it definitely needs new strings. The only problem I have with it is the fact that there's maybe one gigbag for it and one hard case made for it. There are other minor problems like neck-dive, but that's not really a big con.

Sounds great, looks great, made great,

BUT the bridge radius doesn't correspond to the the radius of the the fret board. The Bridge is NON adjustable for individual strings. Thee two middle strings are too low and buzz one the frets, i could raise all of them, but the action would be too high, i could also file the two outter bridge string contacts, but im not that high-tech. the fix is an upgrade.

So the upgrade can be the BABICZ FCH 3-POINT, FOUR STRING BASS BRIDGE, which cost around 200.00 USD. I'm gonna try to find one cheaper.

This bass sounds great. The low end is there but still has the tone for the mids. Shipping was flawless as usual. The reason I didn't give more stars is that I really had to adjust the bass. There was bad fret buzz and the intonation was not set correctly. This was an easy fix for me, but I would expect it to not be set up as bad as it was. Do not let this shy you away from buying this guitar however!!

A good bass, good for rock and pick bass. While I've done a lot of finger picking on this, it really shines with a pick and the right amp. For the price, you get what you pay for. LOTS of neck dive with these Thunderbirds. My advice would be to spend a little extra for the Vintage Pro TBird. Since those came out, I would take one of them over this bass in a heartbeat.

I bought this bass as a backup to my '82 Ibanez Roadstar II. Out of the box, the intonation was perfect and it has a smooth, playable neck. It is much heavier than my Ibanez and has a larger and longer neck that will take getting used to. The neck reminds me of a J-bass neck. My first ever bass was a P-bass in 1975. This Thunderbird is just as heavy if not more so than that was. The bass has great low tone when playing through my GK MB115, and great highs as well. My major problems with it are the unbalanced feel that can probably be fixed by different strap placement, which may void the warranty. Also, the beast has very little sustain - I will need to add an EQ or compressor/enhancer to get the sustain I want - experimentation time, it seems. Maybe I should just get the sound man to stop drowning out my bass with the kick drum in the mains..... I would not recommend this bass, but my preference is Ibanez, anyway.

Ordered this bass sight unseen, and unplayed. The bass itself is really goodlooking, the finish is awesome, the body itself is made out of a really nice piece of wood, nice craftsmanship, etc. My main comment is going to be on the quality of the manufacturer. The 1/4" jack on the bass was not screwed in right in that the threads were stripped and I was unable to re-tighten. So what I saw when I opened the box was a bass with the 1/4" jack hanging out of the front of the bass. Replacing a jack is an easy fix, but it is not what you want to see when you purchase a brand new instrument.

I think that the Epiphone company should step it up in the Quality department.

The looks are beautiful, Awesome finish. The low rating is 1, for the nut It's horrible. strings stick in it something fierce. 2, More important than the nut (to me) is the insanely poor pickups. They are extremely unbalanced. Open E string about blows the doors off and you can hardly hear any of the other strings. Everything is adjusted to specs. I have played off and on for about 30 years. Even though this is the bottom of the line thunderbird I really wanted to like it. However I'm not sure I have ever played ANYTHING with such poor pickups.
It's not my American P Bass or my 5 String Spector. Those 2 ROCK, especially the P bass. I might try some Bartolini Pups in it to see what it does. Right now it just looks nice sitting in the corner because I cant play it the way it is.

This bass looks mahhhhvelous hanging on the wall, and unfortunately, that's about all it's good for.

The Thunderbird has 3 issues:

1: Neck-Dive - The instrument is so poorly balanced, if you take your fretting hand off the neck, the whole thing tips over so the headstock is pointing toward the floor. This means you have to support the neck *while* playing just to keep the correct position. Needless to say, this results in your arm getting pretty tired in a very short amount of time. I thought the neck-dive might be caused by the factory strap button being located on the back of the neck, so I installed a new button on the wing, but that failed to fix the issue.

2: Uneven Surface - The body of the bass is made up of 3 pieces (the center piece, and the 2 wings). The wings are thinner than the center, so the center sticks out on the back, meaning you can feel the uneven surface against your body as you play. This might not be a big issue for others, but I find it pretty distracting.

3: Oversized Strap Buttons - For some reason, the strap buttons on this bass are larger in diameter than standard buttons, which makes getting a strap on and off very difficult.

Overall, you should consider these issues before buying, because in my opinion, they outweigh how cool the bass looks and sounds.

Very cheaply made. Wood around the input jack broke in less than 5 months.