NGD - 1963 Gibson Firebird V (more photos on page 2!)

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NGD - 1963 Gibson Firebird V (more photos on page 2!)

Post by Despot » Thu Sep 27, 2018 6:39 am

I've always loved Firebirds. I know the styling isn't for everyone - they're an unconventional guitar still ... let alone in the early '60s. They're also a weird thing ... you'd think from the unconventional shape that a guitar like this would be more of a 'rock' guitar. The modern ones have their own sound - and it's high output humbuckers have never been my thing. At all. So for me Firebirds have been in this weird spot where I'd like to have an old one, but I couldn't see myself parting with the type of money they tend to go for - and new ones haven't done much for me (I've owned a Firebird V before - it didn't get played much).

A friend of mine went to a guitar show in The Netherlands last week and came back with this:
Image

It's a late '63 Firebird V. And it is glorious.

I've often played a guitar and thought 'this thing is fantastic' - I fall in love with gear easily. I played this guitar unplugged for a few minutes - it sounded good - it's a solid guitar ... you don't get the same sensation unplugged as you will with an old ES or even LP Juniors (which often sound damn loud unplugged). But it was so cool that I had to plug it in. And man ... I'm glad I did.

Firebird pickups. Oh you beautiful beautiful firebird pickups ... where have you been all my life!

I've played a lot of vintage guitars - I've heard Filtertrons, HiLo Trons, PAFs, Patent Numbers, T-tops, '50s and '60s Strat and Tele pickups, Jazzmaster and Jaguar ... I've played most iterations of each manufacturers pickups. I've played Gibson PAF minihumbuckers (and the later '60s and '70s ones). But these pickups sound incredible. Unplugged this guitar was nice - plugged in the thing is a revelation!

So ... c'mon Despot ... get some proportion. They're minihumbuckers, right? Well ... not to my ear.

To me these pickups are like the best Strat neck pickup you've ever heard coupled with the best Telecaster bridge pickup ... with an extra 15%. Imagine you're playing a damn fine sounding Telecaster with the tone and volume backed off to 8. These pickups are like rolling the volume and tone up to 10. They've got an openness and bell like ring to them without losing any body - they've got body, brightness and a 3D quality that I always hear in really good version of vintage pickups.

However, there is a down side to this. Something has got to go. I've come to love that late '60s big guard SG Standard (which has the perfect hum bucker sound for me) that I bought recently before selling the Telecaster. I also love that reissue ES345 I picked up earlier this year. And I've long loved my old ES345 (the '62) ... but these are the things that need to go on the block. So it's either the vintage ES345 or the reissue and SG that will have to go. The firebird is staying - I didn't expect that this would end up being something that I'd find that would so easily find itself into the Final Guitars ... I expected to find an ES355 or something like that. But the Firebird is just the most amazing sounding thing I've ever heard - it's the best bits of all the sounds I like from other guitars rolled into one.

If you've never played an old one and you see one hanging in a store - play it. Play it just to hear what these sound like - the old ones are just in a different realm than the reissues.
Last edited by Despot on Sun Sep 30, 2018 2:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: NGD - 1963 Gibson Firebird V (maybe the last NGD for me!)

Post by Embenny » Thu Sep 27, 2018 7:34 am

That's a beautiful axe and your description of the tone sounds amazing. Congrats!
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Re: NGD - 1963 Gibson Firebird V (maybe the last NGD for me!)

Post by shadowplay » Thu Sep 27, 2018 8:00 am

Really pleased for you, if this is your swan song in the old guitar market it's worthy finale.

It almost looks like it's glowing.

D
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Re: NGD - 1963 Gibson Firebird V (maybe the last NGD for me!)

Post by Musjagjazz » Thu Sep 27, 2018 9:54 am

I remember reading that you didn't like Firebird pickups that much when you owned one

I thought to myself, was Despot referring to the awful new ceramic stock pickups or the original classic pickups?

I didn't ask at the time as I love the sound of the classic pickups but I'm glad you gave the Firebird a second chance.

Think you nailed the description of the tones, they chime quite nicely as well.

Hope you win the Irish Sweepstakes (if it is still a lottery?) so you can keep your other guitars.

Just when I thought you had closed the loop on your crucial guitars....

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Re: NGD - 1963 Gibson Firebird V (maybe the last NGD for me!)

Post by zhivago » Thu Sep 27, 2018 12:58 pm

I LOVE Firebirds...a very good friend has had a couple and they are just awesome guitars.

I totally hear you on the mini-hums...they are just awesome!

Really cool guitar! :-* 8)
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Re: NGD - 1963 Gibson Firebird V (maybe the last NGD for me!)

Post by Larry Mal » Thu Sep 27, 2018 1:07 pm

Firebirds are wonderful, and I agree with you about the pickups.

Oh, and as you say, they sound great unplugged, also. That was my first thought when I got mine, how rich and resonant it is to strum.

I have no idea why they aren't incredibly popular guitars.

Congratulations!
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Re: NGD - 1963 Gibson Firebird V (maybe the last NGD for me!)

Post by Larry Mal » Thu Sep 27, 2018 1:09 pm

Also, Firebird pickups are not mini-humbuckers.

I've read better articles than this which I'll try to find if I can, but the Firebird pickup is a unique design.
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Re: NGD - 1963 Gibson Firebird V (maybe the last NGD for me!)

Post by Larry Mal » Thu Sep 27, 2018 1:11 pm

Here you go:

The internal constructions of these little guys are also a huge part of the tone. A Mini-humbucker is made like a miniature PAF pickup, with one bar magnet positioned under each coil with adjustable pole pieces made out of a ferrous alloy and the other coil containing a ferrous metal bar that is not adjustable. This corresponds to a PAF with adjustable poles in one coil and a series of metal slugs in the other coil. A Firebird on the other hand, has a bar magnet in each coil. Each coil is wound around the bar magnet, one coil is south up and the other is north up. The inductance properties of steel and alnico magnet grades are very different. Also the magnetic field shape and strength are different between the Mini-Humbucker and the Firebird which gives them different characteristics.
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Re: NGD - 1963 Gibson Firebird V (maybe the last NGD for me!)

Post by antisymmetric » Thu Sep 27, 2018 1:50 pm

^^Glad this got mentioned, was about to go searching for the info. Firebirds are awesome.
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Re: NGD - 1963 Gibson Firebird V (maybe the last NGD for me!)

Post by Ursa Minor » Thu Sep 27, 2018 1:58 pm

Woah! Congrats! I've always had a soft spot for these on looks alone but totally lack any real experience with them.

How'd you find this one?
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Re: NGD - 1963 Gibson Firebird V (maybe the last NGD for me!)

Post by Maggieo » Thu Sep 27, 2018 2:07 pm

Man, that is just Prime.

Now want one. :fp:
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Re: NGD - 1963 Gibson Firebird V (maybe the last NGD for me!)

Post by Fiddy » Thu Sep 27, 2018 2:09 pm

Oh yeah. I've been looking for a deal on the Greco version of this one. 8)

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Re: NGD - 1963 Gibson Firebird V (maybe the last NGD for me!)

Post by Homeless Blueless » Thu Sep 27, 2018 5:56 pm

You'll be back, Despot. One day after your house is well paid off, etc. And that will be great because your NGD posts are always amazing.

I love your description of Firebird pickups. I have never played them but your words instantly make me think of the sound of the lead guitar in Love Outside Andromeda from the 2000's in Australia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBtXCfXeyt0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFpEYC_oODM

No idea if he recorded this with an old Firebird with proper Firebird pickups or not but always wondered because he played a Firebird at the shows (vintage unknown, looks a lot like yours though) and I love that sound on the records.

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Re: NGD - 1963 Gibson Firebird V (maybe the last NGD for me!)

Post by Despot » Fri Sep 28, 2018 12:24 am

Thanks for your comments folks - I'm as surprised as anyone that I was so taken with this guitar. I had never expected to immediately bond with the guitar - my intention in trying it out was purely to finally try out vintage firebird pickups. I have had modern Firebirds - but with the ceramic pickups that sound absolutely nothing like the old pickups. You couldn't get a bigger difference - old PAFs/Pat Nos have their sound, but the modern pickups at least sound in the same ballpark as old examples.

Modern firebird pickups do not sound remotely like vintage pickups. They're not even close. The only thing I can think of is that Gibson decided that a more single coil sounding Gibson wasn't a good thing and used a more regular/standard hum bucker type.

It's funny ... as a kid drawing guitar shapes on copy books there were a number of designs that I loved - the Jaguar/Jazzmaster, the ES3xx types and Firebirds. I've tried others - Les Paul, Strats, Telecasters etc ... but I'm ending up where I started off in a way, with a Jazzmaster, Firebird and ES345 - it's still TBC about whether I sell the old ES345 or the new one with the SG ... that's something I'm going to mull on for a few weeks.

Larry - thanks for posting about the pickup construction - I'd seen this before (I think you posted it last time too) but I couldn't remember the specifics.

I'll take some more photos over the weekend - a few other observations after some hours playing last night...

Bass - there's something about the bass strings on this guitar. I'm not sure if it's due to the way that the tuners are 'reversed' where the bass E and A have a lot of length behind the nut ... but there's a piano like bass to this guitar. And here's the weird thing (and why I call these pickups 3D) - you get that sustained bass string, and it's a deep deep bass ... but it's still bright! You get two things happening to the sound at the same time - deep bass with clarity and chime. It doesn't make sense ... but that's what I hear when I play on the bass strings. In this way the Firebird really has it's own sound - I can't recall noticing the same thing on any other guitar. Sure - a good hum bucker on an ES will give you a good bass response, and it will be clear (not muddy at all) ... but not with a sort of corresponding/sympathetic high end chime.

Neck shape - I forgot to mention ... the Firebird neck is 90% of the shape of my Jazzmaster (other than the radius the board) - but the feel is big, round and substantial. It's the nicest Gibson neck carve I've ever played.

The 'sting' in the tail (or in this case headstock) - so as I mentioned at the start, Firebird V and VIIs are pretty pricey guitars. This one wasn't - the main reason for this is the obvious - a headstock repair. The great thing about the headstock repair is that it was done in the mid-60s by Gibson as a factory repair. It's the cleanest/nicest repair work that I've seen - the repair is under the lacquer checking and unless you were looking for it you'd miss it. The downside (and this isn't really a downside to me as I'll never sell this guitar) is that the repair was done with inserting a piece of wood to replace the damaged area on the back ... which was where the serial number was stamped. There's paperwork with the guitar explaining all of this and confirmation of the serial number from the repair (which corresponds in Gibsons shipping lists to the 'right' guitar) - but it made the guitar less expensive than it should have been if it was unbroken or the repair had left the serial number intact.

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Re: NGD - 1963 Gibson Firebird V (maybe the last NGD for me!)

Post by Despot » Fri Sep 28, 2018 12:29 am

kosmonautmayhem wrote:
Thu Sep 27, 2018 1:58 pm
Woah! Congrats! I've always had a soft spot for these on looks alone but totally lack any real experience with them.

How'd you find this one?
Thanks Nick. :)
A friend of mine who owns a guitar store went to a guitar show in the Netherlands - he bought two guitars ... this was one of them. I'd sold him a bunch of guitars recently so I had a bit of 'bank' with him - I mentioned to him before he went over "if you see a good deal with an old ES355, Epiphone Sheraton or Firebird V snap it up for me" - I'd sort of said it half joking, as he knows I'm focused on the house these days.

He sent me the photo I posted above from the show - but I thought he was buying this as store stock. Turns out he'd picked it up with me in mind - if I'd passed on it he'd probably have kept it himself. I got a text from him last night saying he reckons it's one of the top five guitars he's ever had go through his hands - and he's had some stunning guitars over the years. I know that he has kept at least three of those top five guitars - and another is a CAR Jazzmaster that he sold years back ... so it's in good company.

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