{"id":373,"date":"2020-03-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bassoftheweek.com\/?post_type=bass&p=373"},"modified":"2026-09-13T08:46:46","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T08:46:46","slug":"bass-of-the-week-brooks-grabbird","status":"publish","type":"bass","link":"https:\/\/bassoftheweek.com\/?bass=bass-of-the-week-brooks-grabbird","title":{"rendered":"Bass of the Week: Brooks Grabbird"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Brooks<\/p>\n

Last year, bass builder and Gibson enthusiast Rob van den Broek built a bass that combined elements of a Thunderbird and a Telecaster<\/a>. Now, he\u2019s revealed his latest creation called the Brooks Grabbird. Van den Broek, who wrote a fantastic book on Gibson basses<\/a>, took aspects of the 1964 Gibson Thunderbird II and mixed them with the 1973 Gibson Grabber.<\/p>\n

\u201c[It has a] nine ply neck-through construction just like the Thunderbird, but with maple strips veneer in between the mahogany instead of walnut,\u201d the builder explains. \u201cThe nickel covered humbucker resembles the pickup of the sixties Thunderbird, but the sliding mechanism in the raised middle section refers to the Grabber, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hear the bass and check out the sliding pickup in his demo video:<\/p>\n

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The bassist also made a few adjustments to help its playability. \u201cThe shape of the headstock echoes the Grabber headstock, but the ebony veneer on top is a nod to the Thunderbird headstock,\u201d van den Broek writes. \u201cThe shorter headstock and the Ultra-lite tuners make sure this fantastic bass doesn\u2019t suffer any neck dive!\u201d<\/p>\n

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Last year, bass builder and Gibson enthusiast Rob van den Broek built a bass that combined elements of a Thunderbird and a Telecaster. Now, he\u2019s revealed his latest creation called the Brooks Grabbird. Van den\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1491,"template":"","meta":[],"builder":[],"class_list":["post-373","bass","type-bass","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bassoftheweek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/bass\/373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bassoftheweek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/bass"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bassoftheweek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/bass"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bassoftheweek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bassoftheweek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"builder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bassoftheweek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fbuilder&post=373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}