What do Thunderbirds actually sound like??

[Walmark]

Brutal rock bass, not subtle but great at what it does. Mines a 66 NR

 

[Bassdude15]

The confusion comes from the pickups. Just like the Firebird guitar, Gibson equips today's Thunderbird bass with high-wind ceramic magnet pickups, aka hard hitters. Those are pretty thumpy and do the heavy metal thing. I think you generally want to combine them with bright strings.

More vintage style thunderbird pickups show a warm, even sound like you'd expect from a neck-through with mahogany. There is still a lot of growl with vintage style pickups, partially from the mahogany, partially from humbuckers, partially from mixing multiple pickups. Here you use warmer strings to give it some more "mass" than what comes from the thin body.

Im just curious- did Gibson ever make Alnico thunderbird pickups?

 

[DavidEdenAria]

Listen to some 70's UFO.

 

[Bassdude15]

I take it a Pbass, with a 60s J and a 70s J superimposed would be a fair description?
EDIT: Pete Way rocks! He's definitely in my top 10.

 

[HeavyRockBasser]

UFO was an amazing band, and Pete Way will always be one of my favorite bassists. To me, Rock Bottom is one of the quintessential heavy rock tunes of all time. Too Hot to Handle, Doctor Doctor, Lights Out, and Love to Love are some great songs, too. Pretty much anything from the Schenker era will blow your doors off. Some mighty fine examples of what a T Bird can do!