But Jimmy Bain sounds like he always sounds (when he plays heavy rock or metal that is)!!! He's been replicating his scoopy-clanky-bit distorty sound since Rainbow Rising days, just listen to him here at 1:46 in 1976, classic Rainbow line up:
With his Wild Horses project it became a bit darker and warmer:
But he reverted to type with Dio (the band):
And we all (Nofi and Dave excepted of course!
) heard it here too:
I find
this sound of his an acquired taste: Gruber, Daisley, Glover and Smith (the other Rainbow bassists) all sounded warmer, with more tone and not as strained clanky.
Yes, Jimmy, we now quite know, you play roundwounds with a pick, the sonic evidence is ample!!! 
To be fair, it must be something he feels he needs to do for the music (he also auditioned with the Stones post-Wyman and had hopes getting the gig, I imagine he would have used another sound with them too). Frankly, I prefer him when he sounds (and plays stuff) like this, I do like the sound of his (not very mighty, but tuneful) voice:
But it's (wild) horses for courses.
Yet seeing the above vid it strikes me that poor Viv C. has been sidelined by Phil Collen in Def Leppard for so long (and has consequently spent so much of his life as a musician "leaving space" in their pop rock***)
that he is not really a heavy metal lead guitarist anymore. He sounds like he is going through the motions. Dio even without Dio needs a more assertive guitarist - Viv once was, but he has changed his style (I'm not knocking him for developing into someone else than the Irish kid who played on Holy Diver more than 30 years ago!).
*** I have nothing against the Defs either. They are an industrious group with strong inner-band ties, all credit to them, Pyromania was an early 80ies classic, yet Hysteria for me already devoid of any life. The late Steve Clark will always be their overshadowing Uli Jon Roth (in the Scorps) or Mick Taylor (in the Stones) while Collen/Campbell are firmly in the able "and good for the band" but uninspiring Matthias Jabs/Ronnie Wood league.
