Okay, this is so silly but it's eating away at me and I need some advice. I
love everything about my LE Cherry Thunderbird except the way the pickups look! Those plain flat black blobs of plastic look so cheap compared to the rest of the bass. Thing is that they
sound awesome--
HUGE with nice even string response.
Being a lover of all things vintage I'm a sucker for a chromed out T-bird, especially those shiny pickup covers and trim rings. The surprising thing is that the black hardware looks really good against the cherry finish. Plus the black seems to tame the odd looks of the 3-point (which set up beautifully for me), and I like the way the black tuners don't break up the lines of the headstock.
So the obvious fix is to retrofit new covers and trim rings to the factory pickups, which seems a little scary considering the potential for damaging them. Or do I order new Thunderbuckers or Lollars? At $600 a pair, I have a hard time justifying the Lulls although I'm sure they're amazing. Like I said, I'm happy with my sound--
but is it just because I don't know what I'm missing with the aftermarket p/us?
Also, should I go with black chrome to match the other hardware or bite the bullet and go for chrome everything? (I already know what you're going to say, TBird1958
). Real Gibson chrome 3 points don't seem to turn up very often and I'm not wild about the oversized looks of the Hipshot. Or would it look too weird if only the pickups were chrome (they
would match the centers of the knobs)? Or should I just get over it and learn to live with the TB Pluses as they are?
Now do you see what kind of nonsense rattles around in this brain of mine? There are people in the world with
actual problems--SHEESH!