I always liked that sound, it was different to all my other TBirds, a bit brittle, almost metallic and scooped (I sensed that it might not be the "original" sound of that sidewinder), but it gave that bass a lot of piano rrrring, Fender P'ish even. In hindsight, however, that was probably because something was wrong with the pup. By now output has decayed so much, I had to do something.
I read an interview with Dusty Hill some years back where he talked about his beloved old Telecaster bass whose pup sounded like no other. He had boutique replicas made from it with period-correct pups, but they sounded nothing like his bass so he sent them all back. The luthier in desperation finally asked if he could look at Dusty's original pup to ascertain whether it has been customized. It wasn't, it just had a defect in the windings leading to additional distortion so consequently all the replica pups were wound with that defect too.
