I’m amazed at the tonal versatility with that pickup configuration and especially without any switches using only dials. It does every style incredibly well! The body contours is a big bonus also especially over a traditional slab Mustang body.
Perhaps you prefer roundwounds strings over flats? That’s the main difference. The pickups aren’t going to be drastically different. But I agree, this bass sounds excellent to me too.
It is called a tug bar. Guitar players used ti play bass often with their thumb. They would brace their right hand by tugging the bar with their fingers. Gibson used them, Rickenbacker.. Most players did not use them but I saw a few old country guys in the early Seventies.
@kennygardner5041 Some guys developed great thumb plucking techniques. I recently got into rediscovering the 70s Native American band, Redbone. They played a combination of Rock, Funk, Soul and Pop. They had a couple of hits like Come and Get Your Love and The Witch Queen of New Orleans. Their musical style choices downplayed their talent level quite a bit. They were quite good singers and musicians in my opinion, especially the two brothers, Lolly and Pat Vegas who founded the band. I've watched several old videos of the band at their peak in the 70s. Pat's thumb plucking technique was very good. He also played finger style sometimes, but the stuff that he could play with his thumb left me very impressed. I'm sure there's a lot of footage of many other thumb pluckers, but Pat Vegas and the entire Redbone band were very underrated as musicians.
