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Do older basses sound significantly better?
- Thread starter Peter - Oregon
- Start date
It just won't ever be an objective position Id opine. 'Significantly Better' can't really be defined in this instance.
Just consult any thread on 'a perfect classic P Bass tone' to defy a single opinion.
That said, sound waves travelling through different woods or other materials will produce different harmonic responses, some perhaps more or less pleasing to 'our' ears. Again, completely subjective.
Ive personally had the experience, as some others here of both vintage and newer solid body basses having what I experience as excellent tonal properties, particularly regarding even-ness across the strings, resonance and note decay.
Just consult any thread on 'a perfect classic P Bass tone' to defy a single opinion.
That said, sound waves travelling through different woods or other materials will produce different harmonic responses, some perhaps more or less pleasing to 'our' ears. Again, completely subjective.
Ive personally had the experience, as some others here of both vintage and newer solid body basses having what I experience as excellent tonal properties, particularly regarding even-ness across the strings, resonance and note decay.
Dont vibrations change everything? My personal belief is that basses (or instruments) get better as they get played and felt and vibrate and feel. They become more responsive. They also develop a feeling. Sometimes new basses get that magic right away but for any bass i think they all need to cut their teeth to get great sound and feel.
This is all my personal feeling and experience of course. The science would probably say otherwise
Really old basses are exceptional generators of stories.
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The implication of many of these posts seems to me to be that the high prices of old instruments are because of their rarity and collectibility, not how they sound and play?
Many are fantastic players, but as a used equipment dealer once said to me, ‘They don’t manufacture them used.’
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For various reasons, I don't think a hypothesis that all older basses sound “better” is objectively supportable. Having said that, my old Fender p-bass sounds much better (to me, and for my purposes) than any bass I have ever owned. Its very resonant, and whether I am only going through my amp, or in a good PA mix, it is the only bass I own or have owned that I don't feel a need to fidget with eq.
The wood that makes the most difference sonically is the neck - it's moving a lot more than the body, and yes it is moving - if it didn't, your snark tuner wouldn't work at all. Since I started buying roasted necks for my builds (I did it for stability and weight to start with), I have noticed that they "ring" more - on a loud stage, where things get moving because the PA is nice and loud, my basses with roasted necks (most have roasted bodies at this point as well) "come alive" in my hands. They also ring more if you tap on the back of the neck - that you will hear in the electrical output. I'm willing to be proven wrong, but it does seem to be a real feel thing.
If you have ever worked on old houses, and driven screws into old Douglas Fir studs, you know that wood ages - new studs, a screw will go in - makes some noise, but not a lot. Old Fir studs will literally scream when you do this - this is not at all subtle. Wood does dry out, it loses water - if you weigh a bass you just made or bought, and then weigh it later, they do get lighter (a bathroom scale is nowhere near good enough to discern this). They are also lighter in the winter, when it's dry than they are in the summer, when the humidity is higher. Anyway, being dryer, and having the resins crystallize, the wood does become more resonant, which generally is a good thing for a musical instrument, except for some details like dead spots, which may (or may not) get worse.
How audible is this? Theres the rub. From my decades of designing gear, and doing careful listening tests, I am certain there are those that can hear this. Can you? I have no idea.
If you have ever worked on old houses, and driven screws into old Douglas Fir studs, you know that wood ages - new studs, a screw will go in - makes some noise, but not a lot. Old Fir studs will literally scream when you do this - this is not at all subtle. Wood does dry out, it loses water - if you weigh a bass you just made or bought, and then weigh it later, they do get lighter (a bathroom scale is nowhere near good enough to discern this). They are also lighter in the winter, when it's dry than they are in the summer, when the humidity is higher. Anyway, being dryer, and having the resins crystallize, the wood does become more resonant, which generally is a good thing for a musical instrument, except for some details like dead spots, which may (or may not) get worse.
How audible is this? Theres the rub. From my decades of designing gear, and doing careful listening tests, I am certain there are those that can hear this. Can you? I have no idea.
There’s good old ones, and good new ones. Good cheap basses, and good expensive basses.
Some were thrown together and some that were lovingly crafted from start to finish.
And when you get to the point, that you start to hear those little nuances, you start to gain a finer appreciation for the fact that it'll always be a bit of a mystery. A bit of magic that just coalesces by throwing those particular components together in that particular combination. And then some kind of witchcraft happens that takes the instrument to a higher plane. Or sometimes the recipe ends up being a dud. And sometimes even changing many different parts of the recipe in an attempt to affect some saving grace that hopes to make it great, falls flat and it’s never going to be great. It’s the the dud on the wall at GC that’s just dead sounding. Without rhyme or reason. Go figure..?.??
When you get to the point that you can hear all those nuances when you’re sitting by your high end amplifier and speaker systems and reveling in the glorious tone. You also realize that the minute that you start to play with a group of people those nuances are very frequently, completely lost. Often you won’t be able to hear them yourself, at all, in a band setting.
And then for a high percentage of players the full circle happens where they come around to the point where most any decent amp will do. Because they will get their sound out of most any amp or they'll get close. And they will pull out the trusty Precision or Jazz bass, and that will be good enough for 99% of anything they’re going to play. A smaller percentage of players will still strive to buy the very finest instruments and speakers they can afford and chase their concept of their own personal, golden tone. I do both depending on the situation.
I own 3-4K basses that are brilliant and I own several sub $500 basses that are brilliant.
Go play 100 different basses in six months or a year. When you get to the point, that you really know what you want, what you need to feel, what you want to hear, what you’re comfortable with, then you won’t be here asking all these questions. You will have figured it out for yourself. You will be doing yourself a favor. Go forth young bassist, seek out these truths for yourself. Do your own research. Form your own conclusions. Educate yourself. Be bold! Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of “tone” and “feel”! Ain’t music grand!
Some were thrown together and some that were lovingly crafted from start to finish.
And when you get to the point, that you start to hear those little nuances, you start to gain a finer appreciation for the fact that it'll always be a bit of a mystery. A bit of magic that just coalesces by throwing those particular components together in that particular combination. And then some kind of witchcraft happens that takes the instrument to a higher plane. Or sometimes the recipe ends up being a dud. And sometimes even changing many different parts of the recipe in an attempt to affect some saving grace that hopes to make it great, falls flat and it’s never going to be great. It’s the the dud on the wall at GC that’s just dead sounding. Without rhyme or reason. Go figure..?.??
When you get to the point that you can hear all those nuances when you’re sitting by your high end amplifier and speaker systems and reveling in the glorious tone. You also realize that the minute that you start to play with a group of people those nuances are very frequently, completely lost. Often you won’t be able to hear them yourself, at all, in a band setting.
And then for a high percentage of players the full circle happens where they come around to the point where most any decent amp will do. Because they will get their sound out of most any amp or they'll get close. And they will pull out the trusty Precision or Jazz bass, and that will be good enough for 99% of anything they’re going to play. A smaller percentage of players will still strive to buy the very finest instruments and speakers they can afford and chase their concept of their own personal, golden tone. I do both depending on the situation.
I own 3-4K basses that are brilliant and I own several sub $500 basses that are brilliant.
Go play 100 different basses in six months or a year. When you get to the point, that you really know what you want, what you need to feel, what you want to hear, what you’re comfortable with, then you won’t be here asking all these questions. You will have figured it out for yourself. You will be doing yourself a favor. Go forth young bassist, seek out these truths for yourself. Do your own research. Form your own conclusions. Educate yourself. Be bold! Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of “tone” and “feel”! Ain’t music grand!
D
Completely agree that the neck matters more than the body sonically but disagree about wood framing lumber. Your example about movement and a tuner is great.
My company does remodeling mostly on older houses (current project is a mansion built in 1925). We believe that the older wood is much harder and stronger than new lumber but that is because original framing lumber was old growth wood and not new fast growth pine. As one of my carpenters says, "I'm getting stronger as I get older as it's much easier to hammer big nails in this new lumber".
Do you think there is any truth about older alder being dryer and lighter than modern alder?
Seems that 60's basses are generally lighter than new basses.
I'm also a big fan of roasted maple neck and I know that when I went from the original neck to a slim taper Warmoth roasted maple neck on my Squier Affinity stock jazz bass, the mids "woke up" becoming clearer, sweeter and punchier while not becoming harsh.
Up to a point where I said : okay, no more modifications on this bass !"
There may be something to new lumber being faster growth, but that isn't all of it. If you work with roasted maple and regular maple (they are coming from tries grown at the same time), the roasted stuff is definitely harder and stiffer - wood does change when it's dried out and the resins are crystallized, and it isn't subtle in some respects.
I don' t know enough about alder to comment on that one. The one bass body I have that's alder is roasted, and it was selected for low weight, so I'm out on the fringe in terms of knowing what regular alder is like.
I started putting together a list of what I thought I needed in an instrument and got it to the point where I actually found Zon Legacy5, offshore, and spent over $1500 buying a new instrument completely sight unseen, other than the Internet pictures. I did this all strictly on my recipe of weight, size, shape, materials, semi-elliptical neck, lightweight components, high-end pick ups and preamp, company’s reputation, bla bla, etc.
When I got the instrument in my hands, I realized everything felt right, but it didn’t sound right to my ear. I swapped out the Aguilar preamp, which I couldn’t stand, for an Audere preamp, that was more to my liking and bang. It became a great instrument, for ME. After that experience, I believe I honed it down even farther. I then popped 2K on another used instrument Sandberg Cali II TM5 Superlight, and that came even closer to my personal perfection of specs. That has kept my roving eye from straying, for two years now, which for is a long time and very unusual. Lol. Much of that is due to the fact that I’ve drank the PLEK coolaid. So PLEK is how I roll. And I like it!….the question??…Ya wood matters; and then again not so much.
When I got the instrument in my hands, I realized everything felt right, but it didn’t sound right to my ear. I swapped out the Aguilar preamp, which I couldn’t stand, for an Audere preamp, that was more to my liking and bang. It became a great instrument, for ME. After that experience, I believe I honed it down even farther. I then popped 2K on another used instrument Sandberg Cali II TM5 Superlight, and that came even closer to my personal perfection of specs. That has kept my roving eye from straying, for two years now, which for is a long time and very unusual. Lol. Much of that is due to the fact that I’ve drank the PLEK coolaid. So PLEK is how I roll. And I like it!….the question??…Ya wood matters; and then again not so much.
Don’t forget that while every single maple neck or body is basically the same, more or less,
EVERY SINGLE ONE IS DIFFERENT. Every single piece of wood has different densities, and different anomalies. Now ad multi layers different species, etc. You could spend your life trying to figure that crap out. Or you can just play. Go find something that you like. And play it. I’ll leave that mind game to people like Michael Tobias, or Fodera and Drozd.
EVERY SINGLE ONE IS DIFFERENT. Every single piece of wood has different densities, and different anomalies. Now ad multi layers different species, etc. You could spend your life trying to figure that crap out. Or you can just play. Go find something that you like. And play it. I’ll leave that mind game to people like Michael Tobias, or Fodera and Drozd.
Not sure if anybody mentioned it, but the pickups in the 60's were hand wound. That had to create some variability.
I do think that in general, 50’s and 60’s Fenders tend to be lighter. It may well have to do with aged lumber. I believe there is a story about Leo Fender buying scrapped railroad cars that had old growth swamp ash and alder floors in them, which he turned into guitars……
and anyone’s welcome to correct me on this or tell the story more correctly but that’s what I recall.
and anyone’s welcome to correct me on this or tell the story more correctly but that’s what I recall.
