Do some basses just need 20+ years before their good?

[buldog5151bass]

Marketing and nostalgia. A good number of 70s Fenders are still $%-$#, but when all pre-CBS instruments got snapped up, many by overseas non-playing collectors, Fender just extended the word "vintage" to later instruments. And after a decade of them coming out of their factories, expectations went down.

 

[petrus61]

Aging of instruments is like the aging of wine. Sometime it's an enhancement, sometimes it's a detriment, and sometimes it makes no difference.

A local winery I was visiting found a case of Riesling in the back of their warehouse that had been sitting there for 9 years. When the wine was first made it was rather poor and the winery sold all of it off cheap. But they missed this one case. When they later discovered it they were just going to dump it in the drain - it was a poor year for Riesling. But the executive wine maker stopped the dump and tried a taste. He discovered to his great surprise that the wine had aged beautifully and was quite exceptional. I bought most of that case and have to say it was amongst the best Rieslings I have ever had. And I've had a lot.

I have handled many "vintage" instruments in the course of my work. Some are old, beat up and really poor. Some are immaculate and still poor instruments. But a few have shone, beat up or otherwise, and I am not convinced they started out as being superior instruments. Some of us get better with age, some just break down. I like to think of myself as the former.

Regardless, wood goes through changes as it ages. So do the magnets in the pickups. Whether those changes are for the better or not is unpredictable. And the quality of change can be a matter of taste. And buying a "vintage" instrument may be just as much about it's rarity in the market, or it's connection to history, or any number of other factors, as it is about the quality of the instrument.

Great analogy. Good Riesling is one of the few whites (aside from some high end white burgundies and a small few others) that can actually improve over time. Similar story here where a local winery decided that ripping out their 60+ year old Riesling vines in order to grow cab franc because "sweet" wasn't in fashion, only to find themselves outsourcing Riesling juice when New York became arguably the epicenter of quality US produced Riesling.

Another parallel to the wine world:

I was chatting with a guy between sets at a show when the topic of wine came up. I have been in the wine and spirits business for 10 years and he wanted to know a ballpark value of all the wine in his basement. He said once a year he would by a case for his nephew and stick it in his basement, hoping to gift him with a stash of well aged, valuable wine. I asked him what wine he bought and he said "I buy the same thing every year. It only comes out in November and is pretty hard to find. I forget the name...booj-oo-lay, or something like that." I didn't have the heart to tell him that the wine he was sitting on was pretty much going to be vinegar or a very bad version of sherry by the time he wanted to give it to his nephew, if it hadn't turned already. Point being, he was buying cheap, young wine that was meant to be just that. It was never meant to be cellared or decanted or even thought about beyond the novelty of drinking a glass at thanksgiving dinner. There's a joke we make at the shop amongst ourselves when a customer returns a bottle of wine saying that it went bad: "That wine was bad when they put it in the bottle." Same goes for musical instruments. If the bass was a piece of crap when it left the factory, sticking it under the mattress for 30 years isn't going to somehow make it better and in many cases, will likely make it worse.

 

[Blankandson]

It will sound today as it sounded when you first bought it. Any differences will be in other things; new strings, new pups, new heads, new cabs, you practiced and got better, etc. I believe most bases sound really good until a few weeks after you sell them - then they suddenly 'sounded' wonderful, and you regret selling it. Years later that bass will be the most wonderful sounding and easiest playing bass you've ever owned and you wonder why you ever sold it. Same bass. Same tone. Still as heavy as it ever was. Your memory is what has changed.

 

[4001]

A re-fret 15 years into it's life transformed my Rickenbacker 4001 from a good bass into an incredible bass with the tone I was wanting from the start.
It really changed the way that bass played and sounded for the better.

Without that refret, I doubt that the bass would be any different in terms of original tone 35 years later.

The re-fret did the trick.

 

[phillybass101]

No the Player does

 

[MCS4]

No. But some people need 20+ years to decide that they like specific basses from a certain era, and those basses are likely different enough from basses available in current production that there is at least some justification for that decision.

 

[InhumanResource]

I don't buy it. What could possibly change so much by aging that would make a noticeable improvement in the instrument?

 

[Gaolee]

In the 1970s, nobody I knew had much respect for Fender's offerings. Pre-CBS was in demand then, just as it is now, but for a different reason. Then, pre-CBS was higher quality and would get played, not collected. If you had a 1966, it was just a bass, since it wasn't pre-CBS, and chances are you flogged it unmercifully. Which is what should happen. Now, all those crappy 1970s Fenders are expensive and vintage. What happened? People forgot that they couldn't stand them at the time. The sloppy neck pockets didn't shrink and start to fit. Sure, they play well if you set them up right, but they are just old now. A current MIM is probably far better made than a 1970s Fender. Go look at both up close.

The wires shouldn't change. If they do, you are screwed. The magnets get weaker, so the sound changes because of that. Wood continues to crystallize, but I wouldn't expect that to make much difference in a sold body instrument, whether it's a Fender or Gibson or something else. A hollow acoustic instrument may sound different, but I doubt it's all that significant with those, either.

I can't cite it, and I'm too lazy to fire up Google, but there was a blind test using Stradivarius violins and newer ones. They were given to virtuoso violinists to play and rate. The Strads didn't do too well in that test, since nobody could hear with eyes or pedigree. I have a couple older instruments, and I like them very much, but there's no reason to believe their age makes them any better or worse than anything else. Build quality is build quality, and some times, "they don't build 'em like they used to" should be followed by, "thank goodness they don't."

 

[Kukulkan61]

I know Carrots don't taste better after 20 years...

 

[Killed_by_Death]

Do some basses just need 20+ years before their good?

Before their good years?
At least after a long time, they're not likely to warp or change.

 

[Gaolee]

Before their good years?
At least after a long time, they're not likely to warp or change.

In the climate I live in, after a couple years, the wood stops dancing around and I don't have to adjust much of anything. During some times of the year, I can check tuning and not have to even do much with that for a week or two. Put an old piece of wood in a puddle and then dry it back out wrong and it will warp.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

Well, with any luck, an old bass will have been through the extremes already, and since it survived, it's probably better for it.

 

[RED J]

Entropy. my brain doesn't get better every 20 years.
Neither do basses. It's a law of physics. To put it in simple terms, stuff deteriorates. However coolness or image may increase dramatically.
Amps, preamps, strings, stompboxes have improved dramatically. That helps too.
Not only that but tone is all in the hands. Certain basses find tones in your hands others miss. Maybe that's entropy too. Don't know.

 

[onlyclave]

Maybe in the 70's Fender threads and comments inspiring this, but I feel it's worthy to ask.

Does it just take 20-30 years of aging of woods, wires and pots to bring an average instrument into it's prime? Or is it just simply more desirable and we are all seeing a mirage of tone-heaven?

Option #3: Things were just made better back then.

No. It takes the operator that long to get good. The bass is just a tool.

 

[DirkP]

Just listen to some Jamerson or Dunn or Pastorius or early Miller or Lee Sklar recordings. All these basses are just a few years old with Pastorius being the oldest (10+ years) but far away from the 20+ years you need to wait till a bass sounds good. They all sound terrible, have no soul, no resonating dried out bodies, no warmed up melted pick ups. Just terrible. Just think about for a minute, if only Jamerson or Dunn would have played a 1937 Fender Precision and how they ruined their careers and the history of music by playing those soulless factory new mediocre instruments.

 

[Bodeanly]

20-30 years is not vintage. It's plain old.

False.

 

[Antisyzygy]

+1

I often wonder how many people that are hating on 70's Fenders have actually played one. The ones I've played were all good basses.

I've never played one before, but I suspect when CBS took over people were just being overly critical about minor differences in products. People can be a pretty conservative lot when it comes to change, good or bad.

 

[Big Hoss]

While I personally feel that the love of old basses is mostly based off of rarity, and nostalgia. Let's face it, there will only ever be just so many 1972 Fender Jazz Basses to go around, so they become desireable as there is an air of exlusivity about them. Combine that with the fact that years of use, and fine tuning, if done right can generally even polish the rough edges off of a turd. Meaning that maybe that 197x or 198x XYZ bass that had sharp fret edges, and a bridge that wouldn't intonate to save its live has by now either become firewood somewhere, or had the problems ironed out. Although Fret sprout does begin to be a problem after years of improper storage...

For example my Squier Affinity Jazz was built in 2014 and while the fret edges weren't sharp, they also weren't silky smooth. I spent some quality time with a Dremel and a buffing bit and polished the living crap out of those things. Same thing with my SX Ursa 1 tuners. No sharp edges, just not silky smooth. Now after spending less than an hour a piece, getting quality time in the shop (always therapuetic to me), I have instruments that are an absolute joy to play, and have gotten me compliments from friends that are also bass players (I loaned out my Jazz to a friend who's pre on his Jazz died just before a gig...)

Glossy clear finishes wear smooth instead of sticky with years of use, and, well what some call mojo, I am going to call funk, but there is a certain amount of DNA that isn't from the tree that gets into an instrument through years of use... You can clean them, but I guarantee that if you used Luminol on my P bass, you would find leftover blood from where I gashed my hand prior to playing and the bandage failed... All that gack and gunk adds up along with the wear in, polishing, tuning etc... And it all combines to just make good instrument great. It will never make up for massive design flaws and extreme manufacturing flaws (I.E. First Act anything...)

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

No....a vintage POS is still a POS.

And you would know that better than most.

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

I hear Dino turds bring a pretty penny, and still look exactly the same as the day they were "born". Oh, and they polish up nicely.
Incidentally, cowpies make good fuel for fire, much like turd basses, coincidence? I think not.

Latikia tobacco is processed by smoking it over camel dung fires.
So one could say there is good s**t and bad s**t.