Yeah, every now and then I like to go back through the old police reports and reminisce...
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Do some basses just need 20+ years before their good?
- Thread starter liveburning274
- Start date
I have a Washburn B20 at home that I bought in 1980-81.
It's now 35-36 years old! Did it get better? Nope. It's still relatively weak sounding, and somewhat uncomfortable. Only nostalgia makes it of any value to me, or anyone else.
Well, it did get better when I made it into a fretless...but that's another story.
Old basses are great if they play and sound great. They are not if they don't.
New basses are great if they play and sound great. They are not if they don't.
It's now 35-36 years old! Did it get better? Nope. It's still relatively weak sounding, and somewhat uncomfortable. Only nostalgia makes it of any value to me, or anyone else.
Well, it did get better when I made it into a fretless...but that's another story.
Old basses are great if they play and sound great. They are not if they don't.
New basses are great if they play and sound great. They are not if they don't.
For solid body instruments, I wouldn't think so. For violin family instruments, age is usually a good thing, if the instrument is well-made and well-kept.
Otto
Otto
The 70's were great. Don't believe the myths, the basses were just fine.
On the first album I made they got me a 62 P bass. It was supposed to be something special, well it was OK. The world didn't stop turning when I played it but it was OK. The producer and engineer made it sound terrible on that record. So much for "good" instruments v "bad" instruments.
On the first album I made they got me a 62 P bass. It was supposed to be something special, well it was OK. The world didn't stop turning when I played it but it was OK. The producer and engineer made it sound terrible on that record. So much for "good" instruments v "bad" instruments.
The '70's Fenders were and still are hit and miss. Fender's quality control wasn't the best back then. A guide you can use is the condition of one. After 40 years if it is in mint condition then it probably wasn't played much, which might be due to it not being a very good bass.
I still own my '75 p-bass. Not a collector, but it was my first bass so I've kept it around all these years. The pups crapped out on me and I replaced them with Dimarzio's around 1984 and they did improve the tone. Other than that it's all original. It always played and sounded pretty good and still does, but it is no match to my 2012 p-bass in playability or sound.
okcrum
in your chest
In this context, yes.
It's a marketing carryover from the acoustic side, where the tone of many instruments does change with time.
I think it's all a matter of perspective. When I started out in the early 90s most of my contemporary influences played 70s gear because it was cheap, readily available and more than good enough. Now that us Gen Xers are all 40 or over we can afford to buy vintage instruments. The blue chip instruments made in the 50s and 60s are now priced out of reach to most, but you can still get a CBS era Fender for slightly more money than a new one, and they have the great CBS era cosmetics we grew up admiring. We will see the same thing with 80s and 90s gear. It's only a matter of time.
It's the same reason we tend to think older music was better, the good stuff survived and the bad stuff didn't. I suppose an instrument couldn't be around that long without corrosion and wear affect how it sounds in some way, but it would be hard to quantify.
For the record, I was born in the 90's, and I tend to like 80's and 90's gear the most.
For the record, I was born in the 90's, and I tend to like 80's and 90's gear the most.
Bill Monroe's 1923 Gibson F-5 was smashed into 500 tiny splinters in 1985. It was repaired by master Luthier Charlie Derrington. Sources who have since played it attest that it sounds exactly like it did before it was smashed, partly by playing along with very recent and very old recordings of it. This is an extreme example of an excellent repair job where the end product is just as good as the original. It doesn't sound better. It sounds the same. If you dismantle and reassemble an old bass it should sound like it did before you did it. Possibly worse, probably the same, but unlikely it will sound better.
Some basses need 20+ years before people forget they're bad.
Ric5
Inactive
- Jan 29, 2008
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Vintage amps. They don't get better with age, but they have stayed better than most made today imho.
My experience with "vintage" instruments is a bit limited, but all three of my '78 T-40s are very consistent with one another, and feel/sound pretty much the same as the brand new '83 T-40 I played in high school. Same thing with my '82 Harmony Marquis, although it played like ass then and still does now. I keep it around solely for sentimental reasons, and the fact that it's worth about the same weight in firewood.
The tuba in my avatar is somewhere around 40 years old and still plays great, despite being quite "road worn". I really want to spend the $4K or so to get it properly reconditioned - it'll be an absolute monster afterwards.
The tuba in my avatar is somewhere around 40 years old and still plays great, despite being quite "road worn". I really want to spend the $4K or so to get it properly reconditioned - it'll be an absolute monster afterwards.
Absolutely not.
It takes 20-30 years before folks declare things "Vintage" and then DECIDE that they are cool.
Basses today are far better built and are made of far better materials than those 20-30 years ago. Same with amps - but there are those who refuse to acknowledge that, that insist that "vintage is better".
I beg to differ. A new POS is a POS. Out of the box, it isn't worth what you paid for it. Its value immediately begins to decline, until it becomes a used POS. At this point, it is still not worth owning, but at least you can get it for a good price. This process of devaluation continues until the POS reaches vintage status, at which point its value, which by this time has nearly reached zero, suddenly spikes. The POS is now worth more than its original price, but it is not yet worth the prices Ebay sellers will ask for it, with the result that although the vintage POS has now become desirable, nobody can actually buy or sell it.
The vintage POS can now go in one of two directions. Either it will be used by a prominent musician or featured in a prominent article about "overlooked jems," in which case its desirability will finally catch up to its price and people will actually buy it, and it will be transformed overnight from a vintage POS to a vintage tone machine; or it will sink again into obscurity, and remain an overpriced vintage POS that nobody plays, until it rots in some collector's closet.
So, while it is true that in most cases a vintage POS is still a POS, in a very few cases, a vintage POS can blossom into a tone machine.
Didn't see anyone go after the myth that the more they played the better they sound because of vibrations.
Will say that I do love the feel of a worn in rolled edge fretboard on my old basses that have seen a thousand shows. And they still sound good like they did 30/40 years ago
Will say that I do love the feel of a worn in rolled edge fretboard on my old basses that have seen a thousand shows. And they still sound good like they did 30/40 years ago
Do some bassists need 20 years before they are good?
If the basses could talk...
If the basses could talk...
