• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Does older wood really sound better? and how long does it take?

#41
KJung said:
Just the fact that you NEVER hear anyone say that it sounds 'worse' makes me feel it is all 'hopeful thinking'. It would not surprise me if the tone of an instrument changed a very small amount over the years. However, there would be no guarantee that it would ALWAYS be for the better.
Click to expand...
That's bang on :) It is fortunate, otherwise a whole load of vintage dealers would be there, scratching their heads, trying to make up ways to make these old instruments seem attractive to potential buyers to the extent of paying several times their worth. We're lucky that seemingly every single effect of aging makes for better tone, even stuff that might seem bad in another context. If your fretboard dries out, you'd oil it so it doesn't crack or split, but if the body gets really dry, you get great tone. It's just great how things work out like that.

GlennW said:
The magnets weaken at a rate of less than 2% per hundred years; nowhere near how fast human hearing deteriorates.
Click to expand...
Whoever thinks of making a pickup using a 2% weaker magnet is going to be the King Of Tonetopia. If a 50 year old Fender pickup magnet has weakened only by about 1% can you even try to imagine how good a 2% weaker magnet must sound? That guy is gonna get rich.

:hiding:
 
#42
Bassmickeyd said:
This post is getting turned it a electronic debate once pickups and amps are mentioned. .....
We are talking body woods and finish before the bass is plugged in.
Or at least we should be.
Every instrument has acoustic principals that should be enhanced by addition of good electronics.
I have a poly finish on my alder J-bass that sounds just as nice as the Nitro finish on swamp ash P-bass when played acoustic.
Click to expand...

You're right, but I was just speaking hypothetically/generically about, and sort of poking fun at these ongoing tone debates.

You guys are boring me. I'm now going to read about maple vs. rosewood. :p
 
#43
FWIW... My Lakland 4-94D was in a 3-hr car fire (and thankfully survived intact, save some cosmetic damage) a few years back and I would dare say that the experience made it sound better. The bass has a more 'open' and less compressed tone now, with a really sweet midrange/low end.

Now I'm not sure if that's attributable to the heat 'drying' out the wood, the pickups going slightly microphonic as a result of the heat, or the wearing away of the finish from the heat and from removing scorch marks (!)

Regardless, it sounds great - and I'm pretty sure I have the only 'Relic' Lakland out there! :p
 
#44
Just thought that I'd mention that I once had a discussion with a V.I.P. at Warmoth regarding thick vs. thin finishes. He was unequivocal about it: It makes NO difference. (He also sounded quite annoyed, as though he couldn't stand answering THAT question AGAIN.) :p
However, I have an ash Jazz Bass that only has five coats of Tru-Oil on top of bare wood (an amateur job done by yours truly), and it does indeed sound very "lively." (Obviously, the aliveness could be due to many other factors.)
 
#46
natw42 said:
FWIW... My Lakland 4-94D was in a 3-hr car fire (and thankfully survived intact, save some cosmetic damage) a few years back and I would dare say that the experience made it sound better. The bass has a more 'open' and less compressed tone now, with a really sweet midrange/low end.

Now I'm not sure if that's attributable to the heat 'drying' out the wood, the pickups going slightly microphonic as a result of the heat, or the wearing away of the finish from the heat and from removing scorch marks (!)

Regardless, it sounds great - and I'm pretty sure I have the only 'Relic' Lakland out there! :p
Click to expand...

What kind of car? That could make a difference, you know. :rolleyes: ;)
 
#50
There's a thing called a Gaussmeter (sp) which measures the strength of magnets. Pickup makers can tweak magnets for tone, such as making them a little weaker to "mellow" the sound. AII vs AIII vs AV, for example.

The theory that an old pickup sounds different than it did when new because it's aged is unfounded. IF it sounds different, it's probably because something happened to it besides just getting old, or the listener's hearing and/or other things have changed.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Matt Golgotha
#53
Ok
the reason for my original post was this..
I picked up a '80 precision
..it needed a good setup.
After it came, I went to norio Imai's site,( a "guitar tech to the stars")
..he's well respected,etc
Mr Imai mentions something like that inside his site:
"Norio feels that vintage instruments offer the best balance in terms of sound, playability and pleasure. The wood is simply older and has breathed more with a stronger tonal charecter and structural stability. New guitars are not bad, not bad at all, but they do need time to mature before any critical decision can be made."
so it made me think, what if it doesn't have a nitro finish?
How old for the average wood to "age"?
There were too many flaws in the logic,
although I respect this fellow's opinion,( he's Mick & Keith's,John Mayer,M.Miller,Will Lee's tech, To name a few..and the fellow has decades of experience with vintage axes..)
it made me think there had to be something to this..
I guess opinions differ..
 
#54
" The wood is simply older and has breathed more with a stronger tonal charecter and structural stability."

I guess that's right if the instrument is structurally stable and sound to begin with. .... All things being unequal in life not all instruments were or are today built that way. ..... The old saying never by a car made on a Monday (hangover) or Friday (potential Hangover) applies to instruments as well. A friend of mine, a violinist love these factory French violins made around 1900. He says they are inexpensive to buy and every once in a while you get a beautiful instrument. He thinks because there were so many people in the factory making violins all day, all week eventually the best instruments makers in the plants come together and a great violin would get made.
I guess you just got to be patient.
 
#55
quadrogong said:
Ok
the reason for my original post was this..
I picked up a '80 precision
..it needed a good setup.
After it came, I went to norio Imai's site,( a "guitar tech to the stars")
..he's well respected,etc
Mr Imai mentions something like that inside his site:
"Norio feels that vintage instruments offer the best balance in terms of sound, playability and pleasure. The wood is simply older and has breathed more with a stronger tonal charecter and structural stability. New guitars are not bad, not bad at all, but they do need time to mature before any critical decision can be made."
so it made me think, what if it doesn't have a nitro finish?
How old for the average wood to "age"?
There were too many flaws in the logic,
although I respect this fellow's opinion,( he's Mick & Keith's,John Mayer,M.Miller,Will Lee's tech, To name a few..and the fellow has decades of experience with vintage axes..)
it made me think there had to be something to this..
I guess opinions differ..
Click to expand...

Yes, and the bottom line is that it's all opinion. I respect Norio Imai's opinion, and I also respect the opinions of those who believe that tone does not change over time. It's worth mentioning that if all Norio does is provide a service and not sell product, then his opinion is possibly unbiased. Many opinions are vested: a vintage owner or dealer will likely have a different opinion than a builder of new instruments.

If vintage instruments are different in some way then it might have nothing to do with how old they are... it might be the wood supply available at the time, or simply the fact that the old Fender necks are supported by a single truss rod, while most modern necks have additional reinforcement.
 
#56
Fuzzbass said:
Yes, and the bottom line is that it's all opinion. I respect Norio Imai's opinion, and I also respect the opinions of those who believe that tone does not change over time.
Click to expand...

There is one ting for sure that happens, and that is, as we get older our hearing doe change! :D

So let's say tone does change, in fact it is believe that it does in acoustic instruments. And I often hear the expression "better tone". And I got a problem with that. Why is the tone "better"? , what if it's just different? ... like messing with the knobs on your amp. some tones are distinct but not necessary better!
Anyway, I think that we already have an answer to the question. And that is "blindfold test" . At the very least, you'll hear very inconsistent results! :hiding:
 
#58
Had read an article fairly recently where writer said something about how the wood cells stabalize or something over time. As why sometimes a guitars tone changes for the better over a few hyrs time. Supp to be a case of wood takes a few yrs to fully something for best tone. String vibrations thru it causeing it to orient to best sonic state. Kinda sounded both sensible and absurd allmost at the same time. But yes used guitars Ive gotten that where few yrs old allready have seemed to be closer to optimal tonewood peices for the wood. I couldnt say with any certainty that ones Ive owned for several years got better in tone due to this. Cause it has too much chance for overtime becoming most able to get best tone out of it from tweaks here and there to pups, action, & tone control settings. I think they have, but older instruments do seem to have a habbit of needing less finicky sound tweaking.

It all seems silly in the sense that the tree it came from was a set number of yrs old allready. And then it gets a second life kinda as part of a guitar or bass? Lol.

Agrees with Bassmickeyd that mediocre peices of wood for body wont become as good as allready great peices for tonewood body etc will when new.
 
#59
KJung said:
There is literally no way to know the impact of an instrument aging without doing a controlled experiment. And... the only way to do a controlled experiment on this topic would be to put an identical instrument in 'hybernation' for 30 years to determine 'what the old bass actually sounded like when new'.
Click to expand...

Bingo. Though, there may be weathering instruments that could artifically age an instrument. The point is that there are a myriad of confounds that would obscure one's perception of whether an instrument sounds "better" the older that it gets and, additionally, if that better sound is caused by a change in the wood and not something else, such as the age of the pickups or hardware. First, one would have to operationally define the quaility of sound as a dependent variable. I guess that would break down to multiple DVs, such as resonance, quality of timbre, sustain, etc. You'd need some sort of objective way to measure those things. Someone with a better understanding of acoustics and physics than me could probably say if it's even possible to objectively measure those things. I don't know either way if it is possible. You'd have to get a baseline measurement of those things before officially conducting the study to see if there is a difference at the conclusion. You'd also have to control for a lot of other variables, such as air pressure, moisture, etc. The bass couldn't have a finish, because the chemical breakdown of the finish could also be a confound (since we're interested in the properties of an instrument's wood over time, not its finish). If it's not possible to artifically age an instrument, that's a lot to control for during 30 years (and you couldn't gig the instrument, as that would ultimately create a whole new host of confounds). Most importantly, I don't know if anyone would actually care that much to dedicate 30 years to such a study.

I think it comes down to this. If you pick up an instrument and it has the mojo for you, then that's all that matter. Just because an instrument's 40 years old doesn't mean it's going to kick ass and just because an instrument's brand new doesn't mean it will lack resonance. There are a lot of instruments on the vintage market with tons of mojo, but the vintage market also feeds off of a lot of hype and people's confirmation biases. But that's a whole 'nother topic for a whole 'nother thread. ;)
 
#60
"while most modern necks have additional reinforcement."

Original Fender's were not designed to move around the world to another climate. Now days most instruments and their parts are manufactured in Asia and the surrounding area and once they get to N. America they'll do a double twist. In the 90's I picked up a new Fernandez J-bass with a neck that wouldn't lye straight in a harsh climate. I shipped it to California and the repair guy had no problem with it in his moderate climate. Now this was a bass made in Japan's moderate climate. So in the end it liked the south California climate and hated wintering in Toronto Canada. Which I can relate to. In the end he sent me and new neck that worked fine..... Go figure. ....
Interesting topic just the same.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back