Things we didn't know or do in the 60's and 70's

[40Hz]

We mostly went with our own vibes as I recall.

You didn’t have 10,000 people on YouTube and other websites telling you you’re doing it all wrong.

Not that most of us would have listened or cared even if they had. Go try something and decide for yourself rather than research it endlessly was more the rule back then.

Rock was also still young and counterculture enough that there weren’t any recognized “authorities” (self-appointed or otherwise) who had enough “street cred” that they could go around telling people what they should be doing without the risk of being laughed out of the room.

 

[jerry]

The PA was for vocals.
We did not carry backups of anything, except maybe fuses.

Ha, I still find fuses in old guitar cases I still have from way back then.

 

[Relsom]

Ha! Sometimes the highbrow in the group would have an A440 tuning fork in their gear,

I'd hardly characterize myself as highbrow, but I've still got my fork around here somewhere.

 

[Relsom]

This is a fun thread....I love reading these responses.

 

[funkytoe]

If we did so many things wrong, how come we made the best music of the century?

Because we grew up listening to the Beatles and Motown, the Allman Brothers and Santana, Led Zeppelin and Sly and the Family Stone. We learned our instruments both by taking lessons and by playing along to great, great records, learning our parts by moving the needle on the record player over and over again. It was a great boot camp for musicians and I think it showed in the quality of local bands during that era. We did not have great gear, but we had a sound in our head that we were trying to emulate. And that sound was a darn good one.

Then came Punk and kids thought that playing the same three chords at high volume with lots of energy and attitude was what it meant to be in a band. That, in my opinion, was the beginning of the end. Don't get me wrong, I also love Punk and could not be happier listening to some of the iconic groups like the Ramones, the Clash, Sex Pistols and such. But, I don't think a lot of kids ever became a great musicians playing along to those records, the same way that we did - with apologies to Billie Joe, Tre and Mike, who may be the exception to the rule.

 

[leftyjohn]

I still have a Shure 4 input microphone mixer.....and a Unidyne mic....and some other old stuff.

I like putting old speakers in newer amps/cabinets. By old speaker I am referring to JBL D-140s and Altec Lansing 421's, not those crappy things that came in amps back in the day.

 

[Michael Milner]

Little did we know that 40 years later, we would be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the $100 a night gig! Invalid Link Removed

 

[red_rhino]

If we did so many things wrong, how come we made the best music of the century?

Because it was all recorded using an Ampeg B-15 in the studio under the control of an engineer or producer that had a clue.

 

[Pilgrim]

We played the strings that came on the bass. Who had money (or the urge) to change them?

 

[ClusterFlux]

We didn't know basses needed to be set-up. We just played them.
We assumed intonation had been done at the factory.
We had two cords. We used them interchangeably between speaker and instrument.
We didn't carry a spare bass. If we needed to change a string we had drum solos.
We thought a 15" folded horn could be used full-range. We didn't need anything over 300 Hz. anyway.
We didn't know you couldn't put any speaker in any cab, so we put a JBL or an EV in everything- It didn't matter which model. In 1978 we decided Fender bass cabinets sucked (they did), and we took out the speakers and put them in TL 606 cabs. This was the single biggest improvement in bass sound since the invention of the electric bass.(not including the Fridge, which is still cool)

If we did so many things wrong, how come we made the best music of the century?

I was going to say "it was the drugs," but even the drugs are better today.

Anyway. I wasn't around at that time, so I'm guessing it's because standards for live sound were much lower then. It's not like the craze for vintage gear extends to poorly intonated instruments or bad cabinets.

It also seems like some of the improvements are less about the quality of music, and more about convenience. A 30-pound amp that sounds great, a multi-effects unit, and a clip-on tuner doesn't make you a better musician. However, it certainly makes it easier and faster to get to the gig, set up, and tear down.

If anything, I'd say the advances in studio gear are more impressive. Tape and 4 tracks, oh my....

 

[InhumanResource]

We used a lot of these in really old buildings and somehow survived.

View attachment 3486462

Well I suppose it is slightly less scary than these:

 

[Coolhandjjl]

I DJ’d soc hops at my high school in the 70’s. The Peavy and EV gear I rented back then sucked donkey.

 

[walking Bass]

Drugs were better quality back then.

Move to California now and change your mind.

We also had to know how to use a soldering iron for those pesky stretch cords and carry extra tubes. BTW all Fender amps didn't sound bad, I had a Dual Showman with a 2x15 that sounded wonderful.

 

[Winslow]

We didn't have digital tuners, and we couldn't afford a Peterson strobe tuner, so we tuned to each other.

Corollary: If the house/venue had a piano - and your band had a piano player - everyone had to tune to that (even if the piano itself was horribly out of tune, he'd find us one good note that sounded "close enough").

Corollary to the corollary: We gauged the (perceived) prestige of the venue according to what kind of piano it had:

• Console/studio: The place could at least say at a minimum, "We have a piano."
• Upright (ever up against a wall): Someone in charge wants a big sound, but is mindful of the floor space.
• Grand/Baby Grand: "Whooooooo, look at us, playing for the fancy people!"

 

[GreyBeard]

We used Bogan columns with a Bogan m60 pa amp. No monitors. You could not hear anything you were singing. Like shooting basketball blindfolded.

 

[Haroldo]

As a Boomer myself, I am so utterly and completely sick of this rose-colored glasses view of yesteryear. My generation is so full of themselves, it's incredible.

This is worthy of a longer post. I think there is a strong tendency for every generation to wear those rose-colored glasses (dunno if it's particularly stronger in us boomers, tho' you might have a point). To me, the more interesting thing concerning the original post is the list of present day hardware don'ts - and that an awful lot of good music was made in spite of our past sins. We can question whether it's the best, but it was pretty darned good. We got away with technological murder!

I'm as guilty as the next person but it seems to me a lot of us possess quite a few hardware / technology / convenience fetishes these days. I vacillate between luxuriating in the wealth of bass playing goodies available to me and on the other hand wanting to be a stone Luddite. By virtue of having too much disposable income, I think I've come down on the side of "golly-gee-whiz that new amp sure looks to be a fine thing, let's give it a whirl". But I could certainly stand to do a whole lot more plain ol' music making.

 

[LBS-bass]

Well I suppose it is slightly less scary than these:

View attachment 3486637

Six of one...

 

[LBS-bass]

Move to California now and change your mind.

We also had to know how to use a soldering iron for those pesky stretch cords and carry extra tubes. BTW all Fender amps didn't sound bad, I had a Dual Showman with a 2x15 that sounded wonderful.

Yes on the soldering iron! It used to be easy to repair cables back then, too, because they weren't all shrink wrapped inside. They were built with the thought that you might need to get in there and fix them one day.

 

[GretschWretch]

We played the strings that came on the bass. Who had money (or the urge) to change them?

Not that we had a lot of alternatives for aftermarket strings, anyway.

 

[downunder]

We didn’t know that if we kept our fenders all original they would be worth exponentially more now