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Vintage Instrument Owners.

#41
I have a few vintage basses and I mostly bought them for playability and features I couldn't readily find in other basses that were readily available. That and they're aesthetically pleasing.

My jazz was had the 70s position pups, blocks/binding, and a neck to die for. Plus it sounded boobies. I bought my fretless P because I wanted a fretless P with a maple neck. That and the natural/maple look matched my jazz :D. The next one I got was my G3, I was looking for a grabber, but liked the G3 and it has a very unique tone. The latest I got was my fretted P which I got because it has an A-neck. And it was a 78 like the other three, so I kind of had to.

I could have found a bound/blocked jazz from a modern company, but this one was at a music store for me to try and it played/sounded fantastic. Same with the fretless P. The fretted P I bought online for a good price, probably less than it would have cost to find a maple fretboard A-neck P. The G3 really doesn't have a modern equal.
 
#42
Fender1962Bass03.jpg


I recently picked up a 1962 Precision that has been modded for an amazing price. The body is refinned poorly, neck resprayed, has bridge PU added, and a BAII bridge (although I have the original in the case).

I can't really explain it, but it just feels different and sounds different to me. My other main Precision is 62 Reissue w/ Fralin pickups. The RI just sounds more middy and muddier to me than my 1962 P.
It still sounds great, and I gig with it, because I'm not taking the 1962 P to bars. Strangly, my 62 RI is also much lighter than my real 62...(could be the added J pu and BAII bridge though)
 
#43
ErikP.Bass said:
... Name five features of your vintage instrument that really make it stand out and that can't be found in a modern manufactured instrument.
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My mid 70s Kingston has a nicely shaped neck that's pretty consistently narrow from nut to body yet thick front to back... haven't found a neck like it on anything modern. It's just a well balanced, light and good sounding bass.
Link Removed
 
#44
Gojiras_Hejira said:
Is "mojo" what I call the "Harley-Davidson" factor?

Old, rattling piece of crap that needs to be fixed & tweaked constantly and outsells the light, tight, efficient and affordable Asian stuff 10:1 because people who ride them are sure it will make them ascend directly to heaven when they die?

Dennis Hopper Movies....

~Jimm
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I know exactly what you're speaking about, and that's not the case with my '65. It's not rattling or in need of tweaking- in fact it's more stable through climactic changes than my newer stuff. As I wrote, I wish I could get a Jazz bass that compared. I've had three Custom shop basses, and they come close, but you can still hear the difference. The mojo factor doesn't hurt, for sure.

I didn't want to be one of those people raving about the emperor's fine threads when he was actually naked. The '65 trully does sound better than anything else I've owned.
 
#45
CDweller said:
I know exactly what you're speaking about, and that's not the case with my '65. It's not rattling or in need of tweaking- in fact it's more stable through climactic changes than my newer stuff. As I wrote, I wish I could get a Jazz bass that compared. I've had three Custom shop basses, and they come close, but you can still hear the difference. The mojo factor doesn't hurt, for sure.

I didn't want to be one of those people raving about the emperor's fine threads when he was actually naked. The '65 trully does sound better than anything else I've owned.
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I played a RW Jazz that was maybe the closest thing so far in feel my '65J. Certainly could pass for a dive-bar worthy alternative.
 
#46
i own quite a few vintage basses and i love them. as far as 5 reasons/features why they're better than my new ones(?), i can't really think of one other than the old ones just seem to resonate better due to their wood aging and 'loosening up' from all that playing. most of my old fenders are considerably lighter too, but that's not to say that you couldn't find a new P bass '62 reissue (or custom shop one) that is just as light if you looked around long enough.

i use reissues on the gig and the old ones in the studio, since to me, there's no sense taking a irreplaceable '60's bass to a bar gig and risking having it get stolen, or having my drummer knock it onto the floor. ;)
 
#47
Just wondering aloud I want to know how much of a tonal difference old wood actually has. It is fact or apocryphal?

Certainly obsolete and out of production electronics have something to do with it. TB'ers speak of original nitro finishes being better for sound as well but some of these so-called jewels were so heavily used and abused that little of it remains.
 
#49
marchone said:
Just wondering aloud I want to know how much of a tonal difference old wood actually has. It is fact or apocryphal?
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i have found it to be fact, but IMO, that isn't to say that you couldn't get new wood to sound almost identical. as long as it's very dry and has somewhat uniform density, it can sound very vintage. as far as a nitro finish affecting the tone, new basses are offered with nitro (american RI's and CS) so, IMO, that's really not a difference.

i still have a '68 500/1 hofner that i bought in '72, and its always been my fav hofner, but i also have 2002 club and i have to say that it sounds just as good, just a bit different, due to the body shape and older style pickups.

i had several vintage beatle basses (a '62, a '65 a '66 and a '71), but my '68 just sounded and played better to me, so i sold them years ago.
 
#50
I don't know if it's old wood, or aged pickups, or what, but my '69 Jazz (that I bought for $100 back in the late '80s) has a warmth and depth of sound that is really a treat to my ears. OTOH, my new (made in the last few years) Roscoe SKB-3005 is an incredible sounding instrument that I hope to be playing long enough to talk about it being a vintage axe.
 
#56
well, i 'believe' there are measurable differences regarding the moisture content, resin/sap & wood cellular structure that occurs when wood ages (and has resonated). I believe that Ned Steinberger wrote his thesis on this very subject using a Stradivarius violin as the example, prior to developing his carbon fiber/graphite instruments.

i recall seeing comparison pics of naturally aged vs new kiln dried wood at the microscopic level, and the wood cell's ends were opened up on the vintage wood, whereas they were still sealed on the newer kiln dired wood. he explained it as the 'open' cells yielded more resonance.
 
#57
There are measurable differences. But the amount that the wood's properties plays on the tone is can be debated. Especially when the tone of vintage instruments can also be affected by so many different things, a few of which are:
  • coil windings - formvar vs enamel coatings each have a different thickness. After several thousand winds of this wire, the coils would be of a different size even if the same gauge wire and number of turns are used. A larger coil can have a wider magnetic aperature.
  • magnets - degradation of the magnet's strength.
  • pots - oxidation of terminals or wiper contact points.

When an instrument's tone is dependent on so many factors, it's a matter of convincing the majority of people that only one element is truly the primary cause. That's when 'fact' is decided by what the majority believes.
 
#58
the electronics and pickups do definitely play a 'part' of their sound, as do so many other factors (type of bridge, heads, break angle at the saddle and nut etc.), but in my 37 years of repairing/building and restoring guitars and basses, i've always referred to an instruments 'fingerprint' as to its acoustical sound, which to me, still mostly comes from the wood.

believe me, i'm not trying to start a debate or anything. just trying to explain my observations. i guess alot of these threads turn into arguments, and i would rather not particpate in that sort of thing. i'm just conveying my thoughts based on the many thousands of basses that i've worked on over the years.
 
#59
An interesting factor to consider is that, on the oldest basses, perhaps the best ones had the most care put into preserving them. The clunkers may have swum down-market and suffered twisted necks or hack mods made by folks attempting to remove the clunkerness from them.

On the subject of old wood, I will say that my mom has an an old, cheap knockoff flamenco guitar (and I realize the physics are different) that is the best sounding instrument I've ever played. I think years have made the wood sound incredible in a way that I can't really describe.
 

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