We've lost the old school sound.

[Albiechaser]

Sunn Amps, and I was back stage for some Mountain shows.

where? I saw them mostly in Jersey and NY, those boys could jam, got a few of Corkys sticks lying around, lol nothing comes close now to the shows they put on back then, that tone went right thru ya,

 

[40Hz]

A lot of what you hear on the studio albums from back then is straight up DI. I know that live he's always preferred solid state amps, and during his time with Zeppelin used the Acoustic 360/361 almost exclusively. If you're after more of an old school sound, try playing flatwounds on a passive P or J.

True. But the old Acoustic amps didn't sound like any of the other solid-state amps of that era. They built their reputation on making what was arguably the first series of transistorized instrument amps that sounded really good instead of just loud. Contrast an Acoustic to an old Kustom rolltop (or that godawful solid-state Bassman Fender put out in the '60s) and you'll easily hear the huge difference.

The Acoustic 360 stack was also unusual in a lot of other ways, so it kinda sits in it's own little space in the vintage amp world. Nothing else that came before or after it ever quite got that same sound. It was a Class-A design that also had something called a Variamp control that was unique to that amp. Not even the Acoustic amps that followed had that feature. Or that sound.

There's a guy that has a very vintage accurate sounding version of an Acoustic 360 preamp in pedal form if anybody wants to get some of that mojo back. It's available as both a kit and ready built ($550). He calls it the viva Analog 360+. His website is Invalid Link Removed. Link to the manual is here.

I owned a 360/361 stack back in the day. This pedal preamp sounds like I remember my real 360 sounding. Even feels the same playing through it. I keep thinking I'll buy one for myself eventually. I've still got an Acoustic 301 bottom with an original CV-18" in it - so I've already got the cab covered.

Maybe someday...

 

[Interceptor]

I've been around a while.

So much of what gives recordings the magic from the 1960's and 1970's has nothing at all to do gear. Nothing.

What was different back then were bands gigged a lot. As an example, as a freshman in high school (around the time the OP was born) I was gigging two or three nights a week, and on top of that doing church music and adding in work like theater pit. That was the norm for a generation of players. By the time one got hooked up with a good band, the amount of experience as a live player was hundreds and hundreds of gigs. That kind of experience is something that can't be duplicated easily today. It built great players. It also was a time where a lot of folks could get some serious chops, and those that rose to the top were truly amazing. Don't downplay just how good the top guys were back then.

Plus, the recording process was very different. The top bands took forever to get their sound. The record labels would dump unreal amounts of cash to let the creatives do what creatives do. Good engineers and rooms really matter, as does a wild spark to try to approach things a fresh way. They had the green light to experiment. Go listen to the Beach Boys Pet Sounds again. Amazing studio effort.

These days, the studio creativity still can happen, and arguably with less restraint than ever before. Recording technology that gets out of the way is very accessible for anybody to obtain. The knowledge to get the sounds in one's head are the craft and artistry lie.

 

[BogeyBass]

Not sure but a 160 watt sunn model T
Will punish the crap out of some overheating 500 watt thingy dingy.

And its not bouncy lol that's for sure

Paid 150 for my 370 and 150 for the 301 cabinet it spews out Zeppelin tone all day

 

[Matt O]

Thinking about this more, I believe what probably changed the recorded sound of bass the most in the last 20 years is the lack of tape saturation/compression, due to a lack of... tape.

Tape and bass, two things made for each other.

 

[BawanaRik]

My back. It feels so good.

I play a speaker that weighs about10 pounds.

 

[LiquidMidnight]

That's what today's gear can do that I don't think the old equipment could do as well.

Quoted for truth.

I dig modern gear that takes what makes vintage gear great (i.e., warmth, fullness, color, musicality) and leaves out what sucked about a lot of vintage gear (i.e., lack of clarity, low power/low powering handling, noise). Think gear like Berg's NV cabinet line or a Reeves amp.

I've never been a big vintage gear kind of guy, though I've played some nice vintage Fenders. Maybe it's because I didn't grow up in the golden era of rock music, but I think a lot of people look at the sound quality of pre-70s recordings with a bit of rose colored glasses. I love the Stones; I heard Sympathy for the Devil on the radio a few days ago. I never realized it, but Keith's tone during the guitar solo is frankly...well, I'll say it...God awful. It's shrill in the worst possibly way and completely thin. I'm not saying that today's trend of overly compressing everything and re-amping the guitar 18,592 times on a song is great either, but a lot of those early recordings just sound like farts in a can. So I don't get the fascination with the desire to want to accurately replicate a lot of those sounds today. That's not taking anything away from the actual quality of the songs from yesteryear, of course.

 

[ShaunNecro]

I don't have any problem getting that old school sound.

 

[HOOLIGAN]

Here's another vote for the Fender Super Bassman-It really can get any flavor of old school or new school tone you desire- such an awesome, usable, blendable OD that many ditch the want for outside pedals (though it takes to pedals great as well).

I've used mine with many different cabs (Fender Neo610 my fave) and many different basses (P Bass or Ric 4003 my fave), you practically can't get a bad tone out of it no matter what you use.

I often invite bands sharing bills with mine the opportunity to use mine just so I can hear my rig out front! It never fails to blow people away (musicians, audience, soundmen)!

They've been on the market for 5 years, but I've seen them slowly creep up as the rig of choice for some big-name acts (Rancid, QOTSA, Van Halen,
The Cult, Green Day, Zach Sabbath just from memory).
I've been amp GAS free for the nearly 2 years I've had mine, and really can't see that ever changing!

 

[mpdd]

gonna probably use the mesa d180 as long as i continue to play, because it can easily get drivey when required, it seems to weigh way less than my old sunn 2000s, and if i need to be louder i assume i'd be mic'd or whatever they do nowadays

 

[Meghans Dad]

There was a distinct difference in the 60's and 70's between what you got on vinyl and what you heard live. The one common thing, whether it was the Beach Boys, Strawberry Alarm Clock, the Who and a lot of others, what got lost first in the live mix was always the bass, followed by the vocals. I tend to agree based on what I remember is that we have the studio to thank for catching the old bass lines.

 

[Munjibunga]

It's not nostalgia, it's desire for that tone. It doesn't matter about that stuff, why can't those tones be copied now? That's my entire point?

Because none of the current amp builders see a value in it?

 

[seamonkey]

Nothing has been lost, it has all evolved and continues to do so.

 

[Spectrum]

Not sure how to even tittle this. So I'm driving, whole lotta love comes on the radio. Ofcourse we all know and love JPJ's tone on it. Some old Marshall or hiwatt or orange or something but killer right. Then there's Glover's tone on good ol smoke on the water. Just to name 2 old songs with killer tones we just don't hear in new music.

So I ask myself, many times, what did so and so use? I look it up only to realize, it ain't happening. Who has the $ for one of those amps,If you can even find one.

Now, 2017 and we cannot get those old tones from today's gear. Maybe there is stuff I'm not aware of, but I've yet to come across gear that will faithfully reproduction those, and other vintage (and cool) tones. Even an SVT, they just can't get it after all these years. I like VT and other pedals, preamps but they don't cut it. Seems like by now this could be done.

I'd love to be able to cop those kinds of tones without getting the real deal.

Frankly, I disagree. With today's gear you can get pretty much any tone you want. You have way more options than you did in the 70s.

Many modern bands don't want to sound like Zeppelin or Purple. Other bands, like the doom metal crowd, goes overboard with the tubes and distortion. Meanwhile the recording industry has changed. But the actual bass tone is there if you want it.

 

[jsbarber]

What was different back then were bands gigged a lot. As an example, as a freshman in high school (around the time the OP was born) I was gigging two or three nights a week, and on top of that doing church music and adding in work like theater pit. That was the norm for a generation of players. By the time one got hooked up with a good band, the amount of experience as a live player was hundreds and hundreds of gigs. That kind of experience is something that can't be duplicated easily today. It built great players. It also was a time where a lot of folks could get some serious chops, and those that rose to the top were truly amazing. Don't downplay just how good the top guys were back then.

I remember reading an interview with Jaco where, when asked about his practice regimen while coming up, he said he really didn't practice much because he was playing 7 sets 5 or 6 night a week...

 

[pbass2]

For me a huge part of the appeal to the older stuff is, people mixed and arranged things very differently then, in a way I still prefer. "Whole Lotta Love", man, by today's standards it is really quite minimal. Even the guitar sounds aren't really "big", heck, they're puny compared to lots of modern rock guitar tones which are like a giant over-produced smear. Holds true with pretty much any genre--compare 70's Kraftwerk to modern EDM. The Kraftwerk is clear with lots of air and space in the mix, while in most modern stuff every nook and cranny is filled up with something. So all those tasty sounds just have room to breath in those old mixes, while these days I feel people largely mix in a "more is better" mindset.

 

[Al Kraft]

The Kraftwerk is clear with lots of air and space in the mix, while in most modern stuff every nook and cranny is filled up with something. So all those tasty sounds just have room to breath in those old mixes, while these days I feel people largely mix in a "more is better" mindset.

It's funny you would say that because I read an interview with one of the great musicians (don't recall who it was) who basically said that good music is often defined more by the notes you choose to leave out than the ones you put in to fill an empty space. It's also worth noting that many studio engineers and sound techs often use EQ primarily to eliminate problem areas rather than to try and punch up stuff they want more of. Sometimes less is more!

 

[spankdaplank]

Recently I have been working on a rockabilly piece, Medium tempo, slapback echo on the two note Tele lead part and a quarter note ultra simple bass part. I could hear the bass tone that I wanted: the big Seeburg jukebox with the curved glass and a 15" speaker, the one from my teen years.
It took about three or four hours of messing with basses and compressors to get it, but I think I nailed it. Carvin SB5000 with a felt mute on the bridge to TC Electronic compressor to SVT IIP preamp to console. The thing I learned was there were a lot of elements needed to get the tone I was hearing in my head. And the tone in my head was loud and well defined, not a vague memory.

 

[ashtray]

As stated, recorded bass was often DI, but then the recording couldn't have those low frequencies because stereos and car speakers of the time couldn't handle those notes. And look at the typical radio people listened to music on back in those days! You throw a low frequency bass note to that and one of two things will happen: a) nothing, because the speaker can't produce that frequency, or b) blow out the speaker.

So a lot of "vintage" recorded bass was done without the modern day low end bc of necessity. And then you have the bass cabs of the 60's which couldn't produce a good loud clean low frequency either - but even before the cab quit, the tube amps would saturate and go in to fuzz, so the speakers weren't receiving a clean signal to begin with.

I'm over-generalizing here, I realize. Point is, you can recreate the old tones with the right gear. It might cost a few bucks. Hey, its wasn't cheap gear back then either. The modern bass tone is different because the technology has advanced to allow a P bass to sound more like the tone a P bass actually produces.

 

[NeonVomit]

Recording techniques had as much to do with it as gear. Everything was recorded onto tape those days, and players had to be able to groove long takes - none of this digital copy/paste stuff you get today. Meant a big difference in both sound and feel.