Quote:
Originally Posted by Tele-Bob
....Great Analogies....Quote:
Originally Posted by stratcat62
Printable View
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tele-Bob
....Great Analogies....Quote:
Originally Posted by stratcat62
You've got good points Bob. A good guitar is a good guitar. So many of the vintage pieces that I've come across over the years are just so warm and friendly, and such pristine tone, that they're hard to ignore as credible, but new ones can sound great as well.
Forgive me if this part of the equation has been covered already, but there may be another reason for buying vintage and that is investment opportunites. Some vintage instruments are appreciating faster than any RRSP's you can invest in. Add to this the joy of playing a true vintage guitar with incredible tone and vibe, and it becomes somewhat of a nice little experience. My wife and I for example invested 12G in a mint cond, OHSC '55 Telecaster ( SB) about a year ago. Actually my '68 plays just as good as the '55, but the old girl has an incredible vibe and tone to it. That's not the big thing though. The real deal is that we've been offered 21G for it recently. The whole world is nuts, I think, but in one year, with that small amount of investment dollar, who can name me something with larger returns in a safe, secure manner?? That's like what? 75% return in a year?? I have a '62 Strat that I bought used in 1978 for $600. That was quite a bit of money to me then, but today they ( guitar collectors) will give me up to 30G for it. Easy.
Try that with a Custom Shop! Won't work. Reason? You can ALWAYS buy a CS as easily as you bought the last one. But 1962 only came around once, and they say it was magical. We can argue that fact, but sure can't argue the appreciation of goods. :)
Yup, been covered. A few times.
This is a great thread and I agree not all vintage guitars are great.
I'll just offer that many times I've played my '66 strat behind closed doors, teaching, only to get a knock at the door asking what I'm playing. when I pick up a Mexi strat or any U.S. strat I never got that. I have gotten that a few times with relics though.
My '66 does have a sound. I have had students ask how they can get their strat to sound like that. I ask "what do you mean?" and they say your guitar has an "old sound". I was floored, that they were aware of it, and could hear it. I mean we're sitting there playing a C chord or whatever. That has been said to me at least three times by kids or adults that don't know jack about the vintage guitars, but have ears!!!! When you hear it, it's quite obvious, really.
If I took this guitar and recorded it, I bet each every person here could tell it apart from a U.S. standard or MIM strat. Now I believe some of the relics or time machines could be close in tone. But I've worked at a Fender dealer for a lot of years and many of them don't. only a few of them. There is some magic to some of them.
To those that can hear it, it's either a curse or a blessing I still can't tell.
Yes, very interesting thread indeed. Personally, this is what really sticks out to me.
Carry on..............Quote:
Originally Posted by CDaughtry
69strat, I hear what you're saying and I agree. The place where we change lanes though is where a person hears one or two examples of a particular era of guitars and then implies that all guitars from a given era sound better than all the guitars from a different era. And it works both ways. Even though the vast majority of vintage Strats I've played were junk, (to me), I have also played a few examples that were stellar. Very much like there are a few modern guitars I've played that were exemplary. The point being that just because it's modern, or vintage, really has no bearing on what the potential sound will be. At least in reality.
Honestly, it all comes down to what makes a player feel good. I hear all these sound clips of guitars and p'ups and amps and it all sounds good. I don't hear huge differences in the sounds. And I also hear people get great sounds from gear I would never even consider. Likewise, there are people who can't pound out a decent tone from the gear I like.
One of my favorite examples of this is the old JCM800 Marshalls. They really sound great when I listen to someone playing through one. When I try though, it feels like there's a few milliseconds time delay between what I play and when it actually come out of the amp. It just feels constipated. The sound doesn't flow right. Sounds good. Doesn't feel good.
To me, guitars are the same way. If it doesn't feel good to play it, regardless of age, it doesn't make it into my stable. Doesn't mean it's a bad guitar. It just means it's not right for me. Perhaps that's the most important thing. To realize what feels best regardless of the name, shape, color or vintage.
That's the biggie TB, The FEELING is the biggest part for me. Many times a listener wouldn't even be able to tell if the guitar is a strat or a Les Paul with a lot of distortion or whatever let alone a new strat from an old one.
This thread got all off on a tangent about the relative merits of a the vintage strat vs a bunch of stuff. If someone wants to have a vintage strat, that's a worthwhile goal as long as they know what they are getting in to and can handle the price. These days I'm not sure how important the "vintage strat experience" is based on how spendy they are. When I bought my firewood 20 years ago, it was expensive, but not so bad relative to other guitars at about list price of a new 335 (back then). I am glad that I have one and it's the strat that will stay with me 'til I leave this mortal coil. My second fave is my pink Warmoth with the Japanese Squire neck and T-Top humbuckers!
Didn't mean to divert the thread, but the ensuing discussion has been most interesting.
One of my favorite guitars is my $150 Tex-Mex Strat. I totally understand what you're saying.
It's been a great thread, eh?
We all help to divert.
A '63 showed up on the San Francisco Craigslist today for $7500.
Here's the link if anyone is interested:
'63 Strat on craigslist
Here are a few things that could make a Vintage guitar sound better than a new one.
The wood and the materials used in the pickups.
The older wood used in the Vintage ones had way less smog and other stuff to deal with than todays wood does.
The wire used in the old pickups was alot more pure than todays wire is.
We all know that a magic combo of the right body mated with the right neck can make a killer guitar from just about any parts.
I can see however where a Vintage one might have an advantage mostly from the better pickups they have.
If you compare guitars to stereos the pickups are kinda like the stylus and the speakers and power amp is the Amp. We all know any stereo can only sound as good as its speakers and the speakers can only sound as good as the amp and the way the stylus makes contact with the record grooves and transmits that sound to the speakers.
When we discuss these things we never mention anything about the amp and speakers we are using which to me is a very important part of it all too.
I'm not sure I buy into the materials thing. To the best of my knowledge, wire guage tolerances are better now than they ever were. Someone could make the argument that more precise wire makes a worse sound. I don't know that to be true. And the issue of pollution makes a rather large assumption as well. Who's to say that pollution doesn't contribute to making guitars actually sound better? Sure, wood is a natural thing, but from that point forward, the entire process of making a sound with an electric guitar becomes very unnatural. So a person could rightfully make the argument that "pure wood" is just too natural for the process and therefore should only be used in acoustic guitars. The point is, anything is possible. And a valid argument can be made for almost anything. But in order to make the above arguments there first has to be an assumption that vintage gear sounds better. I don't nesessarily agree that is so. Personally I find that some vinatge gear sounds great while other vintage gear sucks. Just like modern gear.
If you remove the "mystique" of vintage gear, you remove the value.
If anyone were to ever clearly explain the "mystique" of vintage gear it would remove the value. As long as "vintage mystique" remains unexplainable, the value will remain unattainable.
People say that true vintage tone cannot be duplicated. I couldn't disagree more. True vintage tone is an idea. Not a fact. It covers a variety of sounds that are just as different and diverse as the sounds modern guitars make today. Personally, I don't think "vintage guitar tone" is definable as it relates solely to the instrument. The combination of a particular guitar with a particular amp can be identified as "vintage tone", but I'm not sure I haven't heard that with modern gear too, given the diversity of both modern and vintage tones.
I started playing guitar in 1965 by 1966 I could actually play a little and got an ES335 and a BF Super Reverb and in 67 got a Fuzz face and cry baby wah.
That was a pretty good rig for a 17 yr old huh but back then it was just considered regular stuff.
I clearly remember the salesman steering me away from the new Fenders cause he said CBS had just bought them and all the new ones were junk as compared to the ones a couple years older.
Then in the early 70's the "Vintage" craze took over and it hasnt been the same since.
What if we could go back in time to lets say 1965 when there were lots of Vintage guitars that hadnt turned Vintage yet did they all sound magic back then? Of course not. As I remember when I first started playing all anyone cared about was they had a guitar and it seemed like new strings were more important than anything to a good sound. I remember giving blood several tikes and used the $10 on new strings!
LOL! You're hardcore man!
Word.
:)
What me and a friend used to do is both go together donate blood. I would buy 2 sets of strings with my $10 and my friend would buy a bag of weed which was $10 a oz back then.
I would give him a set of strings and he would give me 1/2 the bag.
We were both happy campers.
Now where is some of that "Vintage" smoke it sure is better than the stuff I can get now a days NOT!! hahah :nelson
I couldn't agree more. That's like trying to make me believe that it would be possible to describe the color "red" to a blind man who has never seen anything, before. It's just impossible. I like people who start a sentence with "Real vintage tone..." That's just laughable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tele-Bob
As I said before, if my ears can't detect it, I don't care if it's a 57 Strat, I'm not interested. To me, what makes me feel good is the sound, not the bragging rights of owning an old guitar or the prestige amongst other guitarists that I own that older guitar.
I've got quite an ear (not trying to brag, but I do), but even I would never be able to detect the age of an instrument just by *hearing* it. That's just a ridiculous notion to me. I find it a shame that to a lot of guitarists, the age of the instrument is more important than the way it really sounds. I'm sure a lot of people have stock modern Strats or even slightly-modified ones that can easily match the tone of the older guitars at a fraction of the cost... *BUT* you can't brag that you own a 40 year-old guitar. ;)
Put a blindfold on me and let me play with half a dozen guitars and put a few vintage ones in the pack, played through the same amp and you'd be surprised what would come out as being "on top."
If you (as in whoever is debating that vintage guitars *do* automatically or usually sound "better") can't prove with a blindfold test that older guitars perform "better", there's no point in discussing "sound." In that case, it's all about the look, the style, or the pleasure of owning a classic. But it definitely has nothing to do with "Ooh, it sounds so much better than the new ones."
I would be willing to wage serious money that most people owning a vintage Strat would never be able to discern them through a blindfold test. People have too much of a wild tendency to "listen" through their eyes.
There are a few things that can make an old strat different to a new one. Some, however, can be reproduced. Things like the aging of the magnets in the pickups can be artificially done, as can the battered vintage look. There are other things that are vastly more intangible, not least to me is the feel, theres something that the right guitar has, in the way it wears, that is magic. The neck can kind of 'fit' your hand in a way that I have never felt on a brand new guitar simply through the way someone has played it, it's the reason I'm going to refret my cheap strat, and also the reason that the two best guitars I have ever played were a '58 and a '63 strat. Both sounded great, and I don't deny that this part could possibly be matched or bettered, but they felt amazing. It's absolutely true that this is in no way consistent, the absolute worst guitar I have ever played was a '59 burst Les Paul, and vastly more of the vintage axes I have played have been this way than those special two with the magic.
That the magic can exist is undeniable, the fact that it's harder to find than interstellar bicycles is just as undeniable......go figure.
Back when a "nickel bag" was really 5 bucks!Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcondo
I lived in a small town back then, and getting strings was just plain hard to do. I think we conned the drug store owner into bringing them in sometimes, but he'd make mistakes, and bring in Black Diamond acoustic strings sometimes. Then we'd cobble something together best we could out of these sets, and plug our period pieces into mid 60's black face amps, and we thought we were kings. Apparently we were, because the price of the guitars and amps we played every day is now a King's ransom.
I remember Dad telling me how nearly impossible it was during the Second World War getting strings, because the steel all went to the war effort.
I also own both, two real '56s and two Masterbuild Strats a '56 copy and a '54 anniversary. I totally agree with CDaughtry, I just favor Chris Fleming as Masterbuilder. I haven't played a better Strat than my vintage one, but on the other hand the '54 Masterbuild is very close to real ones. That's the guitar I take out and it's my new number one.
My two vintage '56s are in the 25+k$ range in todays vintage market, I don't think I would spend that money. But I wouldn't sell mine either, because it is not easy to get great sounding vintage Strats. Most owners will not part with them, the ones which "cirlce" a lot in the vintage market are not the best examples of what pre-CBS (specially the 50's) sound like.
I agree with that, 56. The CS guitars for the most part are pretty accurate pieces, but the older ones have a vibe and feel that's hard to describe. Some of it's all in the head maybe, but a lot of it's in the hands and ears as well. It's not imagined.
Here's a strange twist. I have a gorgeous 1962 that has had an offer of 30G on it. Is it worth that? I don't think so, but I know this: It has had great offers because of it's condition. Now, how that fits into the whole relicing effect thing, I don't know. Every collector I know pays more for premium condition and appearance.
Tonefreak, I agree the prices nowadays are crazy. I also had very generous offers, since both of my '56s are in 9+ condition. It is a myth that just "well worn instruments sound good"! I haven't played another Strat yet which sounded better than my ash body '56, played some other '55s and '56s that sounded equaly great but not better. No way I will ever sell that guitar.
But I really love my anniversary '54 which I got in summer last year and I'm still amazed how good this guitar looks, feels and most important sounds.