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Post subject: What makes a bass sound old?
Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2012 4:39 pm
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Is it the weakening of the pickups? aging of the wood? I find it fascinating how every bass sounds different, but what makes vintage basses sound vintage?


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Post subject: Re: What makes a bass sound old?
Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2012 5:28 pm
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The pickups lose magnetic field after so long. Years of the wood vibrating from the strings, plus the wood just being old is a factor, too. Can't forget the nickel hardware...


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Post subject: Re: What makes a bass sound old?
Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2012 10:23 pm
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If you are talking about what makes a bass sound "old" all by itself, then yes dried out woods will possibly add some resonance. Starting in 1964 and ever since Fender has used a poly based primer that pretty much sealed the body airtight, so after 1963 models there is very little if any drying going on with any opaque body finish even though the outer color layer is said to be nitrocellulose lacquer. Claims of nitro bodies breathing is just "snake oil" from 1964 on unless it is ALL nitro including the primer coat and those are mostly going to be more modern Custom Shop things. Even when talking about a bass made prior to 1964 people forget that the all nitro finishes don't have a built-in one-way valve and the instruments will also absorb moisture right from the air! So typically at least some moisture lost in dry winter months is replaced in the humidity of summer.

Other factors listed below are to me just as important, if not actually more important to an old bass sound. You may have a different opinion but here comes mine.

First. Don't forget, the player's skill & style has much to do with getting old Fender P-Bass tone.

Also strings (flatwounds and usually sets that are either half way or mostly dead), appropriate muting where necessary, a vintage setup with the proper tone capacitor, EQ settings, the inherent compression present in tube amps of old and the 15 inch speakers (now largely out of vogue) all matter.

Nobody but nobody was using any aftermarket or overwound pickups, high mass bridges, metal nuts, active electronics, Bass Driver pedals or any other so-called "upgrades" in olden times. (Meaning previous to 1970.)

Another factor to consider is the equal vintage authenticity of the other instrumentation on top of the bass! If you put an authentic old P-Bass tone in with synthesized modern instrumentation, it sounds less old school. But with a Hammond B-3 into a Leslie, a Telecaster into a Fender Deluxe and real horns the exact same bass tone sounds to be truly authentic vintage. So, it is also at least partly a matter of the other sounds around it.

Your idea of what makes a bass sound old might be different, but to me old bass tone is on the Motown, Stax-Volt, Atlantic and west coast "Wrecking Crew" recordings of the late 50's to early 70's. I think that the pickups being scatter wound by hand one at a time to the specified turns of the day made them inherently different from most pickups of today which are machine wound with more turns (overwound) to produce more output. Today's higher output pickups sacrifice tonal range for loudness and just do not have that certain edge you hear in the old ones.

You have to remember that those "old bass" recordings were made with what were then relatively new instruments and in almost each case the instruments were less than 10 years old at the time. Everything was stock. The tone caps were ceramic disc, the pickup magnets were Alnico, the strings were flats of the Labella 760M variety and the amps almost exclusively had 15 inch speakers. In most cases the studio amp was either an Ampeg B15 or the player was plugged direct into a house preamp. (Most players were not crazy about the B15's but recording engineers loved the way they sounded on tape, at least until direct recording became fashionable.)

I don't think the aging of the pickup magnets really has much to do with what I consider to be classic old school/vintage bass tone or with what you call "old bass" tone either.

Alnico magnets have a high coercivity (resistance to loss of magnetism) and do not lose much pull over many, many decades so long as not exposed to demagnetizing fields such as powerful electromagnets. Alnico magnets are classified as permanent magnets. You can even heat an Alnico magnet red hot and it will retain its original pull.

The reason some old pickups weaken and fail shortly after they weaken is due to a coil short in the coil winding that eventually breaks and not because of magnet failure or weakening. In fact in almost all cases if you rewind a weakened or dead 40 year old Fender P-Bass pickup's coil to stock turns with new Formvar wire they are good as new.

It us understandable why anyone would think that an older pickup has lost power and is weakened. Any older pre-CBS P-Bass will have an inherently lower output than a recent production American Standard P-Bass because the coil isn't wound to as many turns as a modern pickup, but the old spec pickup sounds fuller range. To me fuller range is better and is the old bass sound.


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Post subject: Re: What makes a bass sound old?
Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 3:41 am
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Hey, Dave - You forgot one thing in what makes a vintage bass sound vintage...

A VINTAGE BASS PLAYER ---- (and you and I both qualify !!!) :lol: :lol: :lol:


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Post subject: Re: What makes a bass sound old?
Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 8:41 am
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I take brotherdave's opinions seriously.

I still like the point he made about wood selection just being better years ago. Does that have much to do with vintage tone?


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Post subject: Re: What makes a bass sound old?
Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 8:41 pm
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PaducahLuke wrote:
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Hey, Dave - You forgot one thing in what makes a vintage bass sound vintage...

A VINTAGE BASS PLAYER ---- (and you and I both qualify !!!) :lol: :lol: :lol:


P-L

======


Yes we qualify! I did say, "First. Don't forget, the player's skill & style has much to do with getting old Fender P-Bass tone."


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Post subject: Re: What makes a bass sound old?
Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 9:41 pm
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Dalembic wrote:
I take brotherdave's opinions seriously.

I still like the point he made about wood selection just being better years ago. Does that have much to do with vintage tone?


Actually wood quality does matter some to old tone, but not as much as the other factors I mentioned. Primarily I think the pickup winding, string type and tone cap ranked precisely in that order matter more to "old bass tone." Wood to me is probably fourth and has less impact.

I also thought that veneered (laminate) top body blanks were not as conducive to old tone since they were not using laminate blanks in olden times. I thought that laminate bodies would always have less resonance in general since the laminate top equates to another piece of wood and generally the fewer pieces in the blank the better. However to my surprise that is not always the case. I've seen a few laminate bodies that would sing very well, so that is sort of baffling to me. Blanks vary in their inherent resonance due density of the various wood pieces glued together by the contractor and the number of pieces used and how well dried or aged it was before finishing. It is all quality alder or ash or basswood or maple or whatever but like people they are each just a tad different.

No two body blanks are identical, no two neck blanks are identical, no two tone caps are identical and no two pickups are exactly identical. Those are the four main reasons you can have two identical brand new stock instruments side by side and you'll probably like the sound of one better. It is all good wood, but some blanks are better than others and you can't go just by looks either.

I've actually ran across some pre-CBS totally stock basses that actually didn't sound all that great. But then you find one that does and all is forgiven! It is because of the component variables and the same holds true in new instruments today. Sometimes when you see a pristine all original 1965 bass for sale there is a reason that it is pristine. The reason can be that it doesn't sound as good as another the owner used more frequently or it didn't play as well. So I'm always wary of instruments that look way better than they should at 50 years old.

Strike a tuning fork (A-440) and touch the base of the shaft of the fork to a point near the center of a body. A more resonant body will sing louder. You can do this with an entire row of identical instruments to quickly eliminate duds and possibly find one or two that sing louder than the average ones. The louder the fork the more resonant the wood. However there are still the other factors to consider so the resonance should not be the only deciding factor to say one bass is better than another.

There is a tolerance factor in tone caps. With a ceramic disc cap labeled 0.05uF it can actually have a value of from 0.04 to 0.06 and still be in tolerance. That isn't much of a difference, but it is a difference! There can be a few turns difference in pickup coils also and that isn't much of a difference either, but it is another difference! When you start adding up all the little variables it becomes easier to see why two seemingly identical instruments can sound different!


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Post subject: Re: What makes a bass sound old?
Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2012 6:13 am
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I'm currently building a Fender P on a budget out of (mostly) old parts so I am particularly focused on where to use older, more expensive parts, and where to use newer and cheaper parts. I am totally convinced that older wood DOES sound better. The first thing I bought was a '66 neck. I bolted this up to my '89 Precision and it totally transformed the bass. As well as being literally half the weight - Gotoh Resolite tuners help too - it's SO much warmer and woodier. Well worn nitro finish is so much nicer to play too. I think the old wood is so stable, so played in, so resonant. Particularly with Fenders. I believe their was much better quality control in timber selection in the sixties. Plus I suspect the timber was harvested from older, more seasoned trees. I don't believe old pickups are better, or that they age, but I do believe they were extremely well made in comparison with many mass produced pickups from now. For the bass I'm building I think a good set of boutique pickups is far better value for money than old pickups. I'm thinking Lindy Fralins but opinion are invited! Other than that, I don't believe anything else in an 'old' bass makes it sound better. Though I have had debates with another bass player about how much an aluminium pickguard changes the sound! But I doubt that an old aluminium pickguard sounds any different from a new one.


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Post subject: Re: What makes a bass sound old?
Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 6:15 am
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"Re: What makes a bass sound old?"

They sit around and complain about how things were so much better back in their day... :wink:

While there are many things that go into that vintage Fender sound you'd be surprised how close the modern Fender basses can get very close with the right strings (as mentioned above) and the right technique (again, mentioned above).

Things like modern tone circuits and the parts put into them. Pickups, wiring and materials put into them. Woods, and finishes. All change that magical mix slightly. However, to all but the sharpest or most experienced ear it's for naught, especially in the mix.

In the end, If you buy a Roadworn 50's P bass. String it with a nice set of Flats. Play it fingerstyle and jam on some classic tunes. You're likely going to knock the socks off your audience and the other members of your band. Only other bassists will really know. Not even the majority of them.

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