Vintage guitars have "Golden" tone? Yes or No?

[mayfly]

Sure, Jimi played one to great effect. But, what choice did he have? I wasn't building guitars back then :laughing7:

Amen Brother!  We all make much better guitars now  ccasion14:

I vividly remember a Brand New Fender Strat in the mid 70's that had a $1500 price tag... with a warped neck. 

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

I have a few friends that are vintage spec guys.  They like the thicker necks, lower output pickups, older neck construction, etc., etc.  They dig an era specific RI over a modern interpretation, state of the art version by the same company.  Thing is, they sound great on anything.

I read it here on this forum several years ago, all those 50s, 60s, 70s recordings were made with 50s, 60s, 70s instruments.  That is, they weren't vintage instruments.

 

[Sovereign_13]

20 years seems way too short a time span to be considered vintage.  20 years ago, it was 1997...not sure many would look at a guitar made in 1997 and call it "vintage".  I personally would call it "used".

Not to hijack the thread, but some friends and I recently were discussing which cars being made today (under $50,000 new) will be considered "classics" in 50ish years, the way most 60s cars are today.  I was of the opinion that most of the "classic" cars we see today weren't all that special when they were made, they just have a different aesthetic and tech level than modern cars.  By that logic, if, 50 years from now, cars hover and drive themselves then your run-of-the-mill Accord with an internal combustion engine and a steering rack would probably be considered a "classic".  Similarly, a Pontiac or Saturn might be considered a classic simply because the brand doesn't exist anymore, and the number of them in good, working condition is going to dwindle over the next few decades (not the least because they're GM products from a time that wasn't the peak of GM quality).

With guitars, it's probably the same.  We tend to look at historical versions of everyday things with rose-colored glasses.  High-end bespoke instruments will always be valuable because of the care and skill needed to make them.  But mass-produced instruments themselves aren't worth more because they're old - more probably because there's a limited supply of them.  Leo didn't set out to make the world's best-made guitar, he set out to make money.  And that means finding the trade-off between cost and quality that the market would tolerate, both then and now.

/rant

 

[Cederick]

(Handmade).... just makes for more errors in the building process.

You made an error in assumption, Cederick. Ever heard of "Viva la difference!"? Differences are what you get with hand built. Hand built makes allowances for certain materials or techniques that actually improve over CNC machines who don't see, think, or feel. And hand built is still something that is cherished - especially from high end makers like Benedetto, Somogyi, etc. It's called CRAFTMANSHIP. You pay extra to get it.

Again - makers THINK. Machines don't. And they don't always do what men tell them to do. We see it every day when you think about it. How often does your PC butch up? Your car? Get the picture?

And new guitars are only "CNC machined and mass produced".

Again, Cederick - error in assumption. You think machine made means no mistakes... What it really means is BIGGER mistakes. I know, my other job was as a tool & die machinist. I also having been programming since the late 70's and made a lot of stuff on CNC machines. The people who run them make mistakes at nearly every point in the process, and any machinist has seen CNC's act with minds of their own, tearing up parts and even damaging themselves. It's true. CNC is no guarantee of greatness.

You and I will never know just how much stuff gets butched up by CNC machines at Warmoth, Taylor, Gibson, etc. Most goofs are immediately obvious, and will never leave the production floor to see the light of day.

Finally, mass production used to have a bad connotation. It still does to a degree. Mass production does not guarantee high quality. It guarantees a certain level of average quality. Which is why most Taylors all sound alike, but they don't all sound great.

So, yes - Warmoth is high quality, no argument there. But it's not because of CNC. I've been doing business with them way before they used CNC stuff - they used jigs and fixtures and even hand tools. They set the bar pretty high, and THAT'S what counts. Not the tool they use to achieve it.

1. But those luthiers maybe does unique guitars often, and have to do unique things every time?

2. I guess Double A could answer the question about how much is put in the bin straight from CNC

3. A friend of mine has built a couple of guitars with CNC at his work... no issues involved (except he spelled his own surname wrong on the fretboard  :toothy12: :toothy12: :toothy12: )

4. Also, I'm familiar with a professional luthier in Sweden who's built guitars for a living for years:
but now he got a CNC machine instead because it saves time, and makes things more precise with less labour involved.

5. Let's say a human competed with a CNC machine.
MAKE A CUBE 10x10x10 cm.
Who will win, in precision and time?

Same goes for a guitar neck or body...


There's pros and cons to each way of manufacturing.

 

[aarontunes]

I believe the electric guitars being made today are far superior in almost every way to that ones being made 50 or 60 years ago. I think most people would also agree that the Chevy Cameros being built today are, by every objective measure, far superior to the ones built 40 years ago. However, there are still good reasons to own both. Which one you choose to own depends on what things are important to you.

The idea of one luthier building a perfect, singular instrument, with a unique set of specs and idiosyncrasies, is romantic, but not feasible at the scale necessary to keep my family fed. That said, I don't believe that "CNC" and "craftsmanship" are mutually exclusive. Automation frees a craftsman from having to waste their time doing mundane, easily repeatable tasks, and ups the level of tolerance and consistency to the point necessary for mass production. Once the CNC work is done, there is still a massive amount of work that gets done by hand, by skilled guys and gals who care about what they are doing, and want to build killer guitar parts. Honestly, the skill level of the people who work here boggles my mind. When I visit the various departments and see what these people are capable of, I always leave feeling like the "new kid" in class.

Cedrick, I don't know if you have ever heard this American folk-tale in your part of the world, but the legend of John Henry is about a railroad worker back in the 1800's, who could drive spikes better than any man alive. Then a machine was invented, and it was claimed that it could lay railroad lines faster and better than any man. To prove he was still the champion, John Henry challenged the machine to a race. He drove spikes all day long, at a pace never seen before, while the machine chugged along tirelessly beside him. They worked neck and neck, with no clear winner, until the end of the day, when sweaty, exhausted, and spent....John Henry had laid more track than the machine. He had won.

And then he collapsed from a heart attack and died.

I don't know how that story applies to this discussion, exactly....but telling it seems strangely appropriate. :icon_thumright:

 

[Cagey]

Speaking of stories about the futility of opposing progress, one can't forget the Luddites.

 

[AirCap]

Dear Double A.... there are no "e"'s in CAMARO, and the new ones are butt ugly compared to the classic ones of my youth.

 

[Cederick]

Thanks for summing it up Double A

I know a guitar part aint perfect out of the CNC machine

Haven't heard but it thanks for the story time  :icon_biggrin:

 

[aarontunes]

 

[Cagey]

Aesthetics aside (and I agree the old ones were sexy as hell), those old pony cars were absolutely frightening to drive. There are two absolutely necessary features any automobile must have: the ability to steer and stop. One could get firmly buried in the seat as one of those old buggers accelerated from 0 to 120 in very few seconds, but then you were left with the very real problem of aiming the thing someplace safe and getting it back down to sub-light speed before you became road pizza. Squishy suspensions, drum brakes that faded in seconds, poor unsprung weight ratios, balance issues, etc. all made those things death traps. Hard acceleration is fun for a brief moment, but the inability of those old cars to handle reliably at speed was very real, and cost lotsa lives. The cheapest bottom-of-the-line cars you can buy today have better steering, suspension and brakes than those old beasts did, and they were the ones that really needed it.

 

[Sovereign_13]

Just to show how far we've come from in the "vehicular safety" category...

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joMK1WZjP7g[/youtube]

 

[ghotiphry]

Okay, story time.

Back in my high school days I had a good friend named Jeff.  Jeff had a car.  It was a mid-60's Oldsmobile Dynamic 88.  Huge beast of a machine.  On par with the Cadillac of the day for size.  Jeff also had a father who was into cars, and a neighbor with a hell of a machine shop.

So, Jeff set to work.  I can't say as I remember everything that he did to that car, but I can remember a few of the details.  It had a 3/4 racing cam.  The block had been drilled to receive larger pistons.  It had a blower.  He swears at one time he ran NOS, although I don't remember that.  And it had Oldsmobile tires and drum brakes.  And lap belts only.

He painted it a gorgeous deep blue that would fade into deep purple or black depending on how the light hit it.  Beautiful machine.

One day Jeff and I went for a ride.  We had someplace in the country we needed to go, although I don't remember the were and why of that.  Jeff decides to "get on it."  I know he had it over 100 mph, and would not have been surprised if we were over 120.  Jeff says he hit 130, but I think that's a bit of d**k swinging.  I think I peed a little, but man what a rush.  Suddenly there was this BANG.  Jeff decides its a good time to slow down.  We look behind us, we're leaving a trail of something, not exactly sure what.  Jeff comes to a stop and we get out of the car.  The stuff is rubber.  Rubber?  Yeah, the tires couldn't handle the speed.  One of them had peeled all of the rubber off of itself.  We had been riding on steel belts at 100+ mph.

Good thing he had a spare.  His mother sold the car out from under him within the year, and he ended up driving a mid 70s Mustang around.  That was a POS.  Jeff is still alive, and still a good friend of mine.

What does that story have to do with vintage guitars?  Um, maybe not too much.  But I think it's a good story, anyway.  I'm sure one of you guys can draw some analogy to vintage guitars.

 

[mayfly]

I have a similar story about a high school buddies 302 V8 pinto that we were blasting around in... until he lost control of the front end, ran into the valiant beside us causing the whole works to come to a screeching halt in front of a traffic cop with a radar gun.

It's a great story to tell between songs at a gig 

 

[Cagey]

Yeah, I knew a guy who put a tricked-up Chevy 350 in a Gremlin, of all things. Came to a similar end. Just as well. Thing was squirrely as hell.

 

[AirCap]

All you have to do is look at my avatar to know I'm into STUDEBAKERS.

 

[Cagey]

Is that where that's from? I was guessing that it may have something to do with Civil Air Patrol. The "AirCap" name being sort of a clue.

I gotta stop listening to the voices in my head :laughing7:

 

[AirCap]

Ah.... AirCap - short for Air Capital aka Wichita, KS. 6 out of 10 commercial aircraft in the world were built here in Wichita. Also - a bunch of military planes... Over 100 airplane makers have called Wichita home during the last 100 years. Right now, Beech, Cessna, Learjet, Spirit Aerosystems, and Airbus have huge amounts of employees here. Boeing's 40,000 employees in Wichita were thrown under the bus when they opened the plant in North Carolina back in 2012.

The Studebaker logo is the last logo the company used. I've been a fan since I was a kid, and I've been a member of the Studebaker Drivers Club, Intl., since 1998. I'm an officer at the local and state levels, and am currently "between Studebakers" as we say in the club.

 

[MikeW]

Back to the OP...

Recently I've befriended a guy who has Stratocaster #19368. His acquisition story is the old familiar one: Strat found at the back of a friend-of-a-friend's grandparent's closet. he paid several thousand for it because he knew it's value as a collector's item.

He brought it to a jam we had one day and let me play it. Beautiful piece of work and has all the hallmarks of the "vintage" Fenders since everything but strings and one tremolo spring and one tone pot are original. It's a beauty to play and a beauty to look at and still sounds good, but, it's nothing in comparison to the Strats I built and play every day. Clunky tuners are the worst of it with the tight radius on the fretboard a close second.

I imagine that living in the closet and badly needing a setup kept it in good shape over the years. But even he admits that his American Standard Strat is a better instrument to play and sounds better to boot.

 

[Strat Avenger]

Right. It's like sitting in an old car, and maybe driving it if you're brave. Brings back memories, and that's fine. But, you wouldn't want to own one, or have to deal with one on a regular basis. They just weren't very good cars.

Guitars are the same way. An old Strat is a real pain the shorts. The tuners were junk Klusons, the nut was plastic, the frets were tiny, the bridge wouldn't stay in tune more than 30 seconds after you started playing, the pickups were weak, the fretboard radius was too small, they were noisy - they just weren't very good guitars.

Sure, Jimi played one to great effect. But, what choice did he have? I wasn't building guitars back then :laughing7:

Actually, I would like to own one (or two or three), BUT with upgraded steering, brakes, & suspension. Maybe even some engine mods. That's basically what my Warmoth Strat is. An upgraded version of a vintage design. It has the style without the headaches.

 

[Cagey]

That's basically what my Warmoth Strat is. An upgraded version of a vintage design. It has the style without the headaches.

I can go along with that easily enough. The Strat body style is fantastic. I can see that surviving for many years to come.