What is 'vintage tone'?

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Molly
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What is 'vintage tone'?

Post by Molly »

This month's 'The Guitar Magazine' has another article dissecting / measuring old Les Paul components as part of this quest for vintage tone. It concludes that genuine old pickups in their new Greco LP copy thing results in something largely indistinguishable from the original article (the wood, therefore, being the least important factor). So, if vintage tone is what you're after you just need to find a few grand for genuine old pickups. :thumbup:

Anyway, is there such a thing as 'vintage tone'? What do you suppose it means?

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Re: What is 'vintage tone'?

Post by kwhelan »

think the amp and speaker is more important than the guitar anyway. vintage is more about the lower hifi specs of the gear at the time especially how they were recorded. maybe new gear is too much improved at its base level, if those early guys had had the gear we have now we wouldn't have the same reference tones anyway. Imagine if jimi hendrix was using protools and axefx

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Re: What is 'vintage tone'?

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Re: What is 'vintage tone'?

Post by Conway »

The old crusties have to have something to get hard about. Like “old wood” and “mojo”. :lol: :twisted:
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Re: What is 'vintage tone'?

Post by null_pointer »

Tone chasing is funny. I love the interview with J Mascis where he’s being asked about his signature Jazzmaster. Turns out he didn’t want a JM at all, he’d driven 50 miles to the shop to buy a strat but didn’t have enough cash so had to settle for the Jazzmaster instead...

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Re: What is 'vintage tone'?

Post by werdna »

Those Jazzmasters are ugly mothers. He must have been gutted.
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Re: What is 'vintage tone'?

Post by kwhelan »

funny they were so busy at trying to get a different sound or at least different from every other band at the time they were all getting their amps and pedals doctored by someone or doing odd new things in the studio, strangely nearly everybody now is trying to copy that same sound or recreate it with modelling and because we only have recordings to reference now I wonder how different the sound was in the room at the time. We all know even with the amazing gear around now how different recorded sound is but we still persist in chasing it.
be interested to know if string technology has altered the sound as well, they can't be the same as they were surely, better for sure but maybe thats the issue

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Re: What is 'vintage tone'?

Post by null_pointer »

Love or hate the end product, what was great about the 1980s musically was people were genuinely chasing new sonics, leading to lots of innovation and experimentation. I hope there’s another wave of that on the horizon rather than endless ‘return to roots’ approaches.

Vintage tone to me largely means ‘sounds like famous song/player from 30+ years ago’. Not a bad thing to be sure, but it must have stifled creativity to a degree.

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Re: What is 'vintage tone'?

Post by kwhelan »

null_pointer wrote:Love or hate the end product, what was great about the 1980s musically was people were genuinely chasing new sonics, leading to lots of innovation and experimentation. I hope there’s another wave of that on the horizon rather than endless ‘return to roots’ approaches.

Vintage tone to me largely means ‘sounds like famous song/player from 30+ years ago’. Not a bad thing to be sure, but it must have stifled creativity to a degree.
vintage tone to facebook guitarists is surfing with the alien and nevermind :mrgreen:

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Re: What is 'vintage tone'?

Post by Dharmajester »

[quote="]
vintage tone to facebook guitarists is surfing with the alien and nevermind :mrgreen:[/quote]

Exactly. It's all a question of age. Vintage is whatever you first heard that made a strong impression during your so called formative years.
I grew up with 60's Brit pop and American soul on the radio and all the legendary blues rock guitarists as live entertainment. Grew out of those genre very, very quickly in the quest for something new. Now I'm a grumpy old bastard though I've reverted to it and find the music I listened to in my 20/ 30's far too exhausting and frantic. Curios to see what the later generations who grew up on speed metal etc will be listening to as their tyres get thin.
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Re: What is 'vintage tone'?

Post by MrDINO »

I guess the 911 is known as a vintage car but is still used today because it has remained popular. Probably the same today with vintage tone. It holds well for some and others not so well. I remember when the Datsuns dropped onto the scene. They had comments like ‘70s’ tone probably aimed at the lead guitar LP - JMP Marshall.

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Re: What is 'vintage tone'?

Post by Zaulkin »

Vintage tone to me is playing rock n roll riffs using a telecaster or LP with PAFs into a gritty sounding amp - Marshall works.

I get some pretty cool sounds with my Squier classic Vibe tele going into my Katana on the crunch channel.

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Re: What is 'vintage tone'?

Post by jeremyb »

Tele into a cranked tweed amp, doesn't get any better than that!
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Re: What is 'vintage tone'?

Post by Mini Forklift »

'Vintage tone' to me is guitar straight to amp.

Kossoff is a perfect example of this, with the gain/drive being dictated by the volume knob(s) on his guitar. I'm sure this question is entirely subjective though.

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Re: What is 'vintage tone'?

Post by Molly »

Mini Forklift Ⓥ wrote:'Vintage tone' to me is guitar straight to amp.

Kossoff is a perfect example of this, with the gain/drive being dictated by the volume knob(s) on his guitar.
That'd be my idea of vintage tone too if pressed to come up with a definition.
Mini Forklift Ⓥ wrote:I'm sure this question is entirely subjective though.
Exactly. It was an interesting article that prompted the OP but 'vintage' might just as easily be VH1.

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