Izzy Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 Hi all I sold a guitar and with a portion of the money got a Fender American Special Mustang because I LOVE my 70s altered (single neck/ Duncan rails bridge) Mustang. Being all about my LP's sound, I thought this atom split dual humbucker would be cool but...I don't like it! *shock So here is the question: Do I prefer the pickup configuration (single with humbucker) or is it the age of the instrument I'm hearing and loving when I play my altered oldie? If there is a 70s Mustang with SH pups and a 2002 with the same SH pups, will the 70s sound better? Yes, this is very subjective, but I'm trying to be open minded and not a snob. Getting the 2002 would save me $300 and I'm not above an MIJ nor am I thinking of it as an investment, tnough I am sure the 70s would preserve its value better. Thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pippy Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 My thoughts, FWIW; Quality tone-woods were not exactly high on the list of 'priorities' when Mustangs were being assembled. Nor, IMHO, would any one of these instruments have benefited at all from the aging process. (I'll argue the point if neccessary, BTW).......:P A good '70s Mustang would have sounded good when it was new and would not have changed appreciably in it's fundamental tone today. These are rudimentary guitars utilising a simplistic construction concept and using cheap and cheerful wood / electronics. Buy the one which feels better in the hand and modify it as you wish. The only thing which matters is that it makes the sounds you imagine and it plays nicely in the hand. IMHO. P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
'Scales Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 what Pippy said. Nothing I've ever seen, heard or read suggests the '70's was a golden age at Fender. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rct Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 Izzy: A great guitar is where you find it. A famous guy said that long ago in usenet, and it became law. You could find 11 really crappy 70s Mustangs in a row, and a dozen brand new ones in a row that are great. There is no telling which will be which until you play them. My advice is always always always avoid vintage guitars unless you are absolutely certain and you are alone in a room with that thing and you love it and have to buy it. You aren't that, and you are in here asking, so you aren't sure. Good luck with it. I don't know what you kids see in these things, but it may be the right size for you. I didn't like them then and haven't touched one in decades. rct Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 My basswood/maple and basswood/maple/rosewood MIJ Ibanez instruments underwent substantial and significant tonal changes with age. They all improved their sound to my taste, adding compression and sustain over the years. Two 1970's Fender Stratocasters with alder bodies and maple/rosewood necks, owned by a bandmate of mine during 1982/'83 and since of March, 2013, obviously improved the same manner, too. Interestingly, mahogany changed less and much faster. My younger guitars made during 2011 to 2013 are behaving in a similar way. Like with all guitars in the past, they allow for gradual decrease of string action with time. This aspect of breaking-in and aging happens much faster on all-mahogany Gibson SGs than on alder/maple or alder/maple/rosewood Fenders. The three all-maple Gibsons of mine seem to age rather slowly, too. An ash/maple Fender of mine and my Gibson Les Paul guitars made of mahogany/maple/mahogany/rosewood range somewhere in between. The progress of the tonal change may take many years depending on timbers, so it may be a bit risky relying on it. Don't know if they can be generalized, but these are my experiences at least. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 Izzy: A great guitar is where you find it. ... You could find 11 really crappy 70s Mustangs in a row, and a dozen brand new ones in a row that are great. There is no telling which will be which until you play them. ... rct [thumbup] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Izzy Posted May 23, 2014 Author Share Posted May 23, 2014 Thank you all for your advice. I generally go by ear/feel, but because the 2002 would be an online purchase I was trying to get an idea if, like Campmaster said, the age would make the tone better in the 70s one. My 70s Mustang sounds great to me and the oldie in the store sounds good too...but good enough to pay $800? I may just go for the 2002 (cheaper) and if its not my thing...well, GC has a decent return policy so... Its interesting, when I looked up threads about electronics vs wood, one thread leaned wood and another leaned electronics. I wonder how this forum leans.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimi Mac Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 Not sure I get the premise of wood vs electronics... I what regard? Wood ages, electronics can change if something goes wrong; shielding deteriorates, or some debris/gunk gets into pots & pickups from sweat and playing over time. It's easier to replace electronics than wood... I think the more important aspect is that it needs to be maintained. Wood will settle nicely if truss-rod & action adjustments are kept-up with and regular conditioning treatments and/or simple cleanings are routinely performed... As for Tone woods I've seen Horrendously defiled finished guitars that sound sublime such as the SRV or Rory Gallagher strats, and I've also seen fantastic looking axes that sounded like shiite... Alvin Lee put stickers and do-dads all over the finish of his ES335 and hacked apart the center block construction to install and extra pickup etc. Sometimes players will paint over the tone woods which can muffle and distort the resonant characteristics too. Which is one of the reasons; supposedly, SRV and/or Rory Gallagher, among others, simply ground-off sections of their finishes to expose tone wood... Jimi Hendrix had his"Montery Pop" Strat and "Psychedlic" Flying V, and Eric Clapton has his "The Fool" SG which were finished guitars that were either repainted or painted over... If you don't know a guitars history of the proclivities of previous owners to keep up with 'em, it's always a shot in the dark. I've had miraculous luck with online purchases and I've had 1 rather unfortunate experience with an online purchase that wasn't a total loss. (I've detailed my "Johnny Reb" VS6 experience on here before) I've seen new guitars on display in shops and stores that were in such bad shape that it has turned me entirely off brands because of how they felt & played, when in reality if the shop tech or owner cared enough to have given it a simple set up it probably could have played well, better, or at least at all, so that it was worthy of display because nobody but a drooling vegetable rookie kid with colors and finish in their eyes would have ever bought it... Or somebody that liked to tinker would have noted it for what it was and been able to show the shop sales staff how "bad it really was" and made an offer to take it off their hands at a steal... Potentially every guitar make and model can be all over the board from tone to condition to action, new and used. It generally pays off better to be able to put hands-on an axe you want to purchase, but you can make-out great with online purchases too, but you have to be willing to risk it... Most any guitar issue can be resolved to a pretty good satisfaction if you can locate either an individual or be willing and able to put in the legwork for research and labor to take care of that issue yourself and find a way to do it on your personal budget... Find what you like, what excites you, what gives you passion to play and go for it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pippy Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 Not sure I get the premise of wood vs electronics...I what regard?Wood ages, electronics can change if something goes wrong; shielding deteriorates... It all depends on how gullible one is. I love Yasuhiko Inawade's "The Beauty of the 'Burst" as much as the next person* and there is a gold-mine of wonderful info which can be gleaned from the text but sometimes 'a pinch of salt' is required..... At the end of the chapter headed 'How the Secondary Tone is Produced in a "Patent Applied For" Pickup' he goes on and on about the 'Mechanics of Aging' listing three aspects which contribute to the improvement in tone due to these hallowed p'ups getting older; 'Demagnetization', 'Bobbin Shrinkage and Distortion' and 'The Relationship Between Wire Tension and Stray Capacitance'. Complete Bollocks Nonsense. IMHO. P. * Assuming they like LPs in a tasteful 'burst, that is............ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 Izzy... I guess my perspective is that first, every guitar is different regardless that it and its various pieces technically were assembly line manufactured. I'm convinced that more has to do with technique and settings on the guitar and amp - and the type of amp - than anything else. Yeah, wood aging, pups aging, new pups, whatever, may make various sorts of differences, but as you've heard on my own little youtube contributions, even when everything else is identical, technique can make huge difference in "tone." I'd say that whatever makes you happy and that you can practically afford is fine - but it's gotta be what'll make you happy regardless. Slight variations in tone aren't, to me at least, the be-all and end-all. Playability for my body dimensions and technical approach are my criterion. The rest... again, there are so many ways of varying tone on an electric. Take everything possible on a given classical guitar and multiply geometrically with every pup, every pot, every pot and setting on an amp. But then... <grin> I'm just a grouchy old man most interested in playing comfort and improvement of playing technique. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Izzy Posted May 23, 2014 Author Share Posted May 23, 2014 I'm convinced that more has to do with technique and settings on the guitar and amp - and the type of amp - than anything else. Yeah, wood aging, pups aging, new pups, whatever, may make various sorts of differences, but as you've heard on my own little youtube contributions, even when everything else is identical, technique can make huge difference in "tone." But then... <grin> I'm just a grouchy old man most interested in playing comfort and improvement of playing technique. m This is exactly why at the store I used the same amp and settings for both mustangs (my special and their vintage). My question was designed to figure out of the same pups and guitar type would make a similar sound from new wood to old wood. By now my guess is...maybe if a 2006 got played lots and was adjusted and loved its gonna sound better than a '65 that was never adjusted and just sat there...and possibly a brand new one may sound as good as an oldie. O.o I don't want to believe it, but its sounding that way. For now...I didn't act fast enough on the 2002 but I'll keep my eye out for a moded Mustang at a decent price be it vintage or not. Sounds to me like buying vintage may just be a matter of "investment smarts" and I want a guitar to play not to sell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 On all the above.... with you 100 percent. Granted, I tend to play pretty consistent and gently for whatever I'm doing, but I'm still convinced that at times even the same guitar will sound far different from what we expect - even if we've been playing it for ages - simply because we're doing something a bit different that we don't even realize we're doing. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted May 24, 2014 Share Posted May 24, 2014 This is exactly why at the store I used the same amp and settings for both mustangs (my special and their vintage). My question was designed to figure out of the same pups and guitar type would make a similar sound from new wood to old wood. By now my guess is...maybe if a 2006 got played lots and was adjusted and loved its gonna sound better than a '65 that was never adjusted and just sat there...and possibly a brand new one may sound as good as an oldie. O.o I don't want to believe it, but its sounding that way. For now...I didn't act fast enough on the 2002 but I'll keep my eye out for a moded Mustang at a decent price be it vintage or not. Sounds to me like buying vintage may just be a matter of "investment smarts" and I want a guitar to play not to sell. Hey Izzy... Hmm.. I think its just so individual to each guitar... every guitar is just ever so slightly different in the way its finished and set up but also that every bit of wood is unique... then you got your electrics each of which makes a tiny difference to the sound but varies in so many ways its kind of a bit of pot luck me thinks if you end up with something that sounds exactly as you think it should in your head... there are just so many variables its hard to predict. You could probably have 10 different bodies all made of the same wood at the same time.. some will age nicely and some wont.. No way to tell. Or you could have a newer one where everything is just right as it is and it sounds and feels great. Its why its always best to just try as many guitars as you can when your on the hunt.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimi Mac Posted May 24, 2014 Share Posted May 24, 2014 It all depends on how gullible one is. I love Yasuhiko Inawade's "The Beauty of the 'Burst" as much as the next person* and there is a gold-mine of wonderful info which can be gleaned from the text but sometimes 'a pinch of salt' is required..... At the end of the chapter headed 'How the Secondary Tone is Produced in a "Patent Applied For" Pickup' he goes on and on about the 'Mechanics of Aging' listing three aspects which contribute to the improvement in tone due to these hallowed p'ups getting older; 'Demagnetization', 'Bobbin Shrinkage and Distortion' and 'The Relationship Between Wire Tension and Stray Capacitance'. Complete Bollocks Nonsense. IMHO. P. * Assuming they like LPs in a tasteful 'burst, that is............ Yes! Alot of guff out there and frankly I'm not techno enough to know if electronics have deteriorated or not, I think my point in that regard was more along the lines of an actual failure requiring component repair or replacement... I don't think electronics tone chasing is any different than any of the tone chasing any of us do... I think it's a Holy Grail mission from God for many of us and we just cannot stop or help ourselves from chasing the ideology which is more like a holy quest than anything concrete. There are alot of techie things (that are beyond me) that are simple and helpful that do make honest differences and then there are capacitor nuances etc. That I could never tell you what was in or what wasn't in any given guitar under any circumstance... I think I learned a good lesson simply attempting to adjust poles on my W90's. (Wilkinson stacked P90's) I convinced myself the pickups needed adjustment of the poles because I seemed to be lacking volume output from my light-side strings. (higher notes/thinner strings/lower side of the guitar as you hold it) So I downloaded a decibel meter app for my iPod and began making adjustments and thought I had nailed it down when I went right back and was getting vastly different readings... I got pissed and hit the high E string hard in my frustration and saw that decibel meter jump... It dawned at me that I had no way to know I was applying the exact same pressure or force on the string or was plucking at anything remotely resembling a uniform cadence so the whole premise of my adjustments were simply self-induced fraud that I truly believed were somehow measurable or standardized which in fact were not remotely so... But I was convinced that this was going to allow me to correct something I perceived in my mind to be "off"... When I undid my Peter Green mod to that guitar (my Vintage V100GT) I simply returned the pole adjustment screws on the W90's back to a uniform standard height and can tell no appreciable difference by ear... We can all convince ourselves of things that simply aren't true but the empirical evidence suggests might be the case at the moment because we cannot conceive of another as likely or more likely reason at that time. It then becomes truth/gospel in our minds, but may simply be nothing more than momentary perception... And as we can all understand, often, perception is reality... But that's the miracle of life and music as gifted to us from God, so why not enjoy it all... It's all good! And so are many tasteful bursts! Chasing tone is fun and gives many of us pleasure and purpose... Nuthin' wrong with that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Notes_Norton Posted May 24, 2014 Share Posted May 24, 2014 Personally, I think 99% of the tone is in the pickups, and you can always change them. But that's just my point of view. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted May 24, 2014 Share Posted May 24, 2014 It all depends on how gullible one is. I love Yasuhiko Inawade's "The Beauty of the 'Burst" as much as the next person* and there is a gold-mine of wonderful info which can be gleaned from the text but sometimes 'a pinch of salt' is required..... At the end of the chapter headed 'How the Secondary Tone is Produced in a "Patent Applied For" Pickup' he goes on and on about the 'Mechanics of Aging' listing three aspects which contribute to the improvement in tone due to these hallowed p'ups getting older; 'Demagnetization', 'Bobbin Shrinkage and Distortion' and 'The Relationship Between Wire Tension and Stray Capacitance'. Complete Bollocks Nonsense. IMHO. P. * Assuming they like LPs in a tasteful 'burst, that is............ Not a nonsense in my opinion, but pure theory. Variations of stray capacitances - there are lots of these, as well as partial inductances, therefore the plural - due to different wire tensions, also affected by bobbin shrinkage and distortion, are serious topics but of poor practical use. Moreover, you couldn't find out valid results, even not through destroying the pickup. A far more productive way is trying to make pickups in different ways, i. e. braided wound, step wound, or - not very reproduceable - mush wound, and using different wires with different isolation materials, varying wire tension - caution: microphonics possible -, and use of wax potting. Then put them into guitars, play, and listen. I think the reputable pickup manufacturers know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pippy Posted May 24, 2014 Share Posted May 24, 2014 ...My question was designed to figure out of the same pups and guitar type would make a similar sound from new wood to old wood... The problem with guitars - new or old - is they vary from one example to the next. As rct said; "You could find 11 really crappy 70s Mustangs in a row, and a dozen brand new ones in a row that are great. There is no telling which will be which until you play them." In the April 2008 issue of "The Tone Report" half-a-dozen 1959 Les Pauls were A-B'd (blind test) over a period of time and guess what? All the testers preferred ONE over all the rest. Unanimously. So ONE of those genuine '59s was noticeably 'superior'. WHY ? My guess (and it IS just a guess), FWIW, is that it was also better when it was new. That's why it's important to try out as many examples as you can of any guitar before you pick one. I don't buy into the 'Old Wood is Better Wood' myth - and I had a '64 Strat for 24 years. P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Izzy Posted May 24, 2014 Author Share Posted May 24, 2014 My guess (and it IS just a guess), FWIW, is that it was also better when it was new. P. This definelty seems right. I got lucky with my cheapie from the 70s and it has great tone. I happened to try another 70s that had similar tone, but I also have tried some oldies that were *facepalm Vintage is starting to seem like an investment issue more than anything........and the cool factor (which is worthless if it feels and sounds like poo). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted May 24, 2014 Share Posted May 24, 2014 ... So ONE of those genuine '59s was noticeably 'superior'. WHY ? My guess (and it IS just a guess), FWIW, is that it was also better when it was new. That's why it's important to try out as many examples as you can of any guitar before you pick one. I don't buy into the 'Old Wood is Better Wood' myth - and I had a '64 Strat for 24 years. P. Usually, a guitar will improve with age to most ears, but age won't make a mediocre guitar a great one. I absolutely agree with your opinion that the one rated superior was also better when it was new. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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