Why do old guitars sound different?

[oriv]

I just picked up an eastman 371ce. that is one amazing guitar for the price. But it won't easily give the "bright size life" sound or the "joy spring" joe pass sound (two different sounds that I adore). New gibsons I've tried doesn't come close also. I don't believe in "magic" or "vibe", so what is it? what's that vibe after all? the thickness of the top? the eastman should be thin top like an old 175 or so, so I don't know about that. the pickups? the wood? the bracing?

[vinlander]

Guitar wood and construction, pickups, strings, pick, all that influence...
But I think the player has a lot to do in the equation...I would bet Joe Pass with and Eastman 371ce in the same recording studio and producer would sound pretty close to his 175.

[Broyale]

I don't put much stock in an old guitar's sound. Common sense says there are way too many variables that affected the sound from the player's technique to the environment the performance was recorded in, brand/type of amp, strings, recording setup, etc, that its almost pointless obsessing over such things. If I want Wes Montgomery's sound, well, I need to be Wes-everything else is just an approximation. I'm okay with that.

[runeo]

If you play 4-string chords with your fingers/nails and slowly move from close to the bridge towards fret 20 passing the neck PU, you pass (not Joe Pass ) a lot of sounds. Both in the percussive part and the sustain part of the sound.

[oriv]

of course no one can sound exactly like wes or pat and I know the many different sounds you can achieve changing an amp or where you pick, but still there are some guitars that the moment you pick them up you go - "there it is!". Usually they are at least 30 years old or so. I've heard and played some amazingly good new guitars (my holst for example), but on the major big factories guitars it seems like only the old will do the trick.

[Jim Soloway]

I not one who has tracked Metheny's career fro album to album but maybe someone who has can answer this for me: how much did his sound change when he switched from the Gibson to the Ibanez?

[mr. beaumont]

Hard to say--at that same time he started using the ibanez he changed the sound of the whole group.

I also was not under the impression he completely stopped using the 175.

I also don't think Pat's early 175 tones are very indicative of what an "old" 175 sound is....His tone was very bright and modern. Had nothing to do with old wood.

[oriv]

yea with the ibanez he plays much much darker. I once read in an interview he said how when he changed guitars everyone told him the 175 sounded "so much better" but he did not agree at all.

[jads57]

Wood does tend to dry out over a period of time, even laminates. Pickups age as well, so given some time the Eastman will sound better. I tend to go over board on my gear as well as far as being finnicky. The best thing to do is find something that's really good to start with and not only will it improve over time. But your feelings for that particular piece of gear will too!

[ecj]

I not one who has tracked Metheny's career fro album to album but maybe someone who has can answer this for me: how much did his sound change when he switched from the Gibson to the Ibanez?

The answer is "not at all". There's an interview with him where he talks about how he made the switch around the time he recorded Secret Story. He used the 175 on some tracks of Secret Story, and the Ibanez on others. He says he can't even remember which ones anymore, and he challenged a lot of the people who were convinced the 175 sounded "better" to look at the record with open ears.

This was also around the time his tone started sounding more like Jim Hall and less like the earlier, chorused out tone.

[mr. beaumont]

yea with the ibanez he plays much much darker. I once read in an interview he said how when he changed guitars everyone told him the 175 sounded "so much better" but he did not agree at all.

Right, but how much of that do you attribute to the guitar and how much is an aesthetic choice?

[mr. beaumont]

Actually, if you think about it his tone was already darker by the mid to late 80's.

So it was completely aesthetic and had little or nothing to do with the guitar.

[Jonathan0996]

I think the notion that you can duplicate a great musician's sound by duplicating his equipment is foolish. Joe Pass sounded the way he did because he was Joe Pass. You can use his guitar, amp, pick, cable, underwear... whatever, you ain't gonna sound like Joe Pass.

The only sound you can ever really have is your own.

[fritz jones]

There is probably something in the recipe that Gibson used for their laminate plates in the older ES guitars, like the hot hide glue that was used.
Some luthiers think hide glue has better tonal properties.

Of course anyone's definition of "better" sound is subjective.

[Cunamara]

I not one who has tracked Metheny's career fro album to album but maybe someone who has can answer this for me: how much did his sound change when he switched from the Gibson to the Ibanez?

In interviews PM claims not at all. He thinks he sound exactly the same. It's a little hard to compare because the rest of his rig has changed a lot- the first decade or so of recordings he used an Acoustic 134 (I think that was the model) and has switched to other equipment over the years as stuff wore out and became unreliable.

[oriv]

jonathan, I'm not talking about a particular player, just gave examples of tones I like, but if I pickup a gibson (175 or 335) and I like it, it's always an old one. never tried a new gibson that I REALLY liked, they were just "good guitars". of course they might get better in 20 years who knows

[Broyale]

jonathan, I'm not talking about a particular player, just gave examples of tones I like, but if I pickup a gibson (175 or 335) and I like it, it's always an old one. never tried a new gibson that I REALLY liked, they were just "good guitars". of course they might get better in 20 years who knows

Ahhh, that gives me hope!
If my 2013 WesMo sounds and plays this sweet now, I can't wait to see/hear how it plays in 30 more years!
Provided I am still able to play in 30 years. Now I am depressed.

[Gertrude Moser]

You are comparing apples to tube socks; they are not even remotely close to one another. A recording has great potential to sound absolutely nothing like, well, whatever it was that was recorded (perhaps very intentionally so)! There are so many factors and variables between the recording/mixing process and playback (let alone the artist's techniques, quirks) that if one stopped for just a moment to think of just a few of them, common sense would explain the futility of trying to "recreate" what you think you heard on a recording.
Plug a guitar you like into an amp you like, turn the knobs until it sounds good, and it is good! ​

[vinlander]

I wonder if most people would hear much of a difference between a 10 years old ES 175 and 40 or even 50 years old one unless they are equipped with a paf vs p90 maple back vs mahogany of course...
Every 175 of any given era will sound slightly different because each guitar is unique and even if they might age it will not be a complete different guitar after 50 years...
The vintage vibe, the fact they are scarcer and more desirable as such means THEY HAVE to be better

[John A.]

I not one who has tracked Metheny's career fro album to album but maybe someone who has can answer this for me: how much did his sound change when he switched from the Gibson to the Ibanez?

I've seen him play both in the same concert. It has been quite a while, but I remember the differences being very subtle, basically indistinguishable in a big venue where he's playing the full rig with multi-tap delays and amps running in stereo. I also saw him in smaller settings with simpler set ups playing just the Ibanez or just the 175, and yes, it's a different sound, but everything else was different, too. Overall, though, he's one of those people who just sounds so much like himself on any style of guitar that it's hard to hear the differences between the gear.

John

[jasonc]

I think the notion that you can duplicate a great musician's sound by duplicating his equipment is foolish. Joe Pass sounded the way he did because he was Joe Pass. You can use his guitar, amp, pick, cable, underwear... whatever, you ain't gonna sound like Joe Pass.

The only sound you can ever really have is your own.

You may not be able to duplicate exactly but it sure helps to be in the same ball park. For example, I don't care how much you will yourself to sound like Oscar Moore you aren't going to do it with a Parker Fly and a Soldano amp. Now if you have an old single-coil equipped guitar and and an EH-150 you may still not sound exactly like Oscar but you'll sure be a lot closer.
I'll have to admit I don't understand the aged magnet/pickup (aged anything for that matter) thing though. Most of the sounds people are trying to emulate were made when the pickups and magnets (and guitars) were new.

[Jonathan0996]

jonathan, I'm not talking about a particular player, just gave examples of tones I like, but if I pickup a gibson (175 or 335) and I like it, it's always an old one. never tried a new gibson that I REALLY liked, they were just "good guitars". of course they might get better in 20 years who knows

I agree with that; the old Gibsons were definitely better. I think it's got more to do with build quality than the age of the wood. A number of independent luthiers are able to build great guitars with new wood. Go figure.

[randyc]

For a long time I thought that what we guitarists consider a "good" sound is largely predicated on conditioning, based on our listening experience. For example consider the sound of the old Gibson and Epiphone guitars that characterize early American jazz guitarists compared with Selmers and similar construction instruments that European guitarists chose at the time. There is a distinct tonal difference between the two designs and I suspect that Europeans prefer the sound of the artists to which they were mostly exposed and hence their instruments. Likewise for those of us who mostly heard American jazz guitarists playing American instruments.

There were limitations to the quality of recordings even as recently as the 1950s. If one accepts that we tend to define "good" as the sound of the music we listened to from that era, we might conclude that our preference has been colored by amplifier and recording equipment technology of the day.

Having said that, it is generally accepted that older acoustic guitars sound "better" than new ones of the same model and I tend to support that belief. I've read that in part this is caused by resins within the wood gradually converting to varnishes that stiffen the sounding structures. This would cause a more resonant (and louder) sound since the natural damping characteristics of the wood would be diminished.

It's also known that construction techniques varied considerably over the years even for the same model of guitar. For example during the "Norlin years" at Gibson, it is documented that the number of some acoustic guitars were undergoing warranty repairs that the (then) management considered unacceptable. Their response was to use thicker, sturdier bracing under the sound board. Obviously this constrained the ability of the top to move which reduced volume and influenced the tone. Obviously older is better in this case BUT Gibson, Martin and so forth, generally state that their current design/construction is in accordance with their classic models. So is newer necessarily better, at least in this isolated instance ? Not at all, based on many experienced guitarists.

Some years ago I recall reading a fairly intense discussion about the characteristics of the Stradivarius instruments that made them so desirable to modern classical string performers. (As I recall, a lot of engineering analysis was applied to this question without any conclusive results.) But the Stradivarius violin tends to refute my first statement regarding the sound of an instrument perhaps being influenced by conditioning.

If conditioning was the answer then how were modern violinists influenced by the performance/instruments of their predecessors ? Recordings are unlikely to be the answer unless one had access to latter day performances of virtuosos playing different types of violins. Is age the reason for the unique qualities of these instruments that makes them so desirable ?

Every time that I think about this subject I find that I'm going around in circles. But I do believe that, in general, older instruments sound more soulful, LOL, than new ones. I made an unscientific evaluation a couple of years ago on several acoustic guitars that I own, just from curiosity. I had just purchased a used Taylor 912C, an extremely beautiful, well-made guitar that I'd played and enjoyed before purchasing.

I asked my wife (who has listened to all of my guitars for many years) to sit in front of me with her back turned while I played various different guitars (a '72 Gibson J-55, a '76 Ovation Custom Legend, the previously mentioned Taylor, a borrowed Craig Breedlove of recent manufacture and an Alvarez that I thought sounded particularly good for a cheap guitar).

My wife, without equivocation, chose the Ovation over the rest which affirmed my own opinion of the sound of the various instruments. The Ovation is well-played and pretty weather-beaten; it actually has a crack in the Sitka spruce top near the lower bout ! Not to mention that the bridge is also the pickup and has nylon-like saddles ! It was at this time, I think, that I hooked on to the theory that the aging wood was converting the natural resins into something harder since I could think of no other reason that would make the old Ovation stand out as it did.

I hope someone figures all of this out before I leave this planet, LOL

[Doctor Jeff]

Not that this proves anything, but on Saturday I visited a nice little guitar shop in Savage, MN (I know it sounds oxymoronic, it's near Minneapolis) - Lavonne Music - and tried a few of their lovely guitars. They actually have a very nice selection of new and used, one of the best in the area. Among others they had available, a Godin Composer, Godin Multiac nylon, several Eastmans, and quite a few vintage Gibsons.

They had a 1980 ES-175 in great condition, coincidentally the year of my first archtop guitar, which I later sold in Rochester in 1987 or so - made me wonder if it's the same guitar....

It was warm as expected - comfortable to play, almost played itself as they say. It was a wonder to play fingerstyle. I thought for a moment I was channelling Jim Hall (in my dreams).

Surprisingly the Eastman 371CE was awfully bright and thin-sounding. Beautiful guitar, but just didn't have anywhere near the sound with the same amp and settings. In part maybe because it was strung with rounds, but still.

I really don't know if age has anything to do with it, but that Gibson had a special sound. If I had had a spare $2750 (or won the lottery Saturday as I expected), I would have bought it then and there. The Eastman just had a new, unbroken-in sound.

[Engine Swap]

I've never played a vintage archtop, but I have owned an Eastman 371 for about 8 months. The sound has mellowed some and gotten "better" to my ear.