freemusiciansecrets.com

Maybe you’ve heard, vintage gear can be really, really expensive! So is it just the hype or is it really worth the price? That depend on what you want in your guitar or amp or basses or whatever the gear is. I’ve played plenty of vintage Gibsons and Fenders, and a good pile of the 60’s and 70’s Japanese guitars. Since there are really new Teiscos and Kuwai guitars to compare, I’ll speak of the guitars I’ve done a “A B” test on. Say a 1956 Gibson Les Paul vs. a 1956 Gibson Les Paul reissue. There are some things that time can change on a guitar that manufacturing techniques can’t. For instance the wood tends to dry out as it ages. As this happens the body resonates easier when its lighter but still has the cellular structure of the wood. End of the day it means more sustain. In my opinion more sustain is better, and most people will agree with that. Pickup are a little different, as they age assuming they are wax potted the wax loosens up and one they feed back a little more, and two which is the important part they get more dynamics to your amp. Sweet!


So now we are on to the magic part of selecting a guitar…the neck. When you find a neck that feels right its such a good feeling. It moulds to your hand like it was built for you. This happen every once in a while these days because the necks are very standardized. On the vintage gear there was a lot more variety in the manufacturing. Some companies have necks that are all the same so if you find a PRS neck you like, you will always find a neck you like. If not…too bad. So for me viva la difference, but I’m not everybody. You have to make that decision yourself. I really liked a neck on a $45,000.00 Les Paul recently, while the reissues of the same year feel a little large to me, so pay attention to the right feel.


Amps are a question of two things: Speakers and Electronics. Most of the earliest amps were hand wired and they used very good components that in some cases aren’t being manufactured today. For example the Marshall Jubilee amp used the Drake transformers which today aren’t available. In an amp, the transformer makes a huge difference in tone, so make sure if you are buying a vintage amp you are getting what you are paying for. For hand wired amps, they are very easy to work on, and because of this you have to make sure the components are all original or at least period correct. Tubes aren’t as important because if you play your amp regularly, you get about a 5 year shelf life out of them. Vintage NOS (New Old Stock) tubes are an ideal change for a vintage amp, but are getting to be difficult to find. Get as good a tubes as you can. Some of the features the old amps don’t usually have are things like, high gain, 4 channels, effects loops and a couple modern features that may make you choose a newer amp versus a vintage amp.


On to speakers…Broken in speakers tend to be more responsive than new speakers. You can’t fake the playing time that goes into a speaker. Now there are some speakers that you might like over others and that’s fine, but head to head with the same model speaker, the older speaker usually wins. Make sure the speakers aren’t blown though. An old cab with new speakers sounds about the same as a brand new cab. So find the sound you are looking for and you might find it in a new cab or combo amp…Great! It’ll be a lot cheaper than a vintage tone monster. But if you find it in a vintage Fender bassman for instance be prepared to pay for it.


So happy hunting and good luck on the quest for the perfect tone! I’ve got my eye on a 1955 Gibson Les Paul jr at the moment. Unfortunately, they want $11,450.00 for it. So, at the moment I’ll stick to my 1976 Les Paul Custom and a few other choice guitars in the collection. BTW eBay is a great place to check street value on vintage gear so get an account and look at the completed listings. That shows what they actually sell for.


As always, if you have any questions, comments or concerns…Hit me up!


Jeremy Gift


Free Musician

Welcome to Freemusiciansecrets.com!   We are proud to launch this page to help our peers in the music industry.  We hope to build a page devoted to giving honest answers and unbiased opinions on a wide variety of subjects.  BTW if you are interested in anything that we don’t have content on, feel free to shoot us an email.  We can’t promise to know everything, but if we do, we’re on it.

Combined here we have a staff expert in: Recording, producing, managing bands.  We have singers, songwriters, guitarists, drummers, keyboard players, bass players, DJ’s and more.  Then there are our friends and even family.  Our network covers a lot of ground, hell presently we are working on two videos.  One is a latin classical guitarist who is arguably one of the best guitarists in the world.  Man he really pisses you off when he explains things to be so seemingly easy.  Still a great teacher!  The other is a finger style player.  He’s killer, he even won the Chet Atkins guitar competition in 2002 the year Chet died.  Super cool nice guy!  We’ve seen him take a beginner guitarist and a year later turn him into a monster picker!

Plans for the future…We are doing a few reviews of some new stuff and offering opinions on rigs and no promises, but we are working on getting a few discounts for our subscribers!  Oh, if you are into the Spanish rock scene, one of our staff members is working on an article concerning how to be the white guy in the Spanish rock band.  Its looking like one of the funniest things we’ve ever read!  We’ve got interviews lined up with Eddie Money’s producer Bob Delellis and Todd Smallwood, who has produced about everybody!  We’ve got another producer in the works, but I’ll leave that one a surprise.  All in all, we are going to work har to bring you everything we can to help you succeed in the music industry.  We’ve been there in one way or another: new bass player, drummer doesn’t show up to the recording session, break a needle setting up the tables, and pitch correcting the egomaniac singer who you can’t tell he can’t sing (just tell him you added some compression).  Help us help you so we can get the right info to you!