Are modern guitars better?

[LiveMusic]

Curious about this. Are modern guitars better than vintage ones? Many people seem to indicate that a Tele from the 50's (or whatever model you choose) would just play and sound really great. But is that true? Aside from collector value, would an old guitar hold up to a brand new one? Have they made real advances in guitar making? How about acoustic guitars, too?

[strat0124]

well I remember when Tele's were the most inexpensive guitar you could buy.....easy to find one for $50.00. Most of my old stuff sounds better, but are highly altered by environmentals....keeping them in tune etc. Haven't seen many folks with "vintage" stuff who didn't alter them with different pickups, tuners, etc to be able to make a good road warrior out of them. Just my cut.

[Chip McDonald]

Originally posted by LiveMusic:

Curious about this. Are modern guitars better than vintage ones? Many people seem to indicate that a Tele from the 50's (or whatever model you choose) would just play and sound really great. But is that true?

 

It would probably sound great.

 

Probably wouldn't play great in my experience.

[Gabriel E.]

An old 50's tele will sound great and is all you need . . . if you're playing blues or honky tonk or some other music from that era. For modern stuff, they can come up a little short (slow necks, noisy low-powered pickups, poor tuning stability).

 

Modern guitars tend to be better in that they are more suited to modern playing (when Leo designed the Strat, most guitarists played only rhythm). They have more powerful pickups, faster necks, better tuners and vibrato systems that actually work. I would argue that they are "functionally" better. That being said, it's hard to beat the vibe of a vintage guitar that's been played for 45 years. Also the wood stock available to manufacturers 30+ years ago was better so older guitars are often made of more resonant hunks of wood. You can still get nice wood but it costs a lot of money (many newer guitar bodies are made of multiple pieces of wood as opposed to a single peice because there are fewer trees now).

 

Unless you are a serious collector, I don't think it's worth the $5K+ that you will spend for a vintage Fender or Gibson. For that much money, you can get two or more really nice new PRSi/Tom Andersons/McInturffs/etc. that will sound just as good and perform better.

[BobSanders]

Have to agree with Gabriel. Also might add you should go with what feels right and sounds good to your ears. I've owned around a dozen guitars and my favorite that I've used for over ten years is a Made In Japan Fender Squier Telecaster. I changed to Joe Bardon pickups and it plays like a champ. The pickups cost more than the guitar.

[gtrmac]

I think the quality of new guitars is better in general. I've had a lot of old Fender and Gibson guitars and I found that the quality of the Fenders particularly varied greatly. I have had a couple of great sounding Fender guitars but I also have played a lot of really bad sounding ones too. These days at least you have the option of getting a Custom Shop Fender or Gibson which is more carefully built and usually will have a nice sound and feel. The only trouble is that these selected instruments are way overpriced in my opinion but there is no way around it. This also is true of Fender amps by the way. Since Fender used the cheapest parts available there was a great difference between some amps and others, even in the "Pre-CBS" days. Seems like most were good sounding to be fair but there were a good number of dogs though.

[Skip_dup1]

It depends partly on what kind of music you play, but the point about wood rarity is well taken. It`s only going to get more critcal as time goes on, and many makers of wood instruments are affected. I recently put down a pretty good chunk of change for an electric by a relatively unknown maker, in part because of the one-piece body.

I`ve never been quite the vintage nut that some people have, though I appreciate the sounds on a lot of songs. I`m more interested in what`s new and innovative, but time only will tell how the woods age. I too have had wildly different experiences with Fenders, and besides, I`m more interested in a distinctive sound. There are several factors for that, to be sure, but IMO it all starts with the guitar. In fact, to get back to the wood issue for a minute, to the extent that it represents an environmental resource, I`m not interested in a bunch of guitars that are going to sit as museum pieces. I`m not going to pay for it if I`m not going to play it.

[Lee Flier]

Well, all of my electric guitars are vintage so one could conclude that I think vintage guitars are better. But, truth is it vastly depends on the guitar and what you want to play. There are great new guitars and crappy new guitars, and there are great vintage guitars and crappy vintage guitars. This applies to different models as well as different individual guitars.

 

The electronics in electric guitars are really very simple and although a lot of people have TRIED to improve on early designs, IMO they haven't much, and in some cases trying to mess with the simplicity too much has ruined the tone (again, in my own opinion, some people like that sort of thing). Gabriel is right that some advances HAVE been made in things like tuners and bridges, but those can be replaced on vintage guitars and I have replaced some on mine because I don't give a crap about the "collector value" of the guitar, I just want a guitar that plays great.

 

Thus far I have never found a new guitar that sounds or plays as well as my vintage babies, therefore I've stuck with vintage. I have one of the first 200 Les Pauls ever made, a 1952 model, and the only thing that could be said to be a "design flaw" was the trapeze tailpiece, which never stayed in tune and which Les Paul didn't even call for in the design spec. I replaced it with a stop tailpiece (which had become the standard by 1954) and replaced the original tuners and it's sounded and played like butter ever since. IMO nothing much that's been done since has been an improvement, design-wise, although Les Pauls have never really sucked - unlike Fenders they've been fairly consistently good guitars through the years.

 

And I dare anybody to say that my Les Paul doesn't have a fast neck! No, the 50's Tele's didn't, but neither does my '68 Tele and neither do many modern Tele's that ape the vintage ones. They're still great guitars. I use my Tele for different kinds of things than the Les Paul. That would be true whether it was vintage or modern.

 

There are probably several reasons why there's the perception that vintage guitars in general are really better. For one thing, like others have pointed out, in the "old days" guitar makers had better wood available. Also there weren't as many of them made so presumably quality control was better. Beyond that it's just a matter of taste. A more "modern" sound will likely require a modern guitar. Changing the pickups in a vintage guitar doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me! But in my experience if you really want the vintage sound there are very few legitimate substitutes for the real thing, although the Rickenbacker reissues are pretty sweet, and the '52 Tele reissues seem so, too.

 

Acoustic guitars, well, they're less durable than electrics so there are a lot fewer vintage acoustics around that are in playable condition. There are a few old Martins and the like that are worth so much money that most people don't consider buying them unless they're Bill Gates. And personally I've never had any trouble finding new acoustics that I like, so finding a vintage one isn't worth it to me. Besides, I still have the second acoustic I ever owned, which I bought new in 1977 so it's beginning to be vintage in its own right now.

 

--Lee

[gtrmac]

It's certainly true that the machine parts of electric guitars have been improved. I wouldn't want a guitar that didn't have the reliability and convenience of Sperzel tuners and I'm considering putting a Wilkinson trem on my custom Strat because I hate the wobble of the old style trem arm. I have a couple new stle guitars with Floyd Rose trems and that stuff but I never play them anymore. I prefer the simplicity of my Les Paul and Tele and Strat. I also like the sound.

[Emperator]

Any guitar that is older is more worn in. That makes a difference the way the strings will slide over the saddles thru the nut. Edges are smoothed down. Problems with the necks changing and being adjusted because there young and the wood will slowly become harder.

I once took some of my guitars from the west coast to the east coast. The changes in humidity caused stress cracks in the finish of a Custom Koa bass. The bass and a brand new Washburn Monterey festivals series acoustic the necks both went completely out (haven't made that mistake again.) Bottom line the Washburn had a lifetime warrantly and they replaced the fret board and adjusted the neck perfectly for free. I took the bass to the maker and he adjusted the truss rod and brought it right up to spec. The wood was young and had to still stress relieve itself. My '62 strat not a change. I believe I could throw it in a snow bank and it wouldn't change. Play a 49 Martin 0016 after 50 years the wood starts to look like petrified wood. That from a budget all mahogany guitar.

In the early 60's a stratocaster was $400.0 15 years later in the 70's you could walk into Music City in San Francisco and buy a new strat for $275. That after the cost of living had nearly doubled through the Vietnam War to Watergate Era with massive Inflation in the cost of living after the 74 Oil embago. Still there were some great Strats made then too. You just had to watch the quality control and by that time the replacement part business had really taken off. I bought a 74 strat once was one of the cheapest guitars I've ever owned. Friend bought a strat a few replacement parts and it was a great guitar. He still has it. A '73 Telecaster I bought had such a bad resonant peak in the wood you could watch it go from in tune to out of tune on the Tuner. I wanted a 53 Esquire (after seeing Roy Buchannon play one) settled for that because it was cheaper (boy did I get hosed on that guitar). Fender quality control as has most of the big guitar companies has come up a lot in the last decade.

There are great guitars out there being built today. Amazing guitars. I've had inexpensive guitars that were amazing the way they played. It just depends on the guitar. How you've made them playable.

How I feel about my '62. It's like what a real guitar is to me. So comfortable. It's what I've experienced. I've been playing that kind of guitar all my life it seems. It really is the playability and familiarity things cause yeah I've changed the pickups all around at different times.

As far as staying in tune the stock Strat whammy bar will stay in tune perfectly if you set it up right. I wham the hell out of it and it stays in tune for me perfectly. So many people just don't know how to set them up The bar has a little slop and drops down loosely. That works good for me gets out of the way when I don't want to use it. So it depends on the person I guess. I'm going to buy a new American '62 Reissue because my original '62 is so valuable now and yeah it's 40 years old and had the hell played out of it (still plays excellent). The new Strat will be brand new and familiar to me. Looks like a good value and hopefully the break in will go good.

[strat0124]

Originally posted by Lee Flier:

..... some advances HAVE been made in things like tuners and bridges, but those can be replaced on vintage guitars and I have replaced some on mine because I don't give a crap about the "collector value" of the guitar, I just want a guitar that plays great.......

Changing the pickups in a vintage guitar doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me! But in my experience if you really want the vintage sound there are very few legitimate substitutes for the real thing, although the Rickenbacker reissues are pretty sweet, and the '52 Tele reissues seem so, too.

--Lee

 

I totally agree.....even some of the $500 range Mexican Strats and Teles kick ass......I play a Nashville Tele and a Powerhouse Strat every weekend....and bang for buck, totally awesome.

Having said that, I know my 65 SG sounds fantastic, but it is a tuning nightmare under the lights.....I refuse to alter it with new tuners...the neck'll probably snap before long anyway. : ) And I don't bring it out all the time. My old 63 Tele is pretty darn stable...but alot more noisy when using amps with EL84's....but the tone is so sweet. Again it doesn't go to the pubs all the time, nor does the old Martin....only for special occasions. Plus my other stuff is working outstanding, and I wouldn't have a coronary if it was either stolen or broken accidently. Such is the life of a Dad with two kids entering college!!! : )

[Chip McDonald]

I've encountered so many bad playing guitars under the moniker of "a vintage guitar" that cost $$$$$ it doesn't seem worth it to me. Particularly when I've heard some hyper-expensive/nice ones that are the *real deal*. I've seen people buy a piece of junk for $$$$$ just because it's a "'56" or whatever, and it's - a piece of junk. These days more often than not it is, unless one plunks down ridiculous money - and as someone pointed out, you'd be better off getting a Suhr, Anderson, etc..

 

 

Some of the new Teles are great..... as opposed to the Strats, for whatever reason that is.