Do Electric Instruments Sound Better With Age?

This blog is a companion piece to The Bass Channel’s video of the same name, which you can and should watch here.

I took a brand new, completely stock bass and, over the course of one year, put it through a bunch of  live shows, found creative ways to vibrate the wood, and wore down the finish just to see if it sounded any different at the end. But before I get to the results, let’s first see how we got to this point.

You’ve probably noticed that vintage instruments, particularly from the ‘50s and’60s, can cost a fortune. Vintage Precision and Jazz basses, as well as Gibson Thunderbirds, cost quite a bit more than their contemporary counterparts and some vintage Les Pauls can fetch more than a quarter million dollars..

So why does a 1963 Precision Bass cost about 10-30 times more than the latest model? 

Nothing has changed in the design. Are they using lesser-quality pickups now? Is the wood not as good as it used to be? Has the craftsmanship somehow declined? Considering how far electric instrument technology has come in the last 60 years, these all seem unlikely. If anything, one could argue that instruments are better made than they used to be. Let’s suppose that modern Precision Bass pickups are made in such a way that they don’t sound as good as they used to. Couldn’t you just slap a Seymour Duncan Antiquity in there and be good to go, only $140 in the hole? Is your bass now worth $20,000? 

Probably not.

So if it’s not the parts and it’s not the build quality, what is it? 

Time. 

Which brings us to our experiment’s Big Question- Do electric instruments really sound better with age? 

Maybe just the fact that a bass has been played time and time again for over half a century has made it sound so good that you now have to explain to your significant other why you’re taking out another mortgage for an “old, beat up piece of junk”. Their words, of course. You know treasure when you see it. They don’t even make this shade of blue anymore.

To put this theory to the test I needed a brand new bass. I reached out to Warwick, explained the idea, and they sent me an Adam Clayton Signature RockBass. I chose this particular model because it sports a very familiar pickup configuration and build- split single coil, alder body, and a bolt-on maple neck.

Over the course of a year, this bass was going to get played a lot. Between live shows, rehearsals, recording sessions, and video shoots I was going to find some interesting ways to pump as many vibrations into it as possible. I also got creative and put it through a few other conditions an instrument might experience over time. Anything to put as many miles on the bass as possible within a realistic timeframe. 

I also needed to eliminate as many variables as possible, meaning that none of the physical components were allowed to change. The same body, same neck, same pickup, and even the same set of strings would be recorded into the WireTap for the first time on May 24, 2019 and once again a year later. We didn’t even change the height of the pickups, so dedicated were we to keeping everything as stock as possible. We also paid close attention to where the test players’ right hands struck the strings and where the knobs were set so by the end the only difference you’ll hear is time.

Once the bass arrived I did a quick inspection and immediately replaced the strings with my test set: Elixir Stainless Steel 45-105s. Aside from the fact that these are my favorite strings, the fact that they’re coated ensures that any small amount of dirt and oil present on the hands at the time of the first recording won’t be an issue while the strings are sealed up.

With the strings on it was time to record the first set of sound samples. But first I wanted to know if the team had experienced any changes in tone or feel with their own instruments. You can see the full interviews in the video, but below is the gist of their responses.

Nick, when asked if there is a noticeable difference in his number one bass between when he bought it and now: “It’s noticeably different. Even in the few years that I’ve played it. That can be attributed to a lot of things but I know now that when I grab my bass, it feels the way I need it to feel. I don’t know, maybe I’ve just gotten more comfortable with it, maybe I’ve grown to fit the instrument more but, like, I’ve played a lot of P Basses. I’ve played a lot of P Basses from the exact same year and that one, whenever I play it, it feels different to me, it feels correct.”

However, when asked about whether or not the tone changed he wasn’t so sure. “Maybe I have, maybe I haven’t. My play style changes a lot depending upon my headspace or what the room calls for.”

Will and Josh had very similar answers to Nick.

As you can see in the video, everyone played a sample of easily reproducible riffs so we could get a wide initial sample size. Once the recordings were done I took the test strings off and sealed them in an envelope with explicit instructions on how long they were to remain. This way we wouldn’t be hearing aged strings a year from now, only an aged bass.

With another set of strings installed and the clock ticking, it was time to put the bass through its paces.

Throughout the year the bass played 12 live shows, 5 recording sessions, 4 cover videos, and too many demo videos to count. Not to mention all the uncounted hours of playing at home. It lived indoors and was played inside, outside, and by multiple people aside from Bass Channel presenters including our good friends and brothers in low end Jayme Lewis and Patrick Hunter.

On January 17th 2020, while attending NAMM 2020, I visited the Warwick booth to ask master luthier Marcus Spangler a little bit more about how wood ages and how vibrations affect it. His remarks are worth printing in full because how often do you get to hear from a master luthier, and because it’s incredibly relevant to our experiment. Be sure to check out this video of our full interview with Marcus as well (after finishing reading this and sharing it with everyone you know, of course).

“The aging process comes with the playing process. [That] means the more you play it, the more it ages. The more it vibrates. That's the reason why old instruments, older violins, they are sounding good- because you play it. If, for example, you take a Stradivari, you put it somewhere in a box and leave it there forever, it will not sound good. So it sounds only good because you play an instrument. The instrument is a vibration. So because you play it, you play the notes, you get used to it. It's a personal thing, you know? I think it depends on what you are playing. The vibrations you get in, the better the instrument is toning for you. And the truth is the more the wood is vibrating, the more tone, the more - because what is happening? You play the strings, it's vibrating and the wood starts to vibrate as well. Or you really try it out with vibrating the wood or vibrating all the parts and this is the thing that could change the tone and could change the thing.”

After talking with Marcus for only a couple minutes it was apparent that one of the key ingredients to the experiment was vibrations. And if vibrations are what helps to age an instrument, that meant we could find ways to vibrate, and therefore age, our bass both through playing and through more creative means. We’ll come back to this in a bit.

I was also able to pick up (get it?) and interview with the man himself- Seymour Duncan, which was especially fitting for a few reasons. 

1: This bass comes stock with a Seymour Duncan pickup.

2: He’s one of the smartest minds in the pickup world.

3: Having started the Antiquity line, he knows a thing or two about how pickups age.

4: He’s Seymour Freaking Duncan.

This is what he had to say about how pickups age and what we might expect:

“Over the years, you know, a lot of things can affect the magnetic field that's in your actual pickup. When they're first magnetized probably they'll lose a little bit, maybe five percent, you know, just by almost how the alignment is with the magnetic field. But over the years that alignment can be disturbed which will make the magnet sound weaker. So what happens when you have a weaker magnet in your pickup [is] you'll lose treble, you'll lose the high-end or clarity. You can lose a little bit of output from the actual pickup, too. It'll sound warmer to you when you’re playing, like, a bass or a guitar, the tone will actually get softer and it'll be smoother, you know, that's what they're saying. A magnet can get demagnetized by leaning against your amplifier for many years. You know it's like guys will lean their bass next to the bass amp and those big speakers they have in there that can actually... demagnetize the pickups. And there's a thing called ICPC that a lot of people really don't know about and ICPC is Inner Coil Pole Corrosion and what happens all the sweat and people pour drinks on their guitars. That all permeates into the coil and it makes them very susceptible to becoming, you know, they could rust and oxidize and everything. That oxidation can break down the magnetic field and then the pole piece can actually rust from the inside and then that that breaks down the insulation and that'll short out your coil.”

At this point, I just about had all the information I needed on not only what to expect, but how to continue with the experiment. There was one more thing I wanted to ask Marcus- A lot of these vintage instruments are pretty worn. Does the finish (or lack thereof) have any effect on the tone?

His response was illuminating and might change the way you see the finish on your brand new baby. Basically, what he said is that an instrument that is not lacquered vibrates better and has more sustain. “It’s more alive…[And] when you have Polyester lacquer, it's like you put a girl into a corset...she looks good, but she cannot breathe anymore and this is happening with an instrument. The thinner the lacquer is, the better the instrument is toning.”

By February of 2020 the bass had logged more hours of playtime than any other bass I own, inheriting plenty of natural, authentic vibrations. I also knocked down quite a bit of the poly finish to simulate what happens as players bang on, sweat over, and otherwise use their instruments. 

Then the unexpected happened. The bass got dropped at a gig.

When Nick first broke the news (pun intended) about damaging the headstock and tuning peg I was so worried that we wouldn’t be able to continue the experiment. I hadn’t yet seen the damage but if it was beyond repair, the experiment was over. If we had to replace a tuning peg the integrity of the experiment would be compromised. Even though a new tuning peg probably wouldn’t change anything about the playing tone of the bass, the spirit and intent would be lost.

I contacted my friend Tracy Longo at Guitar Tech Corner to see if he could salvage our year. Luckily, Tracy is a master luthier who has been in the guitar repair business longer than he’d care to admit and after I got the bass in his shop it took no more than 15 or 20 minutes for him to repair the minor headstock damage. One tuning peg was irreparably tweaked , but it would hold at least through the remainder of the experiment so I could rest easy knowing that we didn’t have to change any physical components.

By March, I had come up with my first creative way to pump some artificial vibrations in the bass. While visiting Ventura, I borrowed my dad’s truck equipped with 10” subs in the back seat. I put Metallica’s Black Album in the CD player, turned the bass knob up to 11, and stuck the bass directly in front of the speaker, letting the entire album blast at maximum volume. The power of Jason compels you! I even gained five hours of bonus vibrations thanks to the car itself on the drive home. Suspension might need adjusting, but that worked in my favor this time.

In an effort to get a few more vibrations into the wood (waits for giggles to stop) I took a neck massager I own to the bass. It had a rough, busy year, and needed the reward. Plus The Great Stay Home put the kibosh on the bass seeing any more gigs. 

I had planned to play with temperatures as well since a bass would, over the course of a decade or more, be exposed to a wide variety of temperatures and humidities, but ran into a few issues. Sticking the body in the freezer overnight would simulate some extreme colds but the humidity level in there would have surely damaged the pickup and I didn't want to remove the pickup because we would have had a new solder joint at the end, thus invalidating the test. The oven was also a no-no for similar reasons. I was also going to play with sunlight by leaving it on a stand outside for hours at a time but was warned by another tech that exposing it to those conditions could damage the truss rod beyond repair so that idea was scrapped. We were going for Vintage not Poor/Non-Functioning. 

After a few massaging sessions, the year had passed and it was finally time to hear the results. I took the strings off and replaced them with our original test set. I got the other guys from The Bass Channel back in the room. And they played the same riffs and runs they’d played 366 days previously, placing their hands in the same place and putting the knobs in the same settings.

Obviously you should watch the video to hear the differences in tone over the course of the year, but there was a greater difference than I expected. In a blind comparison it certainly sounds like the bass carries a deeper, fuller tone than it did on Day One. Not, in my opinion, a multi-thousand dollar better tone, but there is a change. My ears are backed up by a computer program I used to map the wave forms. There is a difference, however slight.

Science!

Before we started this whole thing, I hypothesized that it would sound a bit brighter. I've done similar things to guitars over the years and they sounded more open, less compressed, and a bit brighter, in my opinion. But maybe my untrained ear was hearing more of the open quality, not an actual increase in treble. After all I learned and experienced, the fact that it got warmer and darker makes sense. For obvious reasons with the pickup, as Mr Ducan explained. With the wood, taking the finish off was a huge factor. When it had the thick poly finish, the wood wasn't vibrating as much. All of the vibration from the string was being deflected by the finish, which made it brighter. With the finish off, the wood is absorbing more of the vibration, particularly the higher frequencies. Higher frequencies have shorter wavelengths and are therefore more easily absorbed by the wood.

Gently removing the finish so she can breathe.

So after all that, I think it’s safe to say that we’ve proven that electric instruments do in fact sound different with age. Whether or not it’s “better” is subjective and ultimately up to you to decide. Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below. Either way, I’m glad we did this experiment. I learned quite a bit over the last year and I hope you did as well. But more importantly, I hope this has inspired you to play your instrument as much as possible. It may or may not be worth a fortune some day, but hopefully it’ll be priceless to you. 

As soon as I got home from the Day 366 recording trip I slapped that “10/10 Neck Bends” sticker on it which is pretty cool because the sticker features that bass.