Do Electric Instruments Sound Better with Age?

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I took a brand new bass and over the course of one year, put it through more than a handful 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 we hear 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. Sometimes even costing as much as a house. 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. For the most part, these instruments’ overall design has remained virtually unchanged for over 60 years.

So if it’s not the parts and it’s not the build-quality, what’s left? Time.
Do electric instruments really sound better with age?

To put this theory to the test, I needed a brand new bass as a starting point so 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 was to pump as many vibrations into it as possible while also putting through some other various conditions an instrument might experience over time.
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Warwick RockBass Adam Clayton Signature:
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[KirkBryson]

"neck massager" for the bass ;) :)

[JavaoftheLava]

What's left? Well quantity. There's much less of those vintage instruments lol

[RAMSD]

Collectors are the reason vintage inatruments are very expensive. Not necessarily because they sound better or are superior.

[firemarshal]

As someone who owns a 1960s Fender p bass I can assure you, while it’s a great instrument, my 2017 sounds just as good.

[hearthshinemusic]

wait, Seymour Duncan is a REAL person??? and he's ALIVE????

[mr.champlinssciencechannel]

What nobody talks about is the old good sounding guitars have survived because people cared for them better and thus survived vs the poor sounding instruments were kind of tossed to the side and didn't survive until the present day. I'm sure there were some bad sounding guitars from that era but they would have been less likely to survive. So do older guitars sound better? Yes because the better sounding guitars survived and yes because older guitars sound like the guitars we are accustomed to hearing on those older classic recordings.

[TKDFORCEART]

idk why, but japanese girls have been using the neck massager wrong, it's supposed to go in to your bass! duh

[Crushin]

Soooo....what I got from this: the sanded finish looks better, Nick can't juggle, ....and it got a bit warmer top end and a bit more gonads down low. Cool. Interesting and that was a LOT of effort to get a video time elapsed like this...kudos to all you guys. Great job.

[RetroPlus]

This is the only channel where you can see someone use a sex toy on a bass for science

[slash]

I honestly would have preferred to hear a new set of strings on that the second time around, as opposed to strings that have been out of the package a year. All I could think was, that sounds pretty much like a set of broken-in strings.

[basstheworldofficial]

awesome video. thanks for taking the time and educating bass players about this topic. Maybe just maybe in future there will be a little less guessing the comment sections and more links to this video instead ;) If you want to repeat this in an immediate test, get in touch with sandberg and let them build you 2 identical basses and one of them going through their vibration treatment.

[patrickfouhy]

As someone who has worked in guitar shops for over 15 years, I can tell you with 100% certainty that "no" vintage electronic instruments do not sound "better" than new instruments. They do feel better, like more comfortable. Vintage pickups CAN have a better sound, depending on how they have aged. Most of them are rusted out, and not very clear sounding, but when you find some good ones they do sound a bit more "rich" compared to their modern equivalents. (like Mr. Duncan was talking about) But they are also much lower output compared to modern pickups, and to my ear, I like the tone of lower output pickups.

The myth of "the more it vibrates, the better it sounds" is purely marketing. (reps from both Martin and Taylor guitars have told me this) What makes older acoustic instruments sound good is that the wood used on an acoustic guitar from the 50s and 60s is that the wood used is possibly hundreds of years old. Modern acoustic guitars are mostly made from wood that's around 20 years old, or younger. THAT is where the biggest difference is.

The thing is, value is made by the buyer. The people who are sitting on the most disposable income these days are the people who grew up idolizing players who used these vintage instruments. They now have the cash to buy them, plus taking into account their rarity they have collector's value. Like a vintage car, rare sports cards etc it's basically all around people spending money on their sentimentality. Anyone who owned one of these borderline priceless instruments will tell you it "sounds like nothing else" because they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on it, so of course they are going to say that. I've sold dozens of these instruments over the years, and honestly, its cool to hold something that old, but in general they don't sound any better than a modern high end Strat, Tele, Les Paul etc.

The test though is very flawed though, because you have year old strings on it. Year old strings feel and sound totally different than fresh ones. It's a pretty common thing in the world of bass that aged strings do sound nicer and warmer. Put brand new strings on it, and I'm willing to bet the tonal difference and feel you're noticing will be gone.

[CLY]

I'm a guitar player and I've always wondered about this and I thought the aged bass definitely sounded better. Clearly a lot of work went into this video, well done.

[y.__.y--]

Sure. And my 2012 Apple EarPods now sound like a pair of Sennheiser studio headphones after 8 years of constant vibration. 🤔

[DavidGossettMusic]

So, a few thoughts...
1. Putting the bass in front of a sub for extended periods of time will degauss the pickup, possibly changing the sound more than age.

2. Vibration of the wood should be tested separately with one body/neck that hasn't been played as much with the same pickups.

3. How much does the finish actually affect the sound?

4. There should've been a control test with a brand new set of strings because the "sealed" strings could've still lost a bit of top end.

I love old guitars, but there are more variables that weren't even discussed in this test that were all summarized as "age."

[klaymeister]

Well, super glad I can read the description now, I'm even more excited.

[SipperyJim]

Function has nothing to do with value and collectability. A rare stamp is not valuable because it stick to envelopes better than a modern one

[vladv]

The strings honestly just sound deader. That's very likely because they've been out of the package for a year.

[gregorglasbruch]

Each vintage instrument has its own specific history. Some are played every day year after year, some are hidden somewhere not being played for years. So age does not tell you anything but age. In 1971 I bought a 69 strat brand new. I still have it and it is played it ever since. After one year of playing you might not find, feel or hear any difference. But after almost 50 years you will hear and feel a significant difference. New instruments make you feel somehow like they fight against you. Old instruments being well played for many years behave more like „I can‘t wait for you to play me“. The entire thing is vibrating, each note is ringing and sustaining, overtones are nice and so on. When I got my SG in 1975 I read the hangtag: your instrument ages the sound will become sweet and mellow“. I still have this SG as well, and I can confirm that. But good things take their time. Maybe nobody will ever find out what kind of magic stuff is going on here. Meanwhile let‘s enjoy and appreciate what we have, neither brand new or old.

[fonkamex]

The amount of commitment this guy have to currying out this experiment is exceptional. Thanks a lot for trying to answer this big question we all have as a musicians