How would you define a Vintage sound?

Re: How would you define a Vintage sound?

Power amp distortion as opposed to preamp distortion is a big part of it.
 
Re: How would you define a Vintage sound?

warm, thick mids, slightly spongey bass, not a ton of gain, but the gain is really growling. Good treble cut. Think Fender Bassman or tweed twin, ac30, or jtm45. They all sound thick, don't they?
 
Re: How would you define a Vintage sound?

I would describe it as the sound of a lute or a chamber orchestra playing J S Bach and similar.

In guitar terms, it would be early acoustic music from centuries gone by.

In terms of what i suspect you're really asking .... No master volume controls, no pedals, curly guitar cables, lots of low-power speakers and amps running wide open. Big, bold, dynamic sound.

In a concession to modernism, a booster pedal (treble boosters included) and a wah-wah pedal. Possibly even a tube tape echo unit.

But to me, what is considered vintage sound is simply normal. I have heard that tubes will one day be replaced by some device called a transistor, but believe me, that will never happen. Radios and calculators that can be carried in the pocket? Pfft! Dream on ! The next thing will be people trying to tell me a computer won't take up three rooms in my house. You crazy young people today.
 
Re: How would you define a Vintage sound?

what about those overdrive vintage pedal? is it just removing the highs?
 
Re: How would you define a Vintage sound?

i dunno. When i was a lot younger the latest modern thing was a hot rodded marshall and right hand tapping. NOw people call that vintage.
I think generally the term applies to sounds that do not have cascading preamp gain stages high output pickups and power amps with scooped mids with super efficient speakers.
Vintage is more the sound of an amp (whether it be combo or stack) either running clean, or getting a smoother power amp type of overdrive with some speaker breakup thrown in.
But the term vintage is really relative to the present. Like wines: vintage 1969, vintage 1979, vintage 1989 etc. Its all how you look at it.
I don't think rolling off the highs is the main difference. You can dial in plenty of highs on a 40 year old amp!
 
Re: How would you define a Vintage sound?

A big part of the vintage sound was the recording process used then....much warmer sounding...compare a CD to vinyl.

A vintage tone would be much easier to get with an old 4 or 8 track tape recorder using new gear.
 
Re: How would you define a Vintage sound?

"those vintage overdrive pedal"? I'm afraid you're gonna have to be a whole hell of a lot more specific than that :smokin:

As for vintage tone, listen to Led Zeppelin.
 
Re: How would you define a Vintage sound?

"those vintage overdrive pedal"? I'm afraid you're gonna have to be a whole hell of a lot more specific than that :smokin:

let say the Glab Dual Vintage Overdrive pedal. It's advertised as 'Vintage pedal'. It is vintage because they use old transistor and crap? or what?
 
Re: How would you define a Vintage sound?

Vintage is just a vague term . . . a Vox AC-30 is vintage, but it doesn't sound like a Marshall Bluesbreaker . . . which doesn't sound like a Fender vibrolux reverb . . . which doesn't sound like a Bassman.
 
Re: How would you define a Vintage sound?

so, everything is some extent could be called vintage... or modern, or even futuristic if you want it.
 
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Re: How would you define a Vintage sound?

ac30 (not on lower volume levels but cranked, pushed to saturation) actually sounds close to bluesbraker which is close to bassman 5f6a which is close to jtm45, jtm50.. - just like fuseg4 posted - these amps are full, warm and thick in the mids sounding
 
Re: How would you define a Vintage sound?

ac30 (not on lower volume levels but cranked, pushed to saturation) actually sounds close to bluesbraker which is close to bassman 5f6a which is close to jtm45, jtm50.. - just like fuseg4 posted - these amps are full, warm and thick in the mids sounding

I'm not hearing a tremendous similarity between an AC-30 and a bassman . . . and a Deluxe or a Blackface Twin, which is from about the same time period doesn't sound like either of them.
 
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Re: How would you define a Vintage sound?

let say the Glab Dual Vintage Overdrive pedal. It's advertised as 'Vintage pedal'. It is vintage because they use old transistor and crap? or what?

OMG... that guy just doesn't stop talking does he????
 
Re: How would you define a Vintage sound?

by definition, for something to be vintage it must be at leats 25 years old.
 
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