Members acmaddox0825 Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 i hear allot of people talk about these two sounds. how would you describe them? also as far as bass amps go, does old school necessarily mean a tube head and vice versa for a solid state head? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Funkee1 Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 Not necessarily. One difference between "Old School" and "Modern" is the presence of a Tweeter in your cabinet. I know it was uncommon to have any sort of high frequency driver in your speaker until the early 80's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members B-Bottom Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 I think of the old sound as more of a warmer P bass thump sound and the newer sound as more twangy and clanky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Captain Fathead Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 I think of the old sound as more of a warmer P bass thump sound and the newer sound as more twangy and clanky. +1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Emprov Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 I would say that part of the difference would be a more natural, warm tone (passive) as compared to a cleaner and more sustained hify (active) tone. Just my take though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grumpy_Polecat Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 Old School: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jackcheez Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 Old school sound (I wish the bass was a little louder ). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNohgAIrt9Y Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members T. Alan Smith Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 I think of the old sound as more of a warmer P bass thump sound and the newer sound as more twangy and clanky. This is a misconseption. Ignorant, IMNSFHO. Today, we simply have the ability to affordably reproduce the full frequency spectrum that the electric bass produces. Twangyness and clankyness is in the hands of the performer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Captain Fathead Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 This is a misconseption. Ignorant, IMNSFHO. Today, we simply have the ability to affordably reproduce the full frequency spectrum that the electric bass produces. Twangyness and clankyness is in the hands of the performer. In the hands of the performer, yes, but it didn't really become popular until more recently. The MAJORITY (there are some old clankers) of older musicians seem to prefer smooth to clank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Thumper Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 Old School: Exactly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jim-Bass Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 Passive vs Active? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jackcheez Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 The MAJORITY (there are some old clankers) of older musicians seem to prefer smooth to clank.Maybe they prefered it, maybe that's all they had at the time given the equipment. Either way, back in the day, it was what it was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jim-Bass Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 oh, and I'm a 4 string. How many strings did Pastorius, McCartney, Clarke, Mingus, Entwistle, J.P.Jones, Jamerson, Duck Dunn, Larry Graham, Bootsy need? Old School Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members liko Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 Old-school - passive electronics through a 2x15 rig. Boomy, raw bass, present but not cutting through the mix.New-school - Active electronics, more but smaller speakers, tweeter horn, 3x the power of your guitarists' amps combined. Extra highs and definition, but you lose presence, so you make up for it with raw volume. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Robin Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 Old-school - passive electronics through a 2x15 rig. Boomy, raw bass, present but not cutting through the mix. Never heard of McIntosh power amps huh? Oh, and we even had tone control knobs back in the day. 'magine nat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fretless Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-kFe4l_W30 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLg67Tp7T74 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members L-1329 Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 I'd describe a modern tone as more of a 'full spectrum' tone. That is it has the good deep lows, nice mids as well as good highs, the whole tone with a nice balance and no real weak areas in the freq range. A vintage tone to my ears seems to be more in a 'box', or rather more of a limited freq spectrum. Less deep lows, more present mids, not so much highs, and overall a little less clean or clear sounding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JacieFB Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLg67Tp7T74 Booo! I had actually forgotten about that guy! Thanks for reminding me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members georgestrings Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 I'd describe a modern tone as more of a 'full spectrum' tone. That is it has the good deep lows, nice mids as well as good highs, the whole tone with a nice balance and no real weak areas in the freq range. A vintage tone to my ears seems to be more in a 'box', or rather more of a limited freq spectrum. Less deep lows, more present mids, not so much highs, and overall a little less clean or clear sounding. That about sums it up for me - except I'd add that modern tones usually have tighter lows, while vintage lows are lacking definition, and have tones that lack highs... A comparison would be Rex from Pantera's tones vs Geezer Butler's typical sound - as far as rock bass goes, that is... - georgestrings Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members In Absentia Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 I know a P or J-bass is the standard for old school. What's the Modern Standard? What amp exemplifies this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JacieFB Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 I know a P or J-bass is the standard for old school.What's the Modern Standard? What amp exemplifies this? A P or a J could do both vintage and modern, IMO. Probably something active might fit the bill better...perhaps a Ray or a G&L? Amp-wise, Ampeg SVT Classic or the Sunn amps that a lot of you guys rave about would be the prototypical vintage. Perhaps a GK or something like that would be THE modern tone, maybe? I think Mesa/Boogie and to a lesser extent, the Ampeg hybrid amps have a foot in both camps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RockBass Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 A P or a J could do both vintage and modern, IMO. Probably something active might fit the bill better...perhaps a Ray or a G&L? I'd say that is a fair comparison, since Leo had his hand in all of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members #6 Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 maybe as simple as busy vs. simple? and simple is not a put-down...much harder to be simple than busy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jonathan_matos5 Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 oddly enough it is not "old school" to refer to yourself as "old school":D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members s4001 Posted April 4, 2007 Members Share Posted April 4, 2007 Well, I was going to post a pic of a Wal bass, but this came up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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