behind the bench

boutique takes the hit or miss out of vintage gear.

i wrote those words down about 6 years ago, and every now and then i bump into them in some form or another.

my basic premise is this: all vintage gear is not created equal. right off the bat, older electronic gear was made with 10% and some times as high as 20% tolerance parts. that kind of variance in parts values can pretty much turn any good schematic straight into batshit. this has been known about for ages, and is one of the dirty secrets of vintage gear: most of it is poo. or at least is was until someone got in under the hood and either set it up properly, or modded or fixed things that might have been hinkey from the get go. i’m looking at you, carbon comp resistors, and paper insulation transformers and oil filled capacitors. and over at you, scatter wound pickups. the sad thing is, virgin, unmessed-with vintage gear is worth a premium. warts and all. which side of that fence do you sit on? sounds good/plays good? or all original, tone be damned?

the second dirty secret is this: the best stuff is out of circulation. you probably will never get your hands on it, or even more, be able to buy it. if its stellar piece, its already got buyers on short list for it, and if it was ever celebrity owned? fuh-gedda-bowdit. who does get this cream of the crop? known collectors, and people with the bucks or connections to get in on some of this stuff. oh, sure blackie came up for sale at sothebys, but have you got the coin to party with the likes of those guys vying for a piece of that guitar?? my point is this: anything that is a holy grail example and is vintage already has enough suitors to keep you at bay.

so with these factors in mind: quality control, market forces, and the evolution of musical instrument designs and materials science, my point is this: i do believe that ’boutique’ gear offers a superior experience for most people at a lower premium than any vintage gear can possibly deliver.

why do i think this? there are several factors:
time- how much time do you want to spend chasing down that rare plexi head thats got IT? how much money do you want to spend driving to music shops, vintage shows, how many ebay deals gone good or bad, complete with nail-biting scenes culminating in moments of intense disappointment in realising that deal of a lifetime is actually a flabby tone turd that simply looks good but only adheres to one of the gear nirvana trifecta: tone, playability, and looks?

boutique gear these days is a cornucopia of ‘best possible’ designs using materials that have much tighter tolerances put together and designed by guys that have (hopefully) a better understanding of what makes great tones. think of it as TONE 2.0. yes there are certain nuances to certain materials that aren’t made any more, but hey, if you can acknowledge there is an elephant in the room, at least you dont have to do the old “big, smelly and wrinkly” routine while trying to get there.

my take on great gear made today: it takes the guesswork and hit or miss out of vintage gear.

today i read about a software developer who is confronting the people who pirate his work. and one of the comments i read was “why would you trust a pirate to do a better job than the guy that wrote the software?” and i was instantly reminded of the argument of open source software vs. paid software. the key things that pop into my head are:

motivation
passion
ideology

a couple of years ago, i read another article about a frenchman that wrote drivers for every single web cam in existence so that they will work on linux. let me state that again. every single webcam. thats from every manufacturer. ever. as someone that has worked in the software industry for a long time. that borders on insane. but he did it. one guy.

a lot of these things are simply the 2nd tier of motivators, the first being food, water, shelter, etc. but i thought it was an interesting spark of conversation in my own head. my personal answer is that i trust the frenchman.