Are vintage guitars better than new ones? Philip Sayce thinks so – and here’s why
There are some debates in the guitar world that are perennial. ‘Is it better to spend your money on a good guitar or a good amp?’ is one. ‘Does tone come from your gear or your fingers?’ is another.
But one of the fiercest debates among gearheads revolves around whether vintage guitars are inherently better than newly built ones. Legendary guitarist Eric Johnson thinks they’re not always better, saying in April this year: “It’s not the perfect guitar just because it’s old and worth money.”
But like all of the guitar space’s biggest debates, there are prominent voices on both sides, and one player who reckons vintage guitars are better than new ones is Welsh-born American and Canadian guitarist Philip Sayce.
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As he reasons in a new interview with Guitarist magazine, vintage guitars sound better as their wood is decades old and is “dry and settled”, leading to a better tone.
“I don’t think modern builders are getting it wrong or missing anything,” he says. “The wood on a vintage guitar that’s 60-plus years old is dry and settled. When those guitars were made, that wood might’ve already been 100 years old. You can get really close now, but there’s maybe that last five or 10 per cent where it comes down to the resonance and the age of the wood.”
Sayce also believes the pickups on vintage guitars plays a part in their superior tone.
“The pickups make a huge difference, too,” he continues. “Some people have this idea that overwinding a pickup is better, and that’s not always true. The pickups in [Sayce’s] ‘Mother’ [Stratocaster] are from ‘58. They’re slightly underwound and sound great.
“We also did a project with Seymour Duncan, recreating the pickups from ‘Mother’, and it was fascinating, just really getting into the details of what made them sound that way. The Seymour Duncan team did a fabulous job and the Duncan Mother pickups sound fantastic.”
Philip Sayce’s love affair with vintage Strats has been a long one. He says it was “always a dream” to have one of his own.
“All my heroes – [Eric] Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, [Mark] Knopfler, Buddy Guy – they were playing those guitars,” he explains. “I had been hearing from players and collectors over and over again that the ‘62s and ‘63s were the sweet spot for vintage Strats.
“A friend of mine helped me find my first one. The second one, the ‘Big Daddy’ Strat, was actually a guitar I missed out on years earlier. Then 10 or 15 years later, a buddy called me and said, ‘Hey, I just saw this guitar and it made me think of you.’ He sent a picture and it was the exact same guitar. So I sold a bunch of stuff and bought it. That one felt like it was meant to be.”
You can view a list of all of Philip Sayce’s upcoming tour dates via his official website.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
