KVR :: Everything Else (Music related) » Is it really vintage?!! [View Original Topic]
There are 24 posts in this topic.
NineVoltAudio - Mon Apr 16, 2012 7:19 am
Seems like every time I see a musical instrument from the 1980s (as late as 89!) at the music store, on Craigslist/classifieds, etc... the store or seller describes the instrument as "vintage".
C'mon. Really??!!
When I started playing/buying guitars (around 1990), guitars from the 70s were still shunned for being from a decade of generally worse design and build quality than the 60s (OF course there are exceptions! Not trying to pick a fight
). thecontrolcentre - Mon Apr 16, 2012 7:23 am
Pretty much anything 25 years or older gets labelled vintage or classic. Same with cars, bikes etc ... just how it is.
NineVoltAudio - Mon Apr 16, 2012 7:31 am
thecontrolcentre wrote:
Pretty much anything 25 years or older gets labelled vintage or classic. Same with cars, bikes etc ... just how it is.
Yes, I suppose that's true.
But in my mind, "vintage" also connotes some level of desireability.
My first car is now vintage - but I'm pretty certain no one would want an 85 Toyota Tercel.
(but it was a hatchback, and I could fit a lot of gear in there. LOL).
thecontrolcentre - Mon Apr 16, 2012 7:40 am
I wonder if my old Atari STe is a "vintage" computer now ...
SampleScience - Mon Apr 16, 2012 10:46 am
To be considered vintage it must be old & a high quality instrument. The old & cheap isn't vintage at all.
darsho - Mon Apr 16, 2012 10:50 am
there is this scene in die hard 4, the guy asks bruce willis what music that is, he says 'classic rock'. the guy says, 'it's old rock. just because it's old doesn't mean it's classic'. or something like that.
GaryG - Mon Apr 16, 2012 1:08 pm
I've certainly noticed plenty of cheap brands from the late 80s now being pushed as classics, even weirder when older cheap guitars are described as more desirable than the modern incarnations.
Maybe some exceptions (eg. silver series squiers) but generally I've found cheap guitars today have never been better.
trimph1 - Mon Apr 16, 2012 3:50 pm
There is a lot of overlap in what constitutes 'vintage' as well.
Some markets will favour one style of guitar, sax, or whatnot over another. Larger markets tend to be a little more in favour of certain types of instruments, makers and such as well...
IIRC a few years ago some Vintage Guitar magazine had a number of ads in them featuring a guitar being re-issues under the Baldwin name..these things were originally made in the 1960's up until sometime around 1972-3...the Baldwin Baby Bison...the reissue was going for silly money at the time as well.
Depending on the maker it could end up being something of a collectors item...watch sites that specialize in odd guitars and see what occurs...
tapper mike - Mon Apr 16, 2012 4:54 pm
Beauty is in the ears of the beholder.
zerocrossing - Mon Apr 16, 2012 5:21 pm
Worse than "vintage" to me is "analog" when describing things like Korg KAOSS pads.
NineVoltAudio - Mon Apr 16, 2012 6:40 pm
zerocrossing wrote:
Worse than "vintage" to me is "analog" when describing things like Korg KAOSS pads.
Just think: in about 15 years Kaoss pads will be described as "analog" and "vintage".
kritikon - Tue Apr 17, 2012 5:07 am
At least in terms of cars, classic used to generally mean anything over 30 years old at the time. Veteran had a meaning, but I can't remember how old it had to be - 50 years or something? Vintage had a specific time frame - up to 1925 or 1930 or so.
Not sure vintage has a specific time meaning in most uses though. But I'm not sure I'd include every synth in the 80s as vintage. Certainly some of the analogues being made then were at the peak of production values in terms of sound, options etc, and should be considered as vintage. There's no way you can have a list of classic/vintage synths without including the likes of OSCars, CS80s etc. Personally I always take vintage as implying both age and quality, and there are plenty of black box digital S&S synths of the 80s that I definitely don't see as quality.
I'd rather call items like D60s, M1s, Jen SXs, 01/Ws as "cheap old crap" than vintage.
robojam - Tue Apr 17, 2012 6:59 am
What vintage really means is you're trying to hike the price considerably when you sell some old piece of shit on ebay...
chk071 - Tue Apr 17, 2012 7:08 am
SampleScience wrote:
To be considered vintage it must be old & a high quality instrument. The old & cheap isn't vintage at all.
It is, look at a Korg MS-20 for example.
whyterabbyt - Tue Apr 17, 2012 7:16 am
chk071 wrote:
SampleScience wrote:
To be considered vintage it must be old & a high quality instrument. The old & cheap isn't vintage at all.
It is, look at a Korg MS-20 for example.
cheap? not these days.
fmr - Tue Apr 17, 2012 7:27 am
Vintage, literally, means some product collected from a chosen year or harvest, that aged well and is now shining in quality.
Of course, as an adjective, vintage applied to some items may be highly questionable. I've seen a lot of old gear being classifided as vintage that I would hardly pick, even if offered for free. OTOH, I have some pieces of gear that I would classify as vintage and see hardly mentioned, like the Yamaha FS1R, the Kawai K5000 or the Yamaha SY99 (all digital, BTW).
whyterabbyt - Tue Apr 17, 2012 7:33 am
fmr wrote:
Vintage, literally, means some product collected from a chosen year or harvest, that aged well and is now shining in quality.
literally, it doesnt. that's, at best, a composite of a few alternate and distinct meanings, some of which are specific to winemaking.
Quote:
vintage
[vin-tij]
vin·tage
[vin-tij] noun, adjective, verb, vin·taged, vin·tag·ing.
noun
1.the wine from a particular harvest or crop.
2.the annual produce of the grape harvest, especially with reference to the wine obtained.
3.an exceptionally fine wine from the crop of a good year.
4.the time of gathering grapes, or of winemaking.
5.the act or process of producing wine; winemaking.
adjective
7.of or pertaining to wines or winemaking.
8.being of a specified vintage: Vintage wines are usually more expensive than nonvintage wines.
9.representing the high quality of a past time: vintage cars; vintage movies.
10.old-fashioned or obsolete: vintage jokes.
11.being the best of its kind
verb (used with object)
12.to gather or harvest (grapes) for wine-making: The muscats were vintaged too early.
13.to make (wine) from grapes: a region that vintages a truly great champagne.
verb (used without object)
14.to harvest grapes for wine-making.
[vin-tij]
vin·tage
[vin-tij] noun, adjective, verb, vin·taged, vin·tag·ing.
noun
1.the wine from a particular harvest or crop.
2.the annual produce of the grape harvest, especially with reference to the wine obtained.
3.an exceptionally fine wine from the crop of a good year.
4.the time of gathering grapes, or of winemaking.
5.the act or process of producing wine; winemaking.
adjective
7.of or pertaining to wines or winemaking.
8.being of a specified vintage: Vintage wines are usually more expensive than nonvintage wines.
9.representing the high quality of a past time: vintage cars; vintage movies.
10.old-fashioned or obsolete: vintage jokes.
11.being the best of its kind
verb (used with object)
12.to gather or harvest (grapes) for wine-making: The muscats were vintaged too early.
13.to make (wine) from grapes: a region that vintages a truly great champagne.
verb (used without object)
14.to harvest grapes for wine-making.
Meanings 10 or 11 are actually the ones relevant in this particular situation.
BertKoor - Tue Apr 17, 2012 7:49 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vintage_%28disambiguation%29
Quote:
an outdated style that has returned to fashion
If it's actually not in fashion, you can try to push it there nevertheless 
fmr - Tue Apr 17, 2012 8:00 am
whyterabbyt wrote:
fmr wrote:
Vintage, literally, means some product collected from a chosen year or harvest, that aged well and is now shining in quality.
literally, it doesnt. that's, at best, a composite of a few alternate and distinct meanings, some of which are specific to winemaking.
Quote:
vintage
[vin-tij]
vin·tage
[vin-tij] noun, adjective, verb, vin·taged, vin·tag·ing.
noun
1.the wine from a particular harvest or crop.
2.the annual produce of the grape harvest, especially with reference to the wine obtained.
3.an exceptionally fine wine from the crop of a good year.
4.the time of gathering grapes, or of winemaking.
5.the act or process of producing wine; winemaking.
adjective
7.of or pertaining to wines or winemaking.
8.being of a specified vintage: Vintage wines are usually more expensive than nonvintage wines.
9.representing the high quality of a past time: vintage cars; vintage movies.
10.old-fashioned or obsolete: vintage jokes.
11.being the best of its kind
verb (used with object)
12.to gather or harvest (grapes) for wine-making: The muscats were vintaged too early.
13.to make (wine) from grapes: a region that vintages a truly great champagne.
verb (used without object)
14.to harvest grapes for wine-making.
[vin-tij]
vin·tage
[vin-tij] noun, adjective, verb, vin·taged, vin·tag·ing.
noun
1.the wine from a particular harvest or crop.
2.the annual produce of the grape harvest, especially with reference to the wine obtained.
3.an exceptionally fine wine from the crop of a good year.
4.the time of gathering grapes, or of winemaking.
5.the act or process of producing wine; winemaking.
adjective
7.of or pertaining to wines or winemaking.
8.being of a specified vintage: Vintage wines are usually more expensive than nonvintage wines.
9.representing the high quality of a past time: vintage cars; vintage movies.
10.old-fashioned or obsolete: vintage jokes.
11.being the best of its kind
verb (used with object)
12.to gather or harvest (grapes) for wine-making: The muscats were vintaged too early.
13.to make (wine) from grapes: a region that vintages a truly great champagne.
verb (used without object)
14.to harvest grapes for wine-making.
Meanings 10 or 11 are actually the ones relevant in this particular situation.
IMO, meanings 9, 10 and 11 are semantic evolutions of the literal meaning, which is, as you pointed yourself, originated from wine and wine making. And I actually never saw (or would use it myself) the adjective with the meaning in 10. which I could only understand as an irony.
NineVoltAudio - Tue Apr 17, 2012 8:17 am
robojam wrote:
What vintage really means is you're trying to hike the price considerably when you sell some old piece of shit on ebay...
Yes Yes. LOL.
I guess that's the root of my main complaint.
chk071 - Tue Apr 17, 2012 10:25 am
whyterabbyt wrote:
chk071 wrote:
SampleScience wrote:
To be considered vintage it must be old & a high quality instrument. The old & cheap isn't vintage at all.
It is, look at a Korg MS-20 for example.
cheap? not these days.
Yeah, but it was quite low budget when it came out. And the guy who i quoted said, to be vintage it has to be old & high quality.
trimph1 - Tue Apr 17, 2012 11:51 am
The issue here is that at one time you can get an MS20 for cheap. But the prices on those have gone up quite a lot as collectors have taken notice of them.
Once collectors take notice of something prices will go up as demand then exceeds supply.
Arglebargle - Tue Apr 17, 2012 1:27 pm
do we have vintage vsts yet?
SampleScience - Mon Apr 23, 2012 12:06 pm
There's Steinberg Neon & their MiniMoog emulation.
There are 24 posts in this topic.