If I use the oldest resistors, capacitors and etc that I can, will the sound of

[Pedroga]

If I use the oldest resistors, capacitors and etc that I can, will the sound of the pedal change?

[Fancy Lime]

It affects the sound much more if you plug in the world's oldest guitar player.

[StephenGiles]

It affects the sound much more if you plug in the world's oldest guitar player.

How very true!! The sound is affected much more if there is nobody else in the house and neighbours are on holiday - the sound seems to be infinitely LOUDER!!!!!

[FiveseveN]

[GibsonGM]

It may change in one way - it may be noisier than it needs to be if made with older carbon-comp resistors  

[ElectricDruid]

It may change in one way - it may be noisier than it needs to be if made with older carbon-comp resistors

+1 agree. And the tolerances will probably be wider, although you won't see that effect much on a single unit. You'd notice if you built a hundred and every one sounded different!

[Lino22]

Build two and compare them by ear. Measure the parts, so they have as similar values as possible. Then come back and tell us

[iainpunk]

there will be more noise and there might be some differences between components due to drift voer time, but there's no ''''magick'''' or anything that would sound special or something.

older types of IC's and transistors sometimes have a certain sound to them, but for capacitors, resistors and inductors, there wouldn't be much difference.

i build a lot with NOS components i inherited from my great uncle
i use the passive components because they look great, not for any tonal reason.
all components from the collection are spread in age from the late 50's to the late 80's.
lots of 741's as well. not that a modern 741 sounds any different from a vintage one.

cheers

[antonis]

Soldering oxidized legs of ancient devices has no fun..
(I don't like grinding and I prefer alcohol for drinking than cleaning..)

[Elektrojänis]

Maybe you should start by researching how the older components actually differ from new ones. Then start researching how those differences affect the sound in the part of the circuit that it is placed in. It's not only the components, but also what each component is doing in the circuit. Differences in input coupling cap will probably cause different changes to the sound than a cap in some feedback loop.

Then again the differences in older components vs new ones will be small if the components are not defective. Most of the differences will be from the tolerances in values. Older ones have wider tolerances, so the actual value may differ more from what is printed on the case than with modern components. If larger value resistor sounds better in some position, why not use modern one but the next value up? Or if smaller cap in another position makes the sound better, just use the next availabel lower value?

[ElectricDruid]

Soldering oxidized legs of ancient devices has no fun..

+1 agree  - this is a pain in the neck. Nice and new and shiny makes for a much better job, solder-wise.

[Mark Hammer]

Soldering oxidized legs of ancient devices has no fun..

+1 agree  - this is a pain in the neck. Nice and new and shiny makes for a much better job, solder-wise.

That's why I keep a utility/X-Acto knife handy to scrape the tarnish off leads and make them shiny again.

[Sparky]

I've owned / played  lots of vintage Fenders, Vox, and Marshall stuff and was always amused at people talking about the inherent qualities of the amp.  After close inspection the differences in sound were due to the caps and resistors being off-spec.   Any two 1959 Bassman amps can sound very different from each other  [considering the speakers as well].

[amptramp]

I deal all the time with resistors, capacitors, inductors and transformers that are all approaching their centennial in a number of my antique radios.  Humidity will have been a factor in a lot of capacitors developing leakage resistance.  Silver-mica capacitors in IF transformers are famous for silver migration causing short circuits.  Audio and radio frequency transformers tend to develop open windings due to corrosion.  Resistors that were manufactured in the range of fifty to a hundred years ago have often drifted in value, usually up, because of cracking of the internal carbon element giving localized disconnects in the carbon element.  Electrolytic capacitors tend to dry out and lose value except for some of the older ones where the aluminum oxide layer gets thinner and the value increases but the voltage rating decreases.

Some things are not all that susceptible to environmental aging.  I have tubes from the 1920's and later that are still just as good as ever although the thorium oxide cathode coating may suffer radioactive decay.  I have wirewound pots and resistors and variable tuning capacitors that have not deteriorated.

One area that you may not consider old is the transistors and IC's but there was very limited production testing in the early releases of these items.  I remember the howls of protest when the MIL-S-19500 semiconductor and MIL-M-883 IC standards came out for military devices and for a long time, the processing was entirely different for commercial and military devices.  Now they are the same with the exception of the 160-hour burn-in for military devices.

How good a particular device will be for your use depends on probability.  Some wax paper capacitors are still good after 50 years.  Some electrolytic caps are still good after 50 years.  Everything changes, just at differing rates.

[matopotato]

I built a Fuzz Face from 70's radio and tv parts.
I found resistors were mostly ok. Caps had to remeasure electrolytic ones since the values had changed and in some cases skipped them if the drift was big.
Transistor got a lot of trial and error matching until ok.
Is it noisy? Sure, but any contribution from old parts seem to drown by the overall Fuzz. I like it, both for its sound and behavior and also from the reuse factor.

[mac]

I was driving home when the John Deacon in me made me stop by a tree where two old CRT TVs, one all tube!, where waiting for the trash truck to come.
I removed all the parts from them by brute force using only diagonal and nail pliers. Now I have a lot of resistors, film caps, electros, coils, diodes, TDA amp, 7805, etc...  and power & output transformer!

Are those 22uf and 2.2uf + - 50% today, not-leaky? I bet they'll fuzz farty & nicely... and so the on-screen-display ic :-)

mac

[Lino22]

I have heard that the Q3 emitter bypass 5uF caps used in Tonebenders were really small voltage ones (10V ?), which helped to push them to the limit and participated on the sound. But please take this as a hoax, just what i've read somewhere in the past, unless someone confirms.

[matopotato]

I was driving home when the John Deacon in me made me stop by a tree where two old CRT TVs, one all tube!, where waiting for the trash truck to come.
I removed all the parts from them by brute force using only diagonal and nail pliers. Now I have a lot of resistors, film caps, electros, coils, diodes, TDA amp, 7805, etc...  and power & output transformer!

Are those 22uf and 2.2uf + - 50% today, not-leaky? I bet they'll fuzz farty & nicely... and so the on-screen-display ic :-)

mac

Transistors? Ge?

[mac]

Transistors? Ge?

Lots of 2sa and 2sc from the Sanyo TV, silicon...
But all almost matched, hfe 150 :-)
I breadboarded a FF and tested caps, resistors and Si and all sounded great, as if they were new parts.

I can build 5 FF... maybe more.
And small power amps with a 2SD2499 and a TDA7267A.

mac

[matopotato]

Transistors? Ge?

Lots of 2sa and 2sc from the Sanyo TV, silicon...
But all almost matched, hfe 150 :-)
I breadboarded a FF and tested caps, resistors and Si and all sounded great, as if they were new parts.

I can build 5 FF... maybe more.
And small power amps with a 2SD2499 and a TDA7267A.

mac

Cool 
I really like picking an old transistor radio from a recyclingcenter and discover some old ACs in there. Goldmining to med.
Glad you are getting nice sounds of it.
Today FF, tomorrow the world. Or perhaps some analog delay at least