Favorite year for gear

[Soiouz]

Well, for an "ideal" year, I agree with most of you: 1959! The classics: Gibson Les Paul standard, Fender Bassman Amp, gold guard Jazzmaster, last year maple neck Stratocaster, etc... What more could you ask?...

...but, because of the gear I own, I'll say 1965!! All from that year, I have a Jaguar, a Musicmaster, a Reverb Unit, and a Showman Amp and that rig sounds perfect!  Pretty good year too, I'd say, during the transition from Fender Electric to CBS! 

Fender for 1965:

[Dave]

Well, for an "ideal" year, I agree with most of you: 1959! The classics: Gibson Les Paul standard, Fender Bassman Amp, gold guard Jazzmaster, last year maple neck Stratocaster, etc... What more could you ask?...

...but, because of the gear I own, I'll say 1965!! All from that year, I have a Jaguar, a Musicmaster, a Reverb Unit, and a Showman Amp and that rig sounds perfect!  Pretty good year too, I'd say, during the transition from Fender Electric to CBS! 

Fender for 1965:

Yeah I'm kinda with you. I dig Jazzmasters with insane 60s tort, ES330s (with chrome covers, not black), blackface Fenders and Reverb units. So my vote is somewhere in early to mid 60s.

59' had everything you'd need I suppose... but there are too many 60s things I love. Plus I tend to like amps with more headroom and more speakers.

[mynameisjonas]

another vote for 1959 here, gold guard jazzmaster & tweed bassman being the big reasons.

[CaptainCrunch]

I'm taking an overall approach as well, but I'm going with '64 - the entire year. Virtually every piece of my dream gear was available that year.

Fender - Custom Telecaster/Esquire, Jag, Jazzmaster, Bass VI, P-bass, J-Bass, and the Mustang was introduced. Custom Colors were widely available. Last of the brown amps, beginning of the blackface. And the standalone reverb

Gibson - SG Junior, Special, and Custom. EB-O, EB-2, EB-3 and the SG bodied EB-6. Reverse Thunderbirds and Firebirds. Last of the dot/stoptail 335's. All the coolest guitars Epiphone ever made.

Ludwig - The absolute top of their game. Every great finish they ever did was available, brass shelled Supraphonics could still be found, rims were chrome over brass, and the hardware was exactly as strong as it needed to be, and as light as it ever got. Ringo and the Beatles made their kits the fastest selling musical instruments in the world virtually overnight.

Paiste - Ludwig became the U.S. distributor this year, allowing widespread availability of what I feel to be the best cymbals evar.

The list goes on...Ampeg B-15 Portaflex, Marshall JTM-45, Set-neck Mosrites, Hammond B-3's, early crude fuzzboxes, Guild Thunderbirds etc etc...

[panoramic]

64/65/66 for fender

[stevejamsecono]

1983.

No one cared about most of the sweet vintage gear that I enjoy, thus making it go for pennies.

Easy 

[CaptainCrunch]

Sorry, I included the "all-year" caveat to allow for before Ringo made them instantly huge. The overnight success didn't help their QC, no doubt.

Having restored a LOT of Ludwig kits (probably 250-300 or so), I really prefer the late '63/early '64 drums. The big fat bearing edges and the COB rims just gave them this huge, warm "WOOOF" sound, though the tuning range was limited. The later drums, with the sharper edges and less-heavy rims, while much more tunable, just have this "dOInk" sound that won't go away. I think that's a large reason why pre-muffled heads (Evans Hydraulics, Remo Powerdots and Pinstripes, Ludwig Silverdots, etc) really came to the fore in the 70's - the drums had gained a much sharper attack at the expense of warmth and spread.

And I have to respectfully disagree with the "worst drums" assessment - Gretsch have consistently made the crappiest drums on the planet. Horrible useless BD spurs, pre-stripped lug screws, chrome that couldn't flake off fast enough, un-tunable snares that sound like cardboard boxes, and a shell a large child could smash to splinters if not for the 2 pound die-cast rims to hold it together.

They're lucky they sound amazing.

(Proud owner of '63 Champagne Sparkle Ludwig Downbeat, and '69 Gretsch Name Band  )

Now Rogers, those are some damn nice drums....

[CaptainCrunch]

I personally think it has to do with the really shallow/non-existent snare beds most have, especially the 60's six-ply. For those of you not familiar, snare beds are the curved cuts in the bottom of a snare shell where the wires pass over, the idea being to force the snares into tighter contact with the bottom head. I have a late 50's 14"x6.5" 3-ply "Floor Show" with COB Stick Chopper rims that's pretty much the only good Gretsch snare I've ever heard. So I had to buy it.

Got it home and took it apart, and the snare beds are twice as deep as most Gretsches. So it seems to reinforce my pet theory.

But the dozen or so 3-ply snares I've heard seem to sound consistently better than the later ones.