I stumbled across this article while in search of something else (funny how that happens), and couldn’t help but stop and read it. What a fascinating insight into one of the finest and most innovative bassists ever.
It’s a long read, but well worth the time.
John Entwistle: “I just wanted to play louder than anyone else” | Louder (loudersound.com)
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Interesting read, @PamPurrs!
You realize, of course, what he was instrumental for to be developed, and what at least 43% of the BassBuzz community are grateful for!?! 
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Yes round wounds
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Interesting tidbit though, he recorded My Generation on tapes.
Rotosound
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Yup
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Yep. All his fault.
Flats were first. Never forget. Hahahaha
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Technology improves over time 
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I play 90 year old saxes because no one has figured out how to get the tone of an old Conn in a horn past 1941
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They should work on that
(Seriously, as technology improves, if you cannot make something now that could be made well in the past, that should be seen as a problem, not a nostalgic feeling of “don’t make 'em like they used to.”)
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Same goes for the Selmer MK VI tenor.
Selmer has now staffed up a full team of people to try to figure out how to get the tone of the ‘golden age’ horns. They just can’t get it back.
Maybe they are missing all the corrosion and gunk from playing for decades, maybe its a change in brass mixture standards. Who knows.
The interesting thing is Yamaha is dead on accurate horn to horn, and can recreate itself with precision. Selmer cannot seem to figure it out.
Conn went out of business (still around in name, but student junk horns).
Conn really fizzled when WWII hit, same with King, Martin, etc.
The US Gov’t deemed instrument factories in the US unnecessary during WWII (except to make military band horns) and took all the most skilled folks and (at least at Conn) repurposed them and the factory to make airplane instrumentation.
Conn’s tooling is gone forever, Selmer did not lose theirs, and they cannot still sort it out.
As for Conn…
They never got the workmanship back post WWII.
It was the beginning of the end for them.
Then Selmer came out with the MK VI, and it put the final nail in the coffin for Conn.
Conn had no skilled workers to compete with newly designed ergos on the Selmer and musicians ran to the MK VI.
It didn’t help that Coltrane played one and EVERYONE wanted to be lilke Coltrane (hell, most sax players still do).
Many also blame the change in brass composition during WWII which became a new standard after (they needed some components for the war, so they changed up the mix of various brass grades. No clue if this is voodoo or trudoo, but its a thing.
In Conn’s case, they simply can’t make 'em like they used to.
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It’s interesting that Yamaha can do it and Selmer and Conn can’t.
Japanese detail vs. French ‘creativity’.
Sometimes its useful to dot i’s and cross t’s.
Yamaha invested heavily in automation.
All that said, Yamaha horns (and Yanigasawa for that matter in Japan) have the rap of horns not having any warmth, very sterile timbre.
I wholeheartedly agree.
You can’t put etiher next to a vintage horn and get the warmth, complexity etc of an old Conn or Selmer
I wonder if it is the alloys having different resonant properties or something. Manufacturing in general used to use a lot of metals we now prohibit.
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BTW, this is something I love about bass.
Want to sound like someone, buy the right gear and boom.
Want to sound like a sax icon from the '50s, spend your whole life trying…
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MANY believe this.
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Yep. Probably 90% of an instrument’s tone is in the pickups, preamp, and strings. And those are tractable things to change.
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Yeah, but not his first choice. He snapped the strings on 3 Danelectos and as they couldn’t buy the strings separate, and there weren’t any Danelectos in stores, he simplified the solo and played on a Fender Jazz with flats.
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