What makes a guitar open up?

[Alan Carruth]

This is one of the ongoing controversies in the world of the guitar. Many people, particularly payers, feel that there is no such thing: the guitar doesn't change you just get better at playing it. I don't know of any individual guitar maker who doesn't believe that they play in over time: we hear it whenever we string up a new one. The problem is; how do you 'prove' it?

There do seem to be two things going on, or maybe one thing that is partially reversible. You could call them 'warming up' and 'playing in'. 'Warming up' would be a short-term change in the way the guitar sounds after it's been played for a little while. It more or less goes away when the instrument is allowed to sit for a time, reverting to the original sound as well as anybody can remember. 'Playing in' is usually used to refer to a more or less permanent change in timbre that occurs over the longer term. If 'warming up' doesn't totally revert to the original sound during the resting periods, the accumulation of small changes would be 'playing in'.

You can't rely much on anecdotal information on this. We don't really have a very precise long-term memory for sound, although there are plenty of people who think they do. Besides, good players can compensate for a world of deficiencies in a guitar to make the sound they want, so even if the guitar itself is changing it may well sound 'the same' when it's played. What's needed to demonstrate this sort of thing are solid objective measurements, and that's a problem, too.

There are at least three issues here. One is that it's often hard to measure things that people find easy to hear. Fairly large changes in the response of the guitar in the low frequency range, which are easy to measure repeatedly by a number of methods, often make little or not difference in the sound. OTOH, small changes in the high frequency range, which can be tricky to nail down, seem to loom large in people's perception.

The second issue is that we're talking about long-term change here. This means that you need to be able to repeat a measurement accurately and reproducibly over a span of years and even decades. This calls for lab-grade equipment, including a consistent setting. In the high frequency range you can get quite different results by simply moving a mic 3", as any good sound engineer can tell you. You also, of course, need to have access to the same instruments over a long period of time, which can be difficult in itself.

Finally, and possibly the biggest issue in terms of really settling the question, is that people won't believe measurements: they want to hear it for themselves. You can't blame them, but of all the constraints this is the toughest. It would be easy if you could make two 'identical' guitars that sounded the same to begin with. Then you could play one and not the other, and see if there's a difference down the road. The problem is that this is, at very least, extremely difficult, and may well be impossible. It's compounded by the fact that having one pair that showed the effect would not be 'proof'; you'd want to have a dozen or more.

All of this, if you could do it, would demonstrate that something happens. Then you'd need to dig in and find out what.

IMO, both 'warming up' and 'playing in' are real: I'm a maker, after all. I'm willing to be convinced that they don't, but I'm going to take some convincing. Why would the guitar be the only known machine that doesn't wear in use? I have a couple of ideas as to why, too, but those are even harder to check out than just establishing the basic behavior. This is an argument that won't be settled any time soon.

[3notes]

The way I "imagine" it to be, I would liken it to a new hard cover book. When you first buy the book everytime you open it, it wants to close. Then you notice after reading half the book, the spine is nicely broke in.

When a guitar is played, the sound inside the guitar is trying to escape and it puts pressure on the top of the guitar making the soundboard want to "bend" along the grain of the wood, it's weakest part. The grain eventually becomes "softened" allowing the soundboard to flex more as the guitar is played.

[merlin666]

Originally Posted by Orion252

You will surely get more educated and experienced answers, but in my mind is a combination of everything you mentioned. It that happens from playing it as much as possible. Guitars don't open up sitting idle in the case

That's essentially it. The guitar does not change but as you play it a lot your skill of making it sound better improves. Also your ears get more familiar with it as well.

[JohnnyD123]

Originally Posted by lowrider

It can't be the wood drying, it's already dry. Maybe the glue hardening? The finish curing? Saddle settling? Finally finding the right strings?

My Mutenye Martin GP is getting close to a year old and it just keeps getting better.

Is it my ear or my heart that's making it sound so good?

Years of playing! 2-3 weeks on a ToneRite then restring and you’ll hear quite a difference.

[Pitar]

Originally Posted by lowrider

It can't be the wood drying, it's already dry. Maybe the glue hardening? The finish curing? Saddle settling? Finally finding the right strings?

My Mutenye Martin GP is getting close to a year old and it just keeps getting better.

Is it my ear or my heart that's making it sound so good?

I'd argue the dry versus wet wood point you dismiss. Higher RH dampens sound and lower RH enhances it. Visualize speaking normally in free air and then under water. Perhaps an extreme example but the idea of water muffling sound clearly expresses the point. When my music room was sporting 50% RH I'd call no joy and turn on the dehumidifier, get it down to 45% and then let the guitars dry out for a few hours. In the meantime I'd go have a snack and feel dumb for being negligent and letting the RH climb into the muted range.

The commonly accepted explanation currently trending about opening up is the wood aging process where the wood cellular make-up changes in a manner that causes the cell (tubular constructs) internal support webs to break away from the tube walls and effectively create larger chambers for string frequencies to resonate in. This is most commonly ascribed to spruce tops and takes place over a period of many years. Torrefaction claims this process is shortened by artificially causing the tubular support structures to fall away. I have no input at this time about other so-called tone woods.

But, before I'd accept someone's claim that their guitar is opening up I'd wager an objective observation would show a drop in humidity is the actual cause for the improvement in sound. I say that because the aging process that is suspected as the cause of opening up is not an event that a person would notice. It's a gradual thing and the period of time it takes to enhance the sound of the guitar would most definitely erase anyone's memory of the guitar when it was first obtained. In a blind test I wouldn't be able to identify which of a number of guitars played in succession is mine, much less remember its sound from 5 years ago.

[RagtopGT]

Originally Posted by JohnnyD123

Years of playing! 2-3 weeks on a ToneRite then restring and you’ll hear quite a difference.

I play almost everyday, mostly practicing and reintroducing myself to guitar. Many of my practice sessions last no more than 15-20 minutes, but I'm playing.

I'm supplementing the 'opening up' process with a Tone-Rite contraption. I did a ton of research only to find out that half of the users are convinced that their Esteban now sounds like a pre-war D-18, and the other half swears that it's nothing more than hocus-pocus and it's use will lead to incontinence and a desire to play only show tunes.

The only way to know for sure if I wasted $150 is to give it a fair shot. My guitar is on it's 72nd nonconsecutive hour...I'll keep using it for a few more days in-between playing sessions.

[ManyMartinMan]

Discussed herein dozens upon dozens of times. The same answers pop up every time to include the most important to me - "if" it happens, it happens after much play time. Whether that immense play time results in the player's great experience with, and knowledge of, that instrument thereby making them hear their guitar better or whether it actually "opens up" and would sound better to anyone hearing it may be debated for decades. Either way play time over a long period would be required. My feeling is that those who own one or two guitars and play those guitars for hours upon hours vs. someone who is constantly buying, selling, trading & trying to find that "played in" or deep-understanding of an instrument are more likely to experience that deeper understanding or "opening" of the guitar. If one continues to seek that sound, they will never get that sound from an instrument they trade/sell off every 3-6 months.

The best sounding and playing guitars I've ever come across look the part, sound the part and play the part BECAUSE they have been played hard for years and years. The guy/gal with the 20-year-old Sigma may have a better sounding guitar than the other person's new "custom shop" acquisition due to their years of play not trying to buy the sound or tone. So, play, play and then... play.

[Sonics]

I've seen and heard the 'data' related to Tonerite, and the results are at best inconclusive. It would seem that playing, either actually or simulated, does little to affect the sound of the guitar...well not to the degree as changes to its humidity.

Dry guitars, or simply guitars that have experienced a period of dryness simply sound louder, more open and crisp. I've just completed my post-Winter check of my guitars and despite most of the humidipaks having dried up, they sound better than I remembered. That could be wishful thinking or a faulty memory, but that's the story and I'm sticking to it...

[yellowesty]

Discussions of guitar "tone" all have to deal with the issue that "tone" is ill-defined and "good tone" vs. "less-good tone" is even more subjective, nebulous, and difficult to communicate. But, in my experience, hand-made guitars DO evolve tonally after construction -- independent of humidity considerations. I've built several guitars, all with wood that has been in my home/shop environment for substantial time before construction. After EVERY build, I have been disappointed in the sound of the guitar after initial stringing up. Every time. But I've always played the guitar HARD for a couple of weeks after building and in every case the "tone" has improved to the point where I'm pleased with the result.

The simple response to my comments could be, "he's just getting used to the sound." That ain't it. After the first build, I had a basis for comparison of the tone (richness, depth, fullness, etc. -- whatever words you like to use to try to convey the perception). And in every case, the initial comparison was sad but the comparison a couple of weeks on was much improved. I tend to use similar construction styles (though not necessarily similar wood species) in my builds, and I find that the "mature" sounds of my guitars are all quite similar -- and consistently better than the sounds of any builds on first stringing up.

None of this addresses the OP's question of "what is changing." And I don't know. It's clearly something subtle. I don't find a measurable change in loudness or sustain. But I do find a change in the "tone" of my builds that starts out rather like a mid-range commercial guitar and evolves to something that I find significantly more pleasant and noticeably more like my other played-in, hand-made guitars. That's after a few weeks to a month of heavy playing. Will the change process continue for years? I have no idea. And my comparison technique (a guitar I just finished vs. one I built a year ago) won't shed much light on the situation. So the mystery remains -- but the effect is real.

[Russ C]

Given that timbers do lose mass after they die and tensions in a soundboard do change with string tension (though slightly) as they age there can be no question that they sound different as time passes - whether played or not.
Playing them may be able to make even more difference but I don't understand that part.

[Brucebubs]

A little string tension helps a guitar open up.

[Zandit75]

When I bought my 8 String acoustic 3yrs ago, I was not sold 100% on the tone, it seemed thin except when played really hard. It had heaps of sustain, but the sound I was after was not really there.
Yep, I still bought it and I had some buyers remorse for the first couple of weeks, but the more I played it, the less I thought about it. I eventually got to the point a couple of months down the track where I thought "Hang on a minute, this is not the same sound it first had!!"
I happen to visit another guitar shop several months later and I picked up the same model guitar, and yep, there was that thin anemic sound that mine had initially.
Fast forward a couple of years, and I'm back in the second guitar shop. They have another one there on the wall(quite possibly the same one!!) and it sounded horrible!!
Why or how the sound changes, I don't really care, but it certainly happens!

[Oldguy64]

I have a friend that swears by the Tonerite.
But the first thing everyone does after using one is change the strings.

Some guitars sound marginally better as they age.
Some sound leaps and bounds better.
I can give you anecdotal evidence of both things.
I do know that every one of my guitars sound better to me now than when I bought them.
I know that seasonally they change.
I know that some guitars are very picky about humidity.
I know some sound better at 40% than they do at 60%.
I have another friend that has a Collings that needs to be played for ten minutes before it is at its beat.

There are a myriad of factors that affect guitars. And how they sound.
The best part of this jourey is figuring out what makes YOUR guitar tick.

[Jabberwocky]

Me? I'd like to believe it is all the glue joints and mechanical stress in the wood settling in and forming a "mechanical system in equilibrium". The only thing new in a newly built guitar are the glue and the joints and braces. You may well have old growth and well seasoned wood. And the only thing old about an old guitar is the age of the glue joints and braces. Take them all apart, if you dare, make new glue joints and it is going to sound like a newly built guitar again.

There must come a point where wood that is seasoned cannot be seasoned further. It can only break down after that point. Or dry out and crack due to negligence. I don't subscribe to the idea that properly seasoned wood continues to season in a constructed guitar. It is the mechanical stress that comes from bending and forming the pieces, the mechanical stress that comes from freshly glued joints that work themselves out over time. And that is the improvement we are hearing as it becomes a system in mechanical equilibrium.

That's the way I choose to understand it.

[LOSTVENTURE]

After reading, and then rereading this entire thread, I think that many of you are not willing to, or maybe to humble, to give yourselves the bulk of credit for what "playing in" actually accomplishes.
We all get better every time we sit down with our instruments. And when you sit down with a new instrument you automatically adjust your playing in order to get the best possible sound out of that new guitar. In truth, it's your playing that is improving and bringing out the best possible sound of your instrument.
I'm sure that we are all at different levels of competence here, but regardless of our skill level, we are all better players today than we were yesterday.
Just accept that and don't blame it all on the guitar's properties, humidity, tone woods, age, etc.
Maybe that guitar just sounds better because you have gotten better at playing it.
Just a thought, based on 50+ years of trying to figure out those six strings. And still working on it.