Guitars need to warm up!

[Tnfiddler]

I played my Bourgeois at a coffee shop last night and it was the first time I'd had it out of the case in a few days. When I first got it out and tuned up, I started strumming and it sounded so tinny and weak. I was thinking, "I don't remember this guitar sounding like this!!" I just kept playing and after a few minutes of what I'll call, warming up or stretching its muscles, my cannon was back. It was pretty wild to hear this first hand. I know I've read about it, but I had never experienced it myself. That makes me wonder how many guitars I've played at a shop before that I've thought sounded bad before I even gave them a chance to show me what they were really made of.

[ii Cybershot ii]

I totally agree with you. I've been noticing this for years. I think a lot of it is our ears adjusting, but I have also noticed that it correlates to temperaure. When it's summer, my guitars play and sound warmed up almost right away. But during winter when my house drops to low 60s most of the day, my guitars require longer warm up periods.

I have even noticed this phenomenon on my electric guitars!

[maxtheaxe]

This is one reason I keep my guitars out on a rack; they get really 'stuffy' sounding if they're left in case too long. I just have to monitor humidity & correct it whenever necessary and wipe them down to remove dust every so often.

They seem to sound their best at the lower end of the 'safe' range...right around 45%. One caveat...I have never lived in a place that could experience the kind of brutal cold that's happening right now and even going from a car trunk to a cozy warm venue in those conditions could potentially damage an acoustic.

[Tnfiddler]

Originally Posted by maxtheaxe

This is one reason I keep my guitars out on a rack; they get really 'stuffy' sounding if they're left in case too long. I just have to monitor humidity & correct it whenever necessary and wipe them down to remove dust every so often.

They seem to sound their best at the lower end of the 'safe' range...right around 45%. One caveat...I have never lived in a place that could experience the kind of brutal cold that's happening right now and even going from a car trunk to a cozy warm venue in those conditions could potentially damage an acoustic.

It rode in the backseat of the truck with me. No way I'm gonna take that chance in this weather!!

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by Tnfiddler

I played my Bourgeois at a coffee shop last night and it was the first time I'd had it out of the case in a few days. When I first got it out and tuned up, I started strumming and it sounded so tinny and weak. I was thinking, "I don't remember this guitar sounding like this!!" I just kept playing and after a few minutes of what I'll call, warming up or stretching its muscles, my cannon was back. It was pretty wild to hear this first hand. I know I've read about it, but I had never experienced it myself. That makes me wonder how many guitars I've played at a shop before that I've thought sounded bad before I even gave them a chance to show me what they were really made of.

Completely agree. Trying out ‘cold’ guitars in shop, especially the finer ones, doesn’t indicate all that much. Having it at home at your leisure is the only way to discover the ‘bloom’. Temperature and humidity plays a large part also. Scientific experiments consistently fail to measure this because the instruments used are not capable of reading the choice frequencies that the human ear picks out (and ignores the rest via cerebral function). Human hearing is extremely *selective*.

[The Bard Rocks]

Originally Posted by Jaden

Human hearing is extremely *selective*.

Meaning, "you hear what you wanna hear" ? Sometimes... for some of us (more than we want to admit). My wife is convinced of that - she calls me to eat when I am busy and I don't hear her.

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

Meaning, "you hear what you wanna hear" ? Sometimes... for some of us (more than we want to admit). My wife is convinced of that - she calls me to eat when I am busy and I don't hear her.

I like that one; it’s a common domestic complaint. The selectively part of it tends not to be well received at times but it was in a Psychology 101 course I attended which examined organs of the body scientifically in which all mechanisms could be isolated and examined but in the end it was all tied very closely with central nervous system (brain) function.

[Tnfiddler]

Well, I can promise you that my ears didn't warm up to the sound of the guitar. It was two totally different sounds. Easy to hear the differences between the two. I still stand by my original claim that the guitar is warming up versus our ears getting used to the sound.

[DesertTwang]

I'm going to be the outlier, but as a trained scientist and biologist who has at least a basic idea of what wood is, I simply have to disagree, unless someone presents me with a plausible reason, and more importantly, a mechanistic explanation, of how a guitar could possibly "warm up." Muscles warm up, yes, and engines do, too, but in each of those cases, there are mechanisms at play that actually produce heat. Of course, I do agree that my guitar sounds better to me after some time of playing, but that's because I, the player, is warmed up, not the guitar.

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by Tnfiddler

Well, I can promise you that my ears didn't warm up to the sound of the guitar. It was two totally different sounds. Easy to hear the differences between the two. I still stand by my original claim that the guitar is warming up versus our ears getting used to the sound.

Again I will agree. Rather than being a matter of ears warming up to the guitar, it’s a matter of subtle changes in frequency response that scientific instruments as yet fail to measure. Again, not a matter of the brain fooling itself, but rather an exercise in natural selective aesthetics which simply doesn’t register using the scientific method.

[jaymarsch]

Originally Posted by Tnfiddler

Well, I can promise you that my ears didn't warm up to the sound of the guitar. It was two totally different sounds. Easy to hear the differences between the two. I still stand by my original claim that the guitar is warming up versus our ears getting used to the sound.

Guitars vibrate as they get played so I could see that players could hear subtle differences. Players can get attuned to their instruments over time making nuances more discernible. I have noticed these differences and really do not care if it is the guitar or me or whether or not it can be scientifically proven. It just is what it is. Some folks experience it and some folks don't.

I think this falls into the same old argument of whether or not guitars "open up". Again, some folks experience that they do and others don't. Sound waves, the instruments that produce them, the ears that hear them, the brain that interprets them, and the heart that feels them as far as I am concerned it is just all a part of playing music!

Best,
Jayne

[Tnfiddler]

Originally Posted by jaymarsch

Guitars vibrate as they get played so I could see that players could hear subtle differences. Players can get attuned to their instruments over time making nuances more discernible. I have noticed these differences and really do not care if it is the guitar or me or whether or not it can be scientifically proven. It just is what it is. Some folks experience it and some folks don't.

I think this falls into the same old argument of whether or not guitars "open up". Again, some folks experience that they do and others don't. Sound waves, the instruments that produce them, the ears that hear them, the brain that interprets them, and the heart that feels them as far as I am concerned it is just all a part of playing music!

Best,
Jayne

AMEN! I think you just won this debate and I'm going to stick with what I heard and run with it!

[ii Cybershot ii]

Originally Posted by Tnfiddler

Well, I can promise you that my ears didn't warm up to the sound of the guitar. It was two totally different sounds. Easy to hear the differences between the two. I still stand by my original claim that the guitar is warming up versus our ears getting used to the sound.

And I can promise you that you are wrong

Sensory adaptation is a scientific fact, and is constantly occurring without our control. Every sense in the human body adjusts to what it's experiencing. Smell, taste, touch, etc. Cold showers feel freezing at the beginning but then your body adjusts and they feel totally fine by the end of the shower. Your sense of smell drastically adjusts to aromas around you constantly. Coming home after a long vacation your house smells strange, but then after a couple of hours you don't notice it anymore. People who live near traffic or trains adjust over time and they don't notice anymore.

Have you ever gone to a concert and it sounds harsh, abrasive, trebly etc at the beginning, and by the end everything sounds great? Some of that is the sound guy, but mostly it's our own ears. Or putting on an album you love then switching to another and wondering what happened to all the bass you remember being on it? Or, switching between guitars. If I play my dread for an hour then switch to my OM it sounds small and boxy. But if I start with the OM it sounds balanced and full the whole time. This last point is especially prudent when auditioning guitars in stores. Your ears adjust to sounds and then when you switch, the contrast makes the differences seem greater than they are.

So I can promise that you adjusted to the sound whether you like it or not

(I should also add that I 100% believe that the strings and top need to vibrate for a while as part of the guitar warming up process)

[Rockysdad]

A curious thought on my part,...….. could the *strings* also be part of the *warming up*, considering that they vibrate, stretch ?

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by Rockysdad

A curious thought on my part,...….. could the *strings* also be part of the *warming up*, considering that they vibrate, stretch ?

I believe string movement does effect guitar string performance as well from stretching, temperature, metal elasticity, fatigue, etc. Maybe some mechanical engineers will disagree but I think it’s worthwhile to point out that what we know scientifically is only so due to chance or funding or need, and that there are vast unknown frontiers yet to be explored simply due to absence of aforementioned deterministic events.