Thoughts on aging spruce "opening up"

[PeterMN]

I've heard a number of different takes on what exactly happens to a spruce top as it ages. Ive heard the following... more responsiveness, greater projection, warmer tone, more fundamental tone, more overtones, more bass. Which of these claims carry any truth?

[warfrat73]

You will get many opinions on this.

But while you're waiting, you might try the search function as there are dozens of threads about this.

[charles Tauber]

All of them and none of them.

Much of it is subjective: most of it doesn't really matter. It is academic.

Buying, now, a guitar that doesn't sound like what you want it to now, in the hopes that it will someday "open-up" and sound like what you want, is foolish. If you don't like the sound now, don't buy it: find one that sounds now how you like. If you have a "dud" now and expect that it will magically become something it is not as it ages, you'll most likely be disappointed. "Good" instruments sound good from the moment they are first strung. Some will sound better as they age. "Bad" instruments rarely transform into "good" ones as they age.

The "tone" - responsiveness, overtones, etc. - of many guitars do change over time. One cannot predict how - or if - a particular guitar will change and without some objective baseline, how - or if - a guitar has changed as it ages is speculative.

At any stage in a guitar's life, it simply is what it is: it sounds like what it sounds like.

[6L6]

Not sure if there's a definite answer to your question.

But I would NEVER buy a guitar hoping that it will sound better "when it opens up".

[PeterMN]

Originally Posted by warfrat73

You will get many opinions on this.

But while you're waiting, you might try the search function as there are dozens of threads about this.

I searched for "spruce opening up" topics. Didn't find any, but I only went through the first 3 pages of results.

[Earl49]

Maybe just search on "opening up" and not limit it to only spruce. The same principles apply to any top wood -- except laminated.

[PeterMN]

Originally Posted by 6L6

I would NEVER buy a guitar hoping that it will sound better "when it opens up".

Couldn't agree more.

[generalliamsayn]

Originally Posted by charles Tauber

Buying, now, a guitar that doesn't sound like what you want it to now, in the hopes that it will someday "open-up" and sound like what you want, is foolish. If you don't like the sound now, don't buy it: find one that sounds now how you like.

I agree. I think guitars are like red wine; the good ones (generally) gain quite a bit with age while lesser ones gain less.

I have an adi-mahog. Collings CJ. When young I found it to be powerful, but 'tight'. A strong fundamental tone was always part of this guitar's DNA but 15 years on, I find I don't have to play it as hard to get the tone. I would say it has 'blossomed' and also gained complexity.

But that's only my perception; so YMMV, as always.

[PeterMN]

Originally Posted by Earl49

Maybe just search on "opening up" and not limit it to only spruce. The same principles apply to any top wood -- except laminated.

Okay. I'll do that. Thanks.

[Goat Mick]

In my experience guitars don't take on a whole new sound and personality after they open up. They just become "more" of what they already were. If you really like your guitar when it's new, then you'll like it even more after it ages some. It won't be different, it'll just be "more".

[Br1ck]

I break this down into two unscientific beliefs. When new, a guitar is going to change from not at all, to what you might hear after six months, as you think you can remember slight changes over time. You really can't, but it only matters that you think you can.

Then there is the magic that happens after thirty or forty years. Problematic at best, but if you bought it new and want to think that, no one is stopping you. If you are looking to buy an old guitar, you want to believe all that playing time and age add up to something, and if pick rash adds to the perception, no harm done.

As for my personal experiences, I've had new guitars open up, and most old guitars sound better to me. That is my personal reality, delusional or not, and I really don't care witch.

[Alan Carruth]

Measurements I've made suggest that whatever changes there are will be toward 'loosening up' the top. It seems to move more air with playing, and the lower pitched resonances might drop a bit in frequency. Other folks have found similar things, notably on violin family instruments. It's hard to get really good data on this sort of thing, for obvious reasons.

If that's the case, then what you'd expect would be more power in the low range. A guitar that started out 'tight' sounding would be more likely to improve, while one that started out 'bassy' could well get worse.

This is not to say you should go out and buy a 'tight' guitar on the assumption that it will be 'perfect' later on. For one thing, that might take a lot of playing in to achieve. I might tend to avoid a new guitar that sounds a bit 'loose', but that's only my opinion.

[Mark Stone]

Originally Posted by Goat Mick

. . . They just become "more" of what they already were . . . .

This is my experience also. As others have stated, it's probably not wise to buy an instrument based on what it might sound like when it opens up - however it is ok to expect certain changes and responses as instruments are played and get older.

[FoxHound4690]

The age old debate over whether a guitar opens up over time will largely be a 50/50 split. A lot of people believe they don't open up at all, A lot of people believe they do open up significantly with time. The people who do think they open up over time simply believe that the instrument will get Louder and have a bigger voice which is due to things like wood fibers flexing more so there's more vibration resulting in a louder voice as well as glues and adhesives drying up and gradually flaking away. people think this can have an effect too.

Tone woods can come into play as well, some people think spruce tops open up faster. some people think cedar tops open up faster. Some people think cedar tops sound inherently warmer than spruce, some people think Mahogany is the only tone wood that can give a guitar tone "warmth".

It's just about trusting your own ears when it's all said and done.

[Wade Hampton]

Peter wrote:

Originally Posted by PeterMN

I searched for "spruce opening up" topics. Didn't find any, but I only went through the first 3 pages of results.

The term "breaking in" is more commonly used, and you're likely to find more threads under that subject name.

FoxHound wrote:

Originally Posted by FoxHound4690

The age old debate over whether a guitar opens up over time will largely be a 50/50 split. A lot of people believe they don't open up at all, A lot of people believe they do open up significantly with time.

Actually, Fox, it's more like 85/15 in favor of the idea, possibly more like 95/5. The only place I ever encounter people who think we're all kidding ourselves when it comes to the tone of acoustic stringed instruments maturing with time and use is on guitar forums; in real life the denialists scarcely exist. I don't know a SINGLE guitar builder who thinks they don't change, or anyone who either owns or works in a music stores who has any doubts, either.

Part of the reason for that is you'll hear some dramatic changes in a brand new guitar if you're there when it's strung up and played for the first time. Because when you hear it when it's absolutely brand new you'll hear a certain sort of inhibited tone, but within an hour or two or ten the sound will blossom and become fuller right then and there.

Once you've been present at that sort of almost immediate tonal change more than once, as I have been, repeatedly, at both one man shops and large factory operations, the people who insist on denying the evidence of their senses and everyone else's start sounding more and more like JFK conspiracy theorists.

It's not wishful thinking, it's not magical thinking, it's a demonstrable phenomenon. That right-away change happens within hours after the first time an acoustic guitar is strung and played for the first time.

The problem is that most players never witness that. The secondary break-in period, the one that the vast majority of owners of brand new guitars experience, is neither as immediate or as dramatic that first stringing up and playing it. It takes months and months for the change to start becoming noticeable and audible, and it's dependent on a whole array of different factors: how hard the guitarist plays and how often, how light or heavy are the strings he or she use, and of course the individual characteristics of that particular top on that particular set of back and sides: how stiff is it, how dense is it, how thick is it and how much tensile strength does it have.

It's the top that breaks in first on solid wood guitars, at least if it's a spruce, cedar or redwood-topped guitar. Guitars with hardwood tops take WAY longer to break in than tops made from conifer trees because, well, hardwoods are hard! So it's the top that provides most of the tonal change for the first several years of the guitar's existence and use.

The following, much more subtle tertiary breaking in period follows in its own sweet time as the back and sides s-l-o-w-l-y begin to change and accommodate the vibrations that have been surging through them for quite some time. That's the breaking in that most guitar owners don't quite register, because it's so subtle that it's only fellow musicians who haven't heard that guitar played in a few years will notice.

Naturally, there are plenty of people who don't think that solid wood or solid top acoustic guitars can break in because they haven't heard it for themselves, or else discounted what they did hear.

But the remaining folks who strongly disagree with the idea that acoustic guitars even CAN break in tend to fall into two distinct group:

1.) The guys who can't hear it at all, so:

˙˙˙˙˙a.) The break in process doesn't exist;

˙˙˙˙˙b.) Therefor all you poor fools are deluding yourselves;

And

2.) Those people who have been talked into buying an expensive but crappy-sounding guitar at music stores who've been told by a flim-flam sales clerk:

"Oooh, once this baby gets fully broken in it's going to sound SO nice!"

There are always a few mediocre guitars hanging on the walls of music stores for longer than either the owner or staff would want, and in any sales situations there are those dudes with "situational ethics" who are happy to tell you whatever they think you want to hear in order to close that sale.

They see it as both a challenge and a game.

They want that guitar GONE, and if they can convince you that it'll sound good two years down the road and you decide to make the purchase, they're SO happy because they just unloaded a turkey that was taking up wall space, not generating revenue.

Folks who've been victimized by sleazeball sales clerks like that have justifiable reasons for doubting that the guitar break in process does or even can exist.

But it does, and - honestly - I don't think the doubters are anywhere near the 50 percent level that you claim, Fox. Particularly not among experienced players who've owned multiple guitars for long enough for those tonal changes to manifest themselves.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller