Brand new guitars and their breaking in/tone change

[silverspear]

Originally Posted by Alan Carruth

Many players will say that the guitar doesn't change, but your hearing or touch on it does. I don't know any maker who thinks that.

My first archtop guitar sounded terrible when I put the strings on it. My wife had taken the kids to their grandparents for the weekend, and I worked late in the shop getting it set up. Around midnight I took it upstairs where it was warmer to put on the strings, and it sounded so bad I almost threw it out into the snow and went to be. I'm glad I didn't. By the next day it had started to get sorted out, and playing it really helped. The owner has said that he hopes I know what I did on it, because if something ever happens to it he'll need one just like it.

That was an exception in sounding so bad off the bench. What I have found in general is that they start out sounding 'pretty good' (remember, this is New England: that's a compliment We don't do 'fabulous'.) and then get better.

haha! thanks Alan for sharing your experiences on this topic! I reckon that if you guys use "fabulous", there'll be no more space to describe anything beyond that!

I'm just curious, how would one describe, as what you said, a "reasonably good" tone of a freshly made guitar that's first strung up? what is usually "lacking" that will come in after several hours and days?

[rsmillbern]

I had never "definitively" experienced this before I got my Waterloo WL-K.
I had the impression that some got better, but would have been hard pressed to swear to it.

I got the Waterloo delivered from the factory and in the fist week I liked it, but did not love it. I won it in a magazine drawing and had never played one before (they are not so common here in Germany), so there was no "try-before-you-buy". I probable would have passed on it if I'd played it at a shop...

After 3-4 weeks of playing though the sound did change somewhat and it has quickly become one of the guitars that I would be hard pressed to part with. The more it gets played the better it sounds!

[Wade Hampton]

For me part of the fun with new instruments is listening to their tonal changes the more they get played. The guitar that I own that I’ve owned the longest is my 000-42, which I got thirty years ago. It was handbuilt for me by Scott Baxendale, based on the blueprint of a 1935 Martin 000-28 that had come in for repair when Scott was working as a repairman at Grunblatt Guitars in Nashville. It was such a great-sounding guitar that Scott drew up a blueprint so he could build another like it at some point.

Which he did, for me, but as a 000-42 rather than a 000-28.

Anyway, I used it in performance a couple of months ago, then took it out of its case and played it a few days ago. The sound had changed! The midrange on it was different than it had been just a couple of months earlier.

So it’s subtle, but they do continue to evolve. That 000-42 has always been a superb guitar, but it’s become “drier” in tone, more genuinely pre-war sounding.

It’ll be interesting to hear what my 2014 Martin D-18 and my 2001 Gibson Advanced Jumbo will sound like in thirty years....chances are that I won’t be around to play them, or too elderly and infirm if I am, but some lucky souls will be.


Wade Hampton Miller

[jaymarsch]

Originally Posted by colins

I found this big time last year when I received a custom build from Kathy Wingert. I was traveling on business and asked if I could pick it up when I passed through LA. Kathy did a stellar job to complete it in time for my visit, and it was first strung a couple of hours before I arrived to see her.

It sounded really great when I picked it up, but after a couple of weeks of playing – oh man! With playing it just bloomed. On other guitars I have noticed the longer term opening up (say over the first 18 months), but this is the first time I’ve had a guitar that was so “fresh”, and experiencing the change was really something.

Col

First, Col, I am glad that you posted the photo as I never get tired of seeing that gorgeous inlay!

Kathy delivered my guitar to me a day after she strung it up and as others have mentioned, it sounded great but over the next few days, weeks and months it displayed subtle changes in tone and volume - all good. Part of it probably was the process of the woods getting used to their new configuration and it might also have been the influence of temperature and humidity changes. The guitar was built in southern California which is warmer and a bit dryer than the northern California coastal town I was then living in.

This guitar will be 14 years old this Thanksgiving and it doesn't change much now but overall has aged beautifully both tonally and visually. It still sounds best at about 40% humidity - maybe that is because it was built at 38%. It seems like it hits a sweet spot there.

Best,
Jayne

[vindibona1]

Originally Posted by Rodger Knox

I don't build quite that many, but otherwise pretty close to the same, except for the Tonerite.

I didn't read all the replies, but since Tonerite was mentioned, I can tell you from my experience that it works. Some guitars have modest tonal change, some guitars undergo an incredible transformation. About $100 on Ebay. Easy as pie to use. Hang your guitar. Hang the device on your guitar. Turn it on and let it do its thing. In about 72 hours you'll begin to hear a change. In 200 hours it will have done all it's going to do. But periodically use it for a couple hours to "wake up" the guitar because they re-settle a bit.

I borrowed a Tonerite for a couple weeks, but after I experienced what it can do I bought my own. Best guitar money I ever spent.

[Pura Vida]

I've experienced varying degrees of tone change with the break-in period. I had one guitar ship directly from the factory, and the change was more dramatic early on before it settled into a more normal evolution that I've come to expect.

Last year, I had two guitars that both experienced some strange harmonic changes at 8-9 months. The first time, I thought there was a bracing issue, but then it settled after another week (returning in a diminished form a month later, after a string change). Same thing with another guitar (same builder).

Meanwhile, I have a Rosewood/Adi guitar that's had a much slower opening process. It took about 12 months for the top to become more responsive, and another six months for the tone to begin to warm up. Normally, I know whether a guitar is a keeper within 12 months, but this one has been a good exercise in patience, as it continually improves with each month.

Interestingly, I also own a nearly identical guitar, which had a much faster break-in period and has a much different sound than its twin (despite only being one month apart in age). This one is warmer with more overtones, while the other one is brighter with more clarity. It's fascinating to me how (essentially) the same guitar can sound so different.

[silverspear]

Originally Posted by jaymarsch

First, Col, I am glad that you posted the photo as I never get tired of seeing that gorgeous inlay!

Kathy delivered my guitar to me a day after she strung it up and as others have mentioned, it sounded great but over the next few days, weeks and months it displayed subtle changes in tone and volume - all good. Part of it probably was the process of the woods getting used to their new configuration and it might also have been the influence of temperature and humidity changes. The guitar was built in southern California which is warmer and a bit dryer than the northern California coastal town I was then living in.

This guitar will be 14 years old this Thanksgiving and it doesn't change much now but overall has aged beautifully both tonally and visually. It still sounds best at about 40% humidity - maybe that is because it was built at 38%. It seems like it hits a sweet spot there.

Best,
Jayne

Never knew that Kathy built here guitars at 38%! was this done intentionally?

[silverspear]

Originally Posted by Pura Vida

I've experienced varying degrees of tone change with the break-in period. I had one guitar ship directly from the factory, and the change was more dramatic early on before it settled into a more normal evolution that I've come to expect.

Last year, I had two guitars that both experienced some strange harmonic changes at 8-9 months. The first time, I thought there was a bracing issue, but then it settled after another week (returning in a diminished form a month later, after a string change). Same thing with another guitar (same builder).

Meanwhile, I have a Rosewood/Adi guitar that's had a much slower opening process. It took about 12 months for the top to become more responsive, and another six months for the tone to begin to warm up. Normally, I know whether a guitar is a keeper within 12 months, but this one has been a good exercise in patience, as it continually improves with each month.

Interestingly, I also own a nearly identical guitar, which had a much faster break-in period and has a much different sound than its twin (despite only being one month apart in age). This one is warmer with more overtones, while the other one is brighter with more clarity. It's fascinating to me how (essentially) the same guitar can sound so different.

I agree, adi can be quite a pain to break in... but it does break in ultimately.

There are some makers though, who make adi tops thinner, and when that happens, it's very responsive on the get-go.

[colins]

Originally Posted by jaymarsch

First, Col, I am glad that you posted the photo as I never get tired of seeing that gorgeous inlay!

Best,
Jayne

Thanks Jayne, I'll find another excuse to post it again in a few months! I've decided I have JWIAS (Jimmi Wingert Inlay Acquisition Syndrome) - it’s rare, but the resulting inlays are very nice!

Originally Posted by vindibona1

I didn't read all the replies, but since Tonerite was mentioned, I can tell you from my experience that it works. Some guitars have modest tonal change, some guitars undergo an incredible transformation. About $100 on Ebay. Easy as pie to use. Hang your guitar. Hang the device on your guitar. Turn it on and let it do its thing. In about 72 hours you'll begin to hear a change. In 200 hours it will have done all it's going to do. But periodically use it for a couple hours to "wake up" the guitar because they re-settle a bit.

I borrowed a Tonerite for a couple weeks, but after I experienced what it can do I bought my own. Best guitar money I ever spent.

Agree with you (again!) When my baritone was brand new the well-respected luthier I showed it to said “put the Tonerite on it”.

Col