How long to bond with a new guitar?

[EZYPIKINS]

First I gotta like the tone

Not allot of acoustics, I do like the tone.

Next I gotta set it up for me.

Last acoustic I bought. A used Martin 000-15 Mahogany Top Sapele back and sides.

Didn't buy for liking the tone. I liked the size. Very comfortable to play.

Did my set up. Got it playing sweet.

Installed a Lyric pickup.

After nearly 2 years. It just never clicked with me.

I tried my best to like it.

Put it on consignment in a local shop.

It sold in less than three hours.

[Bob Womack]

It is different for each guitar. My lovely wife and I stopped in at a local dealer on vacation and I asked to try out a Taylor 12 fret short scale. About five minutes later she said, "Wow, you are really comfortable with that guitar and I can tell. We've got to buy it." She was right and I've been comfortable ever since. My Tele took two months. A Les Paul took over a year. I liked both of those last two in the shop but it took me as long as it did to really dial them in. I'm reminded of "Deacon Blues" by Steely Dan: "Learned to work the saxophone, now I play just what I feel."

Bob

[PassingThru]

I either bond or decide I don't like the guitar in a very short time. My last online purchase of a new Martin 000-15SM has not gone well. We are not bonding. Took all of five minutes to decide I did not like mahogany. It is now relegated to its case. I must like the rosewood and spruce sound too much. Unfortunately, Reverb dealer has no returns even after, what I thought, was a generous offer to pay return shipping and a nice restocking fee.

[RalphH]

I normally have a honeymoon period first, then a doubt period, then decide once I've recovered from that. If you've skipped the honeymoon and gone straight to doubt that seems like a bad sign.

[Methos1979]

Ergonomically and tonally, the bond is usually pretty quick - almost immediately. A day or two at the most. What can take some time for me to really get used to is a pickup system, especially if it's a system I'm not familiar with. It can take time to really learn to get the most out of it when amplified. It can take a fair bit of time to get a new guitar/pickup system dialed in with my live performance setup and also learn the idiosyncrasies.

I'm finding that out right now with my RainSong Nashville Shorty. I've been playing it almost non-stop for two months and just today I realized I had made an assumption about the pickup system (LR Baggs Anthem StagePro) that was completely wrong! The good news is now that I am aware of this, I'll be able to dial in an even better amplified tone than I had before. And I was already pretty happy with the tone to begin with.

Like a few others have indicated, if anything, I tend to 'fall out of love' with a guitar over time as the little things that I didn't notice at first that I don't like tend to become more apparent as the newness wears off.

[Dru Edwards]

Originally Posted by musicman1951

It takes me about 10 seconds (maybe 5) to do the easy rejections (tone and/or sustain the opposite of what I'm looking for). It's a matter of some minutes before I bond with a guitar - or I don't. Like Hairpuller, my appreciation is either there or it's not, instruments don't grow on me.

+1.

I'll add that I'll let the guitar acclimate to it's new environment for 1-2 weeks, setup to my liking (with strings/picks as well) but if I don't like the guitar on that first strum I'm not buying it. If bought online and the return period is 24-48 hours then it's going back immediately.

[ewalling]

I'm hopelessly inconsistent in this regard. Sometimes it's more or less instantaneous, others it can take months or even up to a year. The galling thing is when I think I've bonded and then find out I wasn't ... a month or two after the approval period has expired!

[jschmitz54]

I bought a couple of Alvarez starter price point parlors to play on the couch. One was a Sitka top and the other mahogany but both sounded boxy to my ears. They were both gone within a week.
I stepped up in price point and got a Martin OM-15 Custom model sold by LA Guitars and it’s a different world as it should be when you pay that much more. Plus the OM size sounds fuller. This may also be a function of a higher price point guitar vs size.
I’ve strung it with PBs and Martin Retros and it sounds great with either. I just received some John Pearse Pure Nickels that will go on shortly. I’d give Martin Retro Monels a shot. They seem to work really well on an all hog guitar imo.

[rllink]

Interesting question that I had to think about. When I bought my Taylor Mini it was speaking to me from the moment I clicked on the buy button. Bonding with it is a good way to describe how I feel about it from the moment I opened the box. When I bought my Yamaha it never talked to me. I bought it based on what I thought that I "needed", a guitar with a longer scale length and I bought it because it ticked all the boxes, got good reviews and the price was right. It now hangs silently on the wall and seldom gets played. I most definitely have not bonded with it and I doubt that I ever will.

[gmel555]

(sorry if I missed a post with a final decision) All of us who have played guitars in stores, let alone had them at home, know this feeling of "not sure it's for me". These days it's not always possible to play before buying and it's natural to try to make it work post purchase (I've been there). I'll try one new set each of phos bronze and 80/20, but my philosophy on going the set-up route is I need to "like a guitar enough to get it set-up", vs "get it set-up in order to like it". If I'm struggling to get to that first point it's not the guitar for me. Good luck with whatever you decide, you'll work it out one way or another.

[Rad]

I’ll admit there is an intangible charisma that some guitars have that makes me love them if they pass the playability and tone test. My Tele is like that, something about that simple basic design just captivates me and makes me smile when I pick it up. My Martin D-18 does the same to me.

[Highroller]

I don't do a lot of online buying, so I've usually bonded with a guitar to some degree before I even bring it home. That's the advantage of shopping in person.

But I have had some where I've known a different set of strings or a good setup would improve it, so that process might take a few weeks. It's mostly a matter of turning something I already like into something I love.

And I've had a few (not many) where after the initial honeymoon phase, whatever attracted me to it in the first place wears off and they slide down the list of "go to" instruments. But whether or not I'll actually get rid of it is an entirely different question. I might keep something for years before I unload it.

Always hoping that spark will come back. Ha! - I can rationalize keeping almost anything!

[redir]

It's either love at first sight (song) or it's gone.

[beatcomber]

Sometimes I will love a guitar immediately - such as my 12-fret 00-18, which delighted me from the start. Other times I will be initially unsure if it's right for me, and will need a little time to get acquainted with it. In those cases, sometimes it works out and other times it doesn't.

It might just take a quick turn of the truss rod for a guitar to snap into place for me. I tend to be more fussy about electric guitars, which with their infinitely adjustable bridges are a lot easier to tweak to perfection, so I pay closer to attention to the set-up on those.

[catndahats]

Usually know immediately.
Sometimes a negative five days...ordered one and dealer called before shipping regarding a cracked top, ordered another (same model) from 2nd dealer, same call another cracked top, ordered #3 dealer shipped and arrived with a cracked top and was so shop worn it made me grimace everytime I picked it up.