What Tonewoods are affected most by time?

[blacknblues]

What wood wins 'the older it gets the better it sounds' award? Do folks generally feel that spruce is affected the most? What about mahogany?

[capmaster]

My experiences are based on solidbodies and semi-hollows only, and there is no spruce in them.

 

All of my guitars seemed to get better with time, and those of my bandmates, too. The reaction to attack smoothened and allowed for lower string action, the timbre became rounder, and some of the dead or dull notes came to life a bit. In case of a Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul, the only dull note is simply gone after just half a year. There didn't appear any new dull or dead notes over the years. So all in all the natural aging of woods happened to cause betterment only.

 

As for woods, maple and basswood seem to change more than mahogany. My experiences with alder and ash are as young as the instruments are - between two and a half years and eight months -, and four of my alder/maple respectively alder/maple/rosewood guitars I bought when they were about two years old as NOS Fenders so to say. So I can't tell that much about the aging process, but the tendencies are the same, e. g. smoother reaction and rounder tone. The NOS Fenders were quite smooth from the start, compared to those I bought "very" new.

 

I can't tell anything about fretboards since I just didn't realize significant aging effects compared to those of neck and body timbers.

[Rambler]

As far as flattops are concerned, the stiffer the top wood, the logner the break-in period. Adi tops (red spruce) are stiffer than other varieties, so takes longer; cder oth has more give, so wyhiwyg. I dont think the back and sides matter as much as the soundboard.

[retrorod]

I say, also, the soundboard woods....spruce or cedar.

[mountainpicker]

Ronnie Wood