Seeking input from tone junkies

[pete]

So I buy a guitar online...I know, I know-never buy a guitar without playing it. My bad. Anyway, when it arrived I let it sit for 5 hours to get acclimated to my home. I tuned it up and started to play. My world was not set on fire, and I thought "you dumb ***". But there is no bad Gibson right? I ended up playing it for hours till it was way past my bed time. On a school night too!

The first thing I did the next morning-after a wiz of course, was play it again. After the course of a few days I grew to really dig the tone. I am certainly not an experienced musician by any means but it sure seems to me that the tone has changed significantly. Am I on crack, or could this be considered somewhat normal?

Some information for you guys: it travelled almost all the way across North America from the East to the West, the strings are brand new, the fretboard and rest of the guitar don't look like it has a lot of playing time, and the wood (lots of maple) is not what my main acoustic (a late 70s Yamaha) is constructed of. The tone was very different to the Yamaha and I think that had a lot to do with my initial perception of how it sounded.

So I thought I would put it out there to you guys and see what your thoughts were. Thanks for any input.

[suburude63]

Pete I have to say buddy I have bought a lot of guitars in the last year. Some good some awsome! I have found one I love like no other. But some days it sounds different than it did the day before. Guitars like oh well nevermind! Some guitars need to be warmed up to get there. I have mostly at this point Adi topped guitars they take years to open up and at least 30 mins to warm up.

But wood differences also effect tone greatly ! Maple .Mahogany and rosewood are all differnt in tonal qualitys.

Everyone has a prefrance I for one am a Mahogany guy! But I played and bought alot of Rosewood guitars before I found that out in my life :- . Guitar playing and owning is a journey ! Welcome to the club !

[suburude63]

Also I have bought 98% of my guitars online !

[davenumber2]

I bought my J-45 online and had a similar experience. The guitar did not sound very full and sounded really bright and thin. I took it to a tech, had a good setup done, brought it home and within the first week the tone changed dramatically for the better. I bought the guitar used but it still had the plastic on the PG so I assume it was not played very much. I think newer guitars just have a break in period. A solid wood guitar will sound better and better the more you play.

[DAS44]

I've heard that puttin the guitar in front of a running stereo works well for "warming it up"....

 

<shrug>

[bkharmony]

Suburude pretty much nails it. Here's my thoughts:

 

It's more likely your ears changed than the guitar's tone. Ear fatigue is very real.

 

Maple is awesome, but fickle.

 

Guitars "open up." Before I owned a "nice" guitar, I thought this was B.S. It's not. And there's the short-term opening up and long-term. Like suburude said, some guitars take 5, 10 years to reach their potential. Those guitars especially need time to warm up when you grab them. After 20 minutes, you're probably not hearing it's true character. The guitar I find this really applies to is my Red Spruce Adi/Mahogany J-45. If I play it for 20 minutes, I put it down and think, "I wasted my money on this." If I play it for more than 30 minutes, I think it's the best-sounding guitar of all time.

 

Lastly, your experience with new guitars will change the way you hear things. Your tastes will grow and change. Things you hated will become things you love and vice-versa. I'm betting if you just enjoy the guitar, it'll take you to great places.

[nodehopper]

I absolutely agree with all the above.

 

Owning a guitar is really much like a relationship. It take some time to develop! While the guitar does open up over time there are a lot of little things that add up to this. There is the simple idea that as you play the wood grain and glue joints loosen up a bit allowing everything to vibrate. The wood gets a little older and drier...there are also the even more subtle things. Your ear may get used to the guitars sound and grow to love its tone. You will learn how to play it with the right touch to bring out it's best character. You may decide certain styles of music sound better on it and play material that suits it best.

 

Congrats on finding anew 6 string life partner !

[Guth]

Pete,

 

Trust your own ears. I'm guessing that if you walk into a guitar store and play every instrument that they have, you can identify those guitars that sound good to you. Everyone has got an opinion, but as long as the guitar you purchased sounds great to you, that's all that matters.

 

All the best,

Guth

[pete]

Thanks guys,

I grow fonder every time I play it. You guys are right about the warm up time too. 20-30 minutes is the magic. Cheap guitars aren't like that at all-weird eh? I am looking forward to my journey of skill aquisition with my new friend.

[Jinder]

Pete, what Gibson did you buy? Congrats on the new bat!

 

I find my guitars can be moody on any given day...i know that travelling (especially by air) can be very hard on a guitar, and it's important to remember that the initial tone a guitar has after flying/travelling a long distance will not be representative of what the guitar will sound like once acclimatised to it's new environment.

 

Also, a change in brand or tonewood can take some getting used to-in my younger years I played a Takamine mini-jumbo for a long time, which was a lush sounding thing, all modern and "hi-fi" in tone, with an abundance of Rosewood overtones. When I replaced it with my SJ200 back in '04, I was initially taken aback by how dry the '200 sounded...all bottom

end-heavy and laden with that trademark Maple pop-and-snap (which I adore now I know it so well). I started to think, after the first day, that the '200 was beautiful but difficult to enjoy, after being spoiled by my old Takamine's lazy Rosewood tone.

 

I've owned the SJ200 for around seven years now, and it has been my main stage guitar for over 1000 gigs and three studio albums. It's an unbelievable instrument, and one that has improved me immeasurably as a guitarist.

 

The old girl has had a hard working life, and has the scars to prove it, so since I've had my Hummingbird and Guild OM she's been moved into a reserve/studio/writing role, but still comes out for a gig every so often.

 

Anyway, I digress...my point is, stick with your Gibson, play it every day, grow with it, let it become a part of you. Cheaper, lazy-toned guitars might offer instant gratifiction, but if you let it, your Gibson will become a part of your soul.

[pete]

Jinder,

It is an EC-10 serial # 92517023. To my knowledge this means it is a 1997 model, built on the 251st day of that year and the 23rd guitar of the day. It is encouraging to hear that your 200 improved your guitar playing. I can hear tones /overtones with this guitar that I cannot hear on other instruments. It is like magic floating in the air-I don't know how else to describe it. Keeping in mind I have experience only with lower end guitars. Hearing some of these tones helps me with determining finger pressure, strumming vigor etc to hear through the guitar what I hear in my head. Yes, sir my plan is make this guitar a part of my soul.

As for the travelling I was very nervous about the shipping. I actually bought it prior to Christmas but the weather here was extremely cold. I had lengthy conversations with the seller and others & decided to wait until March/April to ship it. Then there was a forecasted break in the weather pattern that was expected to last about 2 weeks. We jumped on that opportunity and shipped it. The guitar took only 50 minutes (according to the USPS web site) to get through customs, and arrived two days earlier than I had expected. It got hear safe and sound. On top of the 5 hours at home it was at work for 3 hours prior to that.

I like your reference to instant gratification too. That is exactly what that is. I never made that connection before. So thanks for your thoughts. Do you have any links to some of your recordings?

[Jinder]

Pete,

I'm glad you're warming to your Gibson...I love that description of those overtones being like magic floating in the air, I can totally relate to that!!

 

As you asked (I hate shameless self promotion as much as anyone, so I apologise to everyone else in advance for the links!), you can hear my music at:

 

www.jinder.co.uk

and my latest album is streaming in full at:

www.myspace.com/jinder

 

do you have any pics of your EC10?

[pete]

Jinder,

I visited your website and listened while I did a little work today. Very nice, man. I'd sell my soul at the crossroads to play and sing like that! Yes I do have some photos, but I won't have time to post them today (I'm going to jam this evening!!) I'll keep an eye on the activity of this thread. If there isn't any more input I'll PM them to you.

[albertjohn]

Pete. Great thread.

 

We are all picture junkies here so please post them up.

 

Gilliangirl often asks what was the first song played on a new bat (love the term Jinder). So, do you recall?

[Space Pup]

First off, congrats' on the new guitar! I think tone can be a funny thing sometimes, I have Gibsons with Maple, Mahogany, Rosewood, and Walnut bodies. While I try to rotate playing them on a regular basis. I sometimes find that I'll start out playing the Rosewood and it just won't sound right. I'll switch to the maple and it sounds better then the last time I played it. So I guess your mood can also effect how you hear tone.

[Jinder]

Hi Pete,

Thanks for the kind words about my music! Please do post some pics when you can. I did a little reading up on the EC-10 and they are, by all accounts, a pretty rare guitar...I gather they evolved, model-wise, into the Blues King Electro (not to be confused with the L00 sized Blues King acoustic, confusingly!), which subsequently became the J185EC.

 

I've never played an EC-10, but every J185 I've played has been a superb example of a Maple Gibson.

 

Enjoy!

[Sauron]

I find that many Gibsons don't realize their full potential until fine tuned to a gnat's a**. The factory just doesn't seem to excel at squeezing out that last little drop of excellence. And some don't have much shine at all until tweaked.

 

For me, it's easy. I'm into luthiery, so I do the fine tuning myself. To me, owning a guitar and not being able to do that is like owning a motorcycle and not knowing anything about motorcycle mechanics. And I say this as a person who rode Harley Davidsons before they invented the Evolution engine. You had to be a mechanic back in those days!

 

But to each his own, and some people just aren't into things involving tools. If not, buy that Gibson, but get thee to a luthier for the final tweaking before you settle in with it. Then give it a week and play it everyday. You'll come 'round and be glad you bought it.

 

The worst new Gibson out there waiting to be sold is a diamond in the rough, just waiting to be tweaked to full beauty. That's what you have to bear if you want that Gibson tone and mystique. And there's not much else I want when it comes to acoustic guitars.

 

Sauron

[pete]

Wow, I can't get over the input and amount of discussion on woods and their relationship to tone. I learn something new everytime I visit the Gibson forums. What a great place.

Here are some pictures of my new (to me) Gibson dressed in maple and spruce. The color is really a deeper maroon than what the photos depict. Obviously I am biased but it is far more beautiful than the pictures show. The quality of craftsmanship is astounding. Hats off to Bozeman.

Albertjohn, some tunes a buddy and I are working on right now are Can't You See by the Marshall Tucker Band, Knockin on Heaven's Door-Dylan, and Remember When by Alan Jackson. I think that everyone who has contributed can take some credit for the thread (which I think is great too)-I'm just the joker asking the questions.

Anyway here are some shots:

 

The maple grain came out nice on this shot of the side of the guitar.

The tone I'm getting lately on this thread (hope I'm not the only one that thought that was funny) is a trip to the luthier may be $ well spent too.

Oh yeah, one more thing on tone. I did an inexpensive test on my late 70s Yamaha FG340. I bought some Tusq bridge pins to replace the welfare plastic mismatched jobs that were on it. It made quite a difference for the better, to the overall volume, bass & treble. Just thought I'd throw that in.

Gotta go make lunches & work on my scales! Over & out, 10/4 rubber ducky.

[bkharmony]

Oh yeah' date=' one more thing on tone. I did an inexpensive test on my late 70s Yamaha FG340. I bought some Tusq bridge pins to replace the welfare plastic mismatched jobs that were on it. It made quite a difference for the better, to the overall volume, bass & treble. Just thought I'd throw that in.[/quote']

 

Contact Bob Colosi and get a bone saddle and bone bridge pins from him. Take those to your luthier to install while he does a setup and you will be blown away with what you get back.

 

BTW: I have a similar guitar, an L-4A. Same body, bridge, neck, etc. This form (cutaway J-185 body) is the most comfortable Gibson I have ever played. My back/sides are Rosewood, though. I envy your maple.

 

Cheers!