Guitar breakin

[bill67]

Does it take a rosewood guitar longer to break in than a mahogany,Or is it just me that seems to think that.

[Versatile]

Hi Bill...are we talking rosewood fretboard here?

 

V

 

[bill67]

Hi Bill...are we talking rosewood fretboard here?

 

V

 

No sides and back

[Versatile]

I would be guessing a bit here

Logically top and back are the main 'movers'

And top is probably about 70% of the sound

But I give no guarantees :unsure:

 

V

 

 

PS....Post again in 20yrs time for follow-up discussion.....

[zombywoof]

The back and sides do not really come into play in terms of "opening up." If the back was a flat or parabolic uninterrupted surface with a reflective finish it might do more to move air but it ain't. So it is all about vibtation which is a more matter of top wood, bridge and bridge plate, and bracing.

[DennisMiller]

I dropped a rosewood dread down 2 flights of steps. It opened up right away.

 

Kidding aside, over at the Acoustic Guitar Forum, (I highly recommend it), I've seen tons of threads talking about guitars opening up, mellowing and maturing, (choose your favorite description for it), and nobody I know ever talked about the back and sides maturing at different rates. I've seen conversations about whether Sitka, Engleman or Adirondack spruce would mature faster than one another. In those threads, nobody seemed to go off on a tangent to ask if a mahogany top would age slower or faster than the spruces, the only thing I can think of that would give us some indication.

 

What I can do is write my friend Tim McKnight, a luthier who builds incredibly beautiful hand built guitars. I'll ask him...

[Ship of fools]

Not sure why folks get caught up in if the tops open up or not.

And your right Dennis, Tim does builds some very nice guitars and don't drop your guitar down to flights of stairs again or else it can very well open up for you.LOL

And yep the back and sides really don't come into play very much.ship

[DennisMiller]

Tim's wife Mary wrote me back. She said in Tim's opinion, a solid top will mature over time, but the back and sides will not. She didn't say exactly why they wouldn't, but maybe it has to do with the manner of connections and bracing.

[bill67]

Tim's wife Mary wrote me back. She said in Tim's opinion, a solid top will mature over time, but the back and sides will not. She didn't say exactly why they wouldn't, but maybe it has to do with the manner of connections and bracing.

Whats the shortest time it usually takes the top to mature,Or really start sounding good.

[DennisMiller]

How fast the top on an acoustic matures has more to do with the frequency and duration of play, complimented by the aggressiveness of the effort put into it.

 

In other words, a guitar that gets aggressively strummed for an hour every day will mature somewhat faster than a guitar top that only resonates under the effort of an hour a day of quiet finger style play.

 

There is also a school of thought that suggests certain woods like Sitka mature faster than Engleman and all that. That's not an area of thought I can speak to because the concept was only recently brought up at the AGF and there seems to be no consensus about it.

 

What I've always wondered is whether a top may be more or less free to mature based on how it is braced.

 

And yet with all the talk in every guitar forum about what our acoustic guitars will become someday, you might wonder how we ever fell in love with them for what they are now.

[TommyK]

I honestly cannot say that anyone has scientifically proven that guitar open up. i.e. sound better with age. Tone is subjective and can change with the seasons. My guitar seemed to open up in the middle of a practice session. Mid song even. Turns out a weather pressure front moved through and my ears popped.

 

There are a lot of things that can affect tone, but tone is subjective and I don't usually get into such discussions. However for the sake of discussion, since I got sucked into this one, There are many homeopathic ways of getting a guitar to open up. Some of the more interesting is placing a transistor radio tuned to your favorite music station near the guitar will accelerate the opening up process. Some say a specific song played over and over will do it. Some say very softly, some full blast. My fave is hanging the guitar in the garage, or more poetically in a privy for a few months.

 

Personally I think guitars made of solid woods do have a tone change with age. Like Fine wine, beer and cheeses, this cannot be rushed. Just be patient and she will open up... or not.

 

Guitars with laminated tops, by and large, do not open up and will sound as good out of the box as they will 10 years hence.

[DennisMiller]

Personally I think guitars made of solid woods do have a tone change with age. Like Fine wine, beer and cheeses, this cannot be rushed. Just be patient and she will open up... or not.

I agree with everything you said. I can't swear any of my guitars with solid tops have "opened up"... but I believe it happens primarily because some pretty well known luthiers I know believe wood matures over time.

 

Scientific studies about subjective tone would be impossible, but there have been studies about some things. It is well documented that the cellular structure of wood evolves over the very long term as it ages. Nobody will swear it changes the tone, but some suggest by virtue of common sense, it must. Whether it's measurable, that's the question... Measurable by who and exactly how... by subjective tone?

 

Other studies have shown that old lacquer finishes break down and are absorbed into the wood. To me, it almost sounds as if they are saying lacquer doesn't cure 100% because the environment allows it to maintain some interaction with the surface it's applied to. Sounds weird to me, but I can only presume the scientists know what they are reporting. Again, people like to use that statement of fact as a common sense reason that a guitar's tone would have to change over time. Again, show me something on an occiliscope that measures it and I'll understand.

 

I have 3 friends with pretty old guitars, all Martin dreads in the D28 or variant realm. They are all great sounding guitars, but none of my friends can swear the guitar tone has changed over time. In 2 cases, they bought them used and already old. In one case, the guy has had his since he was a kid, over 30 years, but he says hearing any change in tone is like watching someone you see every day on a diet. You just aren't going to notice as easily as if you saw them today and then not again for a few weeks.

 

By that, his contention is, if we recorded a guitar today and then, using the same device, recorded it again on some future date... well, you get the picture.

 

And I agree about weather changing our hearing. We have a cold front moving through Florida right now. If I opened the house and let the RH in my music room drop below 52%, after a few hours, my guitars would sound very differently to how they sound right now.

 

I guess on one hand, it's BS, but on the other hand, it is fun to talk about.

[TommyK]

...

By that, his contention is, if we recorded a guitar today and then, using the same device, recorded it again on some future date... well, you get the picture.

..

 

Now that there is the makings of a great experiment. Anyone who gets a new guitar for Christmas is required to record it, then record again every year for the next 30 years. Then, report back to us how it went.

 

[DennisMiller]

Now that there is the makings of a great experiment. Anyone who gets a new guitar for Christmas is required to record it, then record again every year for the next 30 years. Then, report back to us how it went.

 

And in year 27, someone will probably find out what they are doing and why they are doing it, at which point they will be visited by the nice young men in the clean white coats and the whole experiment will go down the drain.

[kuvash]

Does it take a rosewood guitar longer to break in than a mahogany,Or is it just me that seems to think that.

Dennis,I have a number of acoustics in maple ,mahogany and rosewood.This is only my opinion...rosewod is made to be "played" and I do mean played. My guitar with the loudest voice icluding seious bass is rosewood with a cedar top.Tried all kinds of strings on it since '93 now I always use lights I get all that I want out of it.Again IMO ,rosewood responds to amore aggressive approach.It can hwever be played softly....made to be played.

 

kuvash

[kuvash]

Dennis as an addition I have found the same to be with a rosewood body and a spruce top."play it hard". There is even a review from another manufacturers website that says something very similar.I don't know how this site is for mentioning their competition..(as far as websites)

kuvash

[strat-o-steve]

Here's the low down. A guitar that starts life sounding dull and un-inspiring will never sound any better than day 1. A great sounding guitar will always be a great sounding guitar (asuming it is well taken care of and properly set up) I would buy the one that sounds best now, and it will sound good later too, whereas if you buy a so so guitar just because of the wood type, you will likely always have a so so guitar. That's the facts.

[DennisMiller]

A guitar that starts life sounding dull and un-inspiring will never sound any better than day 1.

How do we know that's true? Who buys all those guitars and keeps them long enough to know?