Does a guitar´s tone and sound improve with age?

[Dan Winheld]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

I seem to be in the minority here on the AGF, but I believe a guitar sounds its best during it's first few years. After a number of years, maybe 20-30 or so, the guitar tends to lose bass and emphasize the treble frequencies.

I have had most of my guitars that long or longer and that is what has happened to each one of them. In some cases, the aging has helped because the guitar had too much bass to begin with. So a loss of bass tends to clear up the guitar's tone in a couple of cases.

But in general, I liked my guitars better when they were less old.

- Glenn

Possibly more of a Classical guitar problem, but Segovia and Julian Bream used to play their guitars to death- literally! Didn’t even have them retopped, just moved on to new guitars. One reason I won’t go for Tone Traveler type stuff- things in genera age quite fast enough on their own, including the guitars. If I had artificially aged my best guitars 25 ears ago, would they still be improving? Or would they be ready for new tops?

It will be interesting (to those who live long enough) to find out how the Tone Traveler-ed guitars are doing say 10, 20, etc. years from now. As some wise heads have said a few times in this thread, a bad axe ain’t gonna get good just because it gets old.

[Steve DeRosa]

Some authorities say "absolutely"...
Some authorities say "maybe"...
Some authorities say "absolutely not"...

I say Bob Womack got it right:

"It is said, 'Go not to the elves for counsel for they will say both no and yes.' "
Frodo Baggins to Gildor Inglorion, The Fellowship of the Ring

[Dirk Hofman]

Lots of good comments and advice. I think the general "buy a guitar for what it sounds like now" advice is hard to beat.

The other thing to think about is how long you really think you'll keep the guitar. A look through the classifieds suggests that many guitars don't stay with the owner long enough to find out. Some do keep them for decades. But it again points to buying what sounds good now.

EC is a great guitar! Had one, really enjoyed it. I guess I didn't have it long enough to know if it got better. Have fun!

[Alan Carruth]

jspe wrote:
"Bottom line for me? You can't beat the sound of old wood."

I've made new instruments out of old wood, and they sound like new instruments. I don't think it's the age, but the playing.

Andy Mitchell wrote:
"Genuinely old lumber seems very hard and brittle in comparison to the newer stuff. "

That's a function of the hemicellulose degradation. As the 'filler' goes away it leaves voids in the 'glue' that make it easier to break. It also makes old wood opaque, in the same way that the air spaces in a snow bank do with transparent ice.

phantoj asked:
"Does this mean that an older guitar is less likely to be sensitive to humidity?"

Yes.

"It is said, 'Go not to the elves for counsel for they will say both no and yes.' "
Frodo Baggins to Gildor Inglorion, The Fellowship of the Ring

The problem with answering this question is that it's not at all a simple measurement to make. I've done a number of experiments over the years in this line, and while the results do seem to support the idea of 'playing in' in general, it's hard to get the error bars down enough to be really sure. And that's just about the objective testing. It gets tricky when you inject a subjective concept like 'better'.

[Jwills57]

I had a logic class in college; I don't remember too much, but one concept that has always stuck with me is that of "negative proof." For a statement to be true logically, that statement must have a valid negative proof. So if I assert that new, solid-wood guitars get better with age and play, it must also be true that some new, solid-wood guitars actually get worse with age and play. Without a valid negative proof, a truth statement on its face cannot be true. I don't think I've ever heard anybody who's spent 3 grand and up on a guitar say that after three years the guitar sounded worse. Must be other factors at play, like expectations and justifications. Just human nature at work. But whether guitars actually get better with age is a difficult proposition.

[Thoughtfree]

I think that all guitars sound better with age, but only if they get played a lot.

The player gets used to a particular guitar's sound, and consciously or unconsciously learns its feel and response, thereby playing it better, and getting better sounds out of it.

I bought a cheap all-laminate guitar a few months back, and I swear it sounds better than it did when I bought it. Because I learned the tricks of playing THAT guitar. I know how it feels, I know what it can do, I know how to make it sound good - just from playing it a lot.

If I buy a plastic ukulele and play it two hours a day, it will sound better in a month. Because I will have learned how to play that particular instrument.

I M H O.

[rllink]

I too took a logic class in college and remember very little about logic. But I went to college in the early seventies on the GI bill and when I took that class I had experienced and seen a lot. Enough to realize that all that logic was theoretically valid only in a logical world, and that the real world is not logical. So I can't trust logic to guide me. But logic aside, I also wonder why it is if a guitar changes over time it is assumed that it is always for the better.

[seaveez]

My guitars definitely sound better than they did a few years ago. (Oh wait, perhaps I'm just a better player, so they sound better?)

[Jaxon]

i'm constantly picking mine up and playing it, now if I could only remember what it sounded like 20 years ago or even yesterday

[Moldstar]

Originally Posted by rllink

I too took a logic class in college and remember very little about logic. But I went to college in the early seventies on the GI bill and when I took that class I had experienced and seen a lot. Enough to realize that all that logic was theoretically valid only in a logical world, and that the real world is not logical. So I can't trust logic to guide me. But logic aside, I also wonder why it is if a guitar changes over time it is assumed that it is always for the better.

I have seen plenty of folks complain that their guitar changed for the worse over time; there are a lot of Martin aficionados who feel D-35s and HD-35s become muddy messes 20-30 years after they are made, for instance. I have seen that claim more than a few times on the UMGF. One of my current guitars is a 25 year old Alvarez (aj-60, maple lam, solid sitka top) that is getting thinner and thinner sounding as time goes by. I will never sell because memories, but I don't play it either.

[Br1ck]

Since auditory memory is so short, about all you can do is play a guitar and hear what it does right now. If you play fifty fifty year old guitars and like thirty of them a lot, what conclusion can you come to? I'd say none. But put one fifty year old, or brand new guitar in my hands and I can tell you if I like it or not. And my opinion is carved in sand.

[Russ C]

Originally Posted by Jwills57

I had a logic class in college; I don't remember too much, but one concept that has always stuck with me is that of "negative proof." For a statement to be true logically, that statement must have a valid negative proof. So if I assert that new, solid-wood guitars get better with age and play, it must also be true that some new, solid-wood guitars actually get worse with age and play. Without a valid negative proof, a truth statement on its face cannot be true. I don't think I've ever heard anybody who's spent 3 grand and up on a guitar say that after three years the guitar sounded worse. Must be other factors at play, like expectations and justifications. Just human nature at work. But whether guitars actually get better with age is a difficult proposition.

To be true that gravity attracts must it also be true that it repels? What am I missing here?

[Bluenose]

Well at least now I know what wrong with my guitars. I must of wore them all out. Time for a fresh batch I guess..

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by Moldstar

I have seen plenty of folks complain that their guitar changed for the worse over time; there are a lot of Martin aficionados who feel D-35s and HD-35s become muddy messes 20-30 years after they are made, for instance. I have seen that claim more than a few times on the UMGF. One of my current guitars is a 25 year old Alvarez (aj-60, maple lam, solid sitka top) that is getting thinner and thinner sounding as time goes by. I will never sell because memories, but I don't play it either.

Well, my D-35 did not turn into a muddy mess and it's 2024-1967= 57 years old. My D-35 got considerably brighter, I think because it lost a fair amount of its bass over time. If somebody's guitar got muddy over time, I'd have to assign it to the player.

My experience is like yours. As my guitars aged, they got "thinner" sounding. The difference is subtle; I'm not looking to get rid of any of my guitars and I'm still playing them. But there was a time when they each had more bass.

My 2006 Martin 000-28VS really was kind of muddy sounding when it was new because it had so much bass. Now, much of that bass is gone and it really does sound considerably better, more balanced.

Collectors that have collected really old guitars, Martins and Gibsons in particular, have commented that these guitars have more treble and cut through in a bluegrass setting better with age. That kind of observance is completely consistent with my own observations of how age affects a guitar's sound.

Also, a lot of the early complaints against torrefaction centered around the guitar losing too much bass. Again, this is consistent with my own observations.

- Glenn

[mcduffnw]

Originally Posted by Thoughtfree

I think that all guitars sound better with age, but only if they get played a lot.

The player gets used to a particular guitar's sound, and consciously or unconsciously learns its feel and response, thereby playing it better, and getting better sounds out of it.

I bought a cheap all-laminate guitar a few months back, and I swear it sounds better than it did when I bought it. Because I learned the tricks of playing THAT guitar. I know how it feels, I know what it can do, I know how to make it sound good - just from playing it a lot.

If I buy a plastic ukulele and play it two hours a day, it will sound better in a month. Because I will have learned how to play that particular instrument.

I M H O.

This^^^ is a wonderful and ever so true observation from member Thoughtfree!!!

We the player, are such a huge component of the tone of any guitar we play, and it is imperative that we as players take the time and effort to really learn our guitars, and how to play them technically, to bring the best voice from them.

And an idea to ponder...what if you don't happen to like the newer or older guitars that have the more typical vintage Martin/Gibson...ish tone and response, whatever the brand...you just don't like that more fundamental tone and timber, compared to a modern voiced, much more lush sounding guitar like a Goodall, or Ryan, or Breedlove, or Somogyi...just for example.

In this case, no matter whether a given guitar gets better sounding over time, if that sound is not what you want to hear, it won't really much matter.

I have found personally, that very lush, modern voiced guitars that sound great when new, tend to show less audible improvement over time, to my ears, because they are so lush and complex sounding to begin with, so for me, it is not all that important that the guitars tone does change. And of course, no doubt a big part of that change in tone, if it does happen to any degree, could...and should...be me learning to play it better over time.


duff
Be A Player...Not A Polisher