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  1. #1
    Louiss97 Guest
    I've heard a number of different takes on what exactly happens to a spruce top as it ages: more responsiveness, greater projection, warmer tone, more fundamental tone, more overtones, more bass.

    Which of these claims carry any truth?
    Last edited by Louiss97; 11-27-2020 at 05:46 AM.

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  3. #2

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    Some say the resin in the cell walls of some woods eventually kind of crystallizes, changing its density and stiffness... who knows?

  4. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by Louiss97
    I've heard a number of different takes on what exactly happens to a spruce top as it ages. Ive heard the following... more responsiveness, greater projection, warmer tone, more fundamental tone, more overtones, more bass. Which of these claims carry any truth?


    My personal opinion is that playing (thus getting the top in motion) over time makes the top more flexible and thus more responsive. My archtops sound better after a hour of play than they do at first, although this may be a matter of getting my technique together.

  5. #4

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    Yes playing them gets the guitar out and changes the environment. I believe guitars that are built and carved correct respond better the more they are played. If the guitar is too heavy and too much wood left in they it does not make a difference it will not open up like I could. Another factor is if the top is glued to the sides against any tension or unevenness.

  6. #5

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    According to two Classical luthiers I know, the sound of a Spruce guitar is stable at inception and changes very little from its birth to its death. However, Cedar guitars built by a quality luthier with quality tonewoods can undergo some remarkable transformations as I can attest with my Brune, Esteve, and LoPrinzi Classical guitars--all of which have undergone changes in sound since new. I hope this helps you. Good playing . . . Marinero

  7. #6

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    I think it's more about the instrument being "in shape" from recent playing than age. If I don't play a carved top for a while, it sounds tight...I've noticed this in many different guitars. Age probably also have an effect but I'm not sure I've owned any carved top guitars for long enough to really assess this.

    I guess the question is...will a new-and-recently played top sound more open than an old-but-not-recently played one? Hard to answer I think.

  8. #7

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    I think the playing has some effect. My brother stopped in Manny's NY to get a Martin on one of his travels. He played one hanging on the wall for a while and then the guy brought out a half dozen brand new ones for him to evaluate. He ended up preferring the tone of the one off the wall!

  9. #8

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    Hi, V,
    For what it is worth, luthier Agostino LoPrinzi once told me that he could tell the style and manner of a player of one of his guitars after it had been played for some time--whether the player was timid, aggressive, big sound, small sound. Anyone know what happened to Augie? Good playing . . . Marinero

  10. #9

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    It varies from guitar to guitar. I have an old L-5 that sounds excellent if it sits for awhile, but unbelievable after an hour of playing.

    Augie's still building to the best of my.knowledge but must be in his 80s if not 90s.
    My pal the late great John Zeidler apprenticed w him maybe 45 yrs ago
    Last edited by wintermoon; 07-16-2020 at 11:26 AM.

  11. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by Marinero
    According to two Classical luthiers I know, the sound of a Spruce guitar is stable at inception and changes very little from its birth to its death. However, Cedar guitars built by a quality luthier with quality tonewoods can undergo some remarkable transformations as I can attest with my Brune, Esteve, and LoPrinzi Classical guitars--all of which have undergone changes in sound since new. I hope this helps you. Good playing . . . Marinero
    Interesting. I have heard the exact opposite from luthiers: that cedar is very stable over the life of the guitar and does not change much, whereas spruce changes dramatically as the guitar breaks in and is used over a period of years. It is a funny thing with luthiery and guitars; different people will earnestly tell you different things that are completely opposite and will believe they are speaking the truth.

    To be honest, I have never been able to tell whether the top "opened up" with any of my guitars- even owning and playing them for 40 years in some cases. The problem, of course, is that I don't really remember what the guitar sounded like 40 years ago. And my hearing has changed in the interim with some high end loss, so I don't even hear it the way I used to. On top of that, my technique on each guitar is slightly different to get the sound that I want from it; I play my Telecaster differently than my archtop and my flattop differently than both of those (pick attack, pick material, etc., all of which kind of regresses to the mean in terms of sounding like me). That has changed over the years as well.


    I think that at least some of this is a psychoacoustic phenomenon rather than a change in the sound source. Our ears just adapt but the guitar has not actually changed.

  12. #11

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    This has been studied scientifically.

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by coolvinny
    I think it's more about the instrument being "in shape" from recent playing than age. If I don't play a carved top for a while, it sounds tight...I've noticed this in many different guitars. Age probably also have an effect but I'm not sure I've owned any carved top guitars for long enough to really assess this.

    I guess the question is...will a new-and-recently played top sound more open than an old-but-not-recently played one? Hard to answer I think.
    This has been my experience

  14. #13

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    I think the bottom line is based on personality and musical sound preference. I own 3 cedar guitars and one spruce top. I rarely play the Spruce since I don't find its sound personally satisfying. I would describe its sound as neutral/non-committal. However, my Cedar guitars display a warmth and emotional potential I cannot get, for my ears, on the Spruce. My interest in Classical music is 19th/early 20th Century Romantic Era Music: Schubert, Chopin, Beethoven, Schumann, Aguado, Coste, Mertz, Tarrega, Villa Lobos, and 20th Century Latin American Music. For me, Cedar is the more poetic instrument--probably like when some men prefer brunettes to blonds. It might be all in the head. Play live! . . . Marinero

  15. #14

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    Just because it's all in your head doesn't mean that it's not real.

  16. #15

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    Some myths will never disappear.

    Let's have a differentiated look on the facts. I know 'facts' will provoke abysmal feelings among some crowds these days, the more 'scientific facts'.
    It's no science if musicians say "that the sound of an instrument gets better the more you play it, and scientists have found the proof for that."
    It's no science as well if musicians say that an instrument's smoothes out if broken in properly, and if it is not used for a long time it "goes to sleep and requires regular playing to bring back its luscious sound."


    How would you define "aging" of wood? In terms of 3, 30 or 300 years?
    Let's just think through: if a 300 years old "aged" carved spruce top would lead to "more responsiveness, greater projection, warmer tone, more fundamental tone, more overtones, more bass", you'd expect that all violins from the 17th century should sound divine, at least better than the new ones, not just some original Stradivaris or Guarneris. Well, this is certainly not the case.
    The same is for a spruce top that is only 30 years old, and spruce wood harvested only three years ago would be too young or too wet for being touched by a master maker.


    What says science about the changes of wood when it ages?
    The hemicellulose degrades to some degree, the lignin oxidizes somewhat, and the cellulose remains very stable.
    I don't know if the spruce tops of highly valuable Strads and Guarneris have been examined by now, but their maple components have been examined. The results, compared to modern European maple woods, in a nutshell: the average hemicellulose loss after 300 years was 35%. If the maple had 25% hemicellulose, then 9% of the wood mass was lost after 300 years. Of course, the results for spruce could be in a slightly different ball park, but you get the idea. We all know that older wood is somewhat lighter than newer wood, and definitely a bit harder to handle.

    So this is mostly about the stiffness-mass relation of wood, and countless attempts of artificially aging wood by baking, UV, acids, bases and funghi have been done. None of these procedures has proven to degrade the wood in the same way like natural aging does, and not to be detrimental to the wood cells. It has been nothing but marketing efforts and attempts of influencing customers (the concept of which is not new at all, but the internet accelerates and duplicates such efforts).
    The search for light and lighter spruce wood, what has been happening and preaching during the last two or three decades is questionable, not only in the acoustic realm of bowed archtop instruments. Guarneri del Gesu already knew that, and often used spruce with a significantly higher density than his neighbor and rival Stradivari. Del Gesu's are said to offer more energy and a darker, nevertheless rich sound than Stradivaris.


    We did some own experiments and built a number of "identical" large archtop guitars according to Lang specifications. Some guitars were made by using original precarved Lang plates that were at least 40 years old (the same leftover NOS that Theo Scharpach in the Netherlands is still working on), for some others new properly dried wedges were acquired from a tonewood dealer and carved to the original measurements and archings. The instruments got the same elaborate finish, same strings, etc. Even for trained ears it's hardly possible to detect a tonal difference between these guitars, at least a difference that you could reliably correlate with the presence of older or newer wood plates.
    In the Lang thread I wrote about the (proven) use of 500 years old "cathedral" spruce by Lang in the beginning of his career. These guitars sound different to his younger designs (IMO, really great), but Lang developed many different lines over the years, and it wasn't possible to detect Lang's generally most revered big-body archtops (44.0 to 44.5cm lower bout) sporting cathedral spruce tops. He acquired new tonewood from the nearby dealer.


    Let's have a brief look what's it about if a luthier says a new guitar would need some time or several years "to open up", and the player takes this for granted, and repeats that mantra-like.
    Well, imagine the realistic situation: the customer commissioned a new guitar for a pretty penny at a luthier. When he plucks the instrument for the first time in the luthier's workshop, the guitar doesn't meet his full expectations, real or dreamt, and his face is telling it - how would the luthier react? You guess it. How would the customer who not only spent expectations but also money react? Yes, by repeating that mantra.

    A new archtop instrument will show about 98% of its maximal tonal capacity "in the white", i.e., before the finish procedure starts. Set it up in the white, put on strings, and play it. That's essentially it. Depending on the finishing skills of the luthier, most instruments will suffer tonewise after the finish was applied, some will be equal, and just very few will be better. It's hard for a player to hear that (our brain is quite deceivable in terms of sound subtleties, due to it's short tonal memory power), but a good luthier who made hundreds of guitars will be able to notice.


    So is there no "break-in" period for a new archtop guitar?
    Of course, there is! What appears to the player to be a smoothed out tone, reducing the initial "dampening" after some weeks or months, is the "breaking-in" of the glued parts of an instrument. The result can be a better synchronisation and amplitude of the vibrations - but the overall effect is very small! The wood itself has nothing to do with it. The by far biggest effect is psychoacoustical: the player has become more accustomed to the characteristics of the guitar.

    If people claim that a guitar in their possession really opened-up tonewise after 30 or 40 years, you can bet it's due to an impeding finish a priori (too thick and/or too rigid), that finally has given way. It's often the group (including the dealers) going for the preservation of "vintage" cracks of the "unrivaled" nitro-lacquer - phew!


    To the last point, a guitar that "went to sleep" for a long time would need regular playing, just a quote by Charles Beare, one of the unarguably most experienced senior experts when it comes to valuable Stradivaris, Gua
    rneris, etc.: A good violin wakes up within ten minutes, no matter how long it has been lying around. No reason to believe it could be basically different with guitars.


    Bottom line of what counts if it comes to the most salient points of fine archtop guitar making:
    1. the design (size, proportions, plate arching curves, plate thickness and graduation, recurve, bracing, etc.)
    2. the quality selection of the particular wood for the plate (eveness, stiffness-mass relation, sound velocity, etc. - not the outstanding figure)
    3. the quality of the craftmanship
    4. the quality of the finish

    The absolute age of the woods, or the age of the instrument, is certainly not among these points. It's more a matter among amateur enthusiasts, tricky dealers and their collectors or investment guys. Both Stradivari and Guarneri, et al., used wood that was cut 5 to 7 years before they started to use it. That's the gold standard until today for archtop instruments. It certainly doesn't hurt if the wood is older, but it doesn't get drier or any "better" after reaching 6% to 8% wood moisture.
    The 5 to 7 years relate to air-drying. Of course, wood that went through several annual cycles of seasonal RH changes should in most cases be a bit more stable than wood that was kiln-dried in the process of some weeks. The latter process can be ok, if done slowly and properly, but could also lead to cheating: today time is money in most parts of the world!



    Last edited by Ol' Fret; 07-26-2020 at 04:36 PM.

  17. #16

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    "So is there no "break-in" period for a new archtop guitar?
    Of course, there is! What appears to the player to be a smoothed out tone, reducing the initial "dampening" after some weeks or months, is the "breaking-in" of the glued parts of an instrument. The result can be a better synchronisation and amplitude of the vibrations - but the overall effect is very small! The wood itself has nothing to do with it. The by far biggest effect is psychoacoustical: the player has become more accustomed to the characteristics of the guitar." Ol' Fret


    Thanks, OF, for the excellent above description. However, I would like an explanation of an experience I had with one of my classical guitars. About 20 years ago, I got a very good deal on a good guitar from a respected Spanish luthier. It had a Spanish Red cedar top and Rosewood back and sides. I bought it so that I didn't have to bring either of my two concert guitars to restaurant/wedding gigs. When I initially played it, it had a dark, sombre timbre in the trebles but, otherwise, had great projection and a very sweet, rounded sound. So, I played it for a few weeks but the trebles were just too dark for my taste so for a few years, I used Savarez HT strings with Carbon fiber trebles(brighter) on the guitar and I got the sound I wanted to hear. Then, one day, I had the idea that I wanted to know the real personalities of my instruments and restrung all of them with D'addario EJ46HT strings(non carbon trebles)--very neutral strings, in my opinion. And, to my surprise, the guitar had maintained a brighter(not the same) sound without the carbons. And, although it is not as bright as my other two cedars, it is actually my preferred instrument when performing 19th Century Romantic guitar music. Am I a psycho-acoustic player?
    Play live! . . . Marinero

  18. #17

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    Hooray for the good doctor! A rational man in an irrational world.
    Most importantly, I need to see pix of these "identical" large archtop guitars according to Lang specifications.
    Who built the guitars? I have a few sets of the old precarved Lang plates around here somewhere and will eventually do something with them.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ol' Fret
    We did some own experiments and built a number of "identical" large archtop guitars according to Lang specifications. Some guitars were made by using original precarved Lang plates that were at least 40 years old ..., for some others new properly dried wedges were acquired from a tonewood dealer and carved to the original measurements and archings. The instruments got the same elaborate finish, same strings, etc. Even for trained ears it's hardly possible to detect a tonal difference between these guitars, at least a difference that you could reliably correlate with the presence of older or newer wood plates...

  19. #18

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    Plenty of experts here who know far more than me. The best sounding acoustic guitar I ever played was a 1937 Martin Herringbone D-28. I'm sure there were structural details (scalloped braces etc) that contributed to the overall sound. But this thing was incredible. Couldn't put it down incredible.

  20. #19

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    I have experienced the effect of a flattop/steelstring + a classical guitar "waking up" after a long period of hibernation in their cases. A few days or a week of regular playing brought both of them back to their former sound. As for the sound of a pre-war Martin compared to a modern guitar : I played such a guitar (1938 D-28) at Mandolin Bros. some 25 years ago and it was a true cannon but the sound did not inspire me to play it for a longer while. Fast forward to 2018 : played a few modern high-$ Collings steelstrings and their tone immediately reminded me of that old Martin - my guess is that when played consistently for the next 3 years these Collings guitars will be indistinguishable when played side by side with their vintage sisters.
    My take on the "aging" is this : a guitar needs to settle in, get used to the string-force, the player's touch etc. AND the player has to learn to play to the guitar's strengths - when that happens one can truly hear a remarkable improvement in tone, response and clarity . Happened with my Banjo even !

  21. #20

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    i'm personally in the "in your head" (cynical) camp. One thing that has always amazed me up about speaker breakin, spruce opening up, etc., is this:

    If there is truth to this and it makes such an audible difference, why is it that in 100% of the cases, it always makes the speaker or guitar sound better? Statistically, it's an impossibility.

  22. #21

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    That's awesome Jack. Mr Logic!

    "I have this vintage Epi, and it's the weirdest thing. I can only play it for about 30 minutes at a time and then it starts to sound like crap. Get's all loose and baggy sounding. I have to put it away for a month so's it can seize back up!"

  23. #22

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    About classical guitars, I've heard a few of the same ones brand new and then 10 years later.

    Now, I'm far from being an expert of wood and stuff. But brand new (with proper wood - dried and already aged for some time) were better.
    Also I've played one 25 years old guitar. Hm, I wouldnt have bought it to myself like that.

    I never thought about too much but heard a theory - the springs get tired.. nothing much happens with the wood though.
    So to freshen it up, they just have to take it all open, re-glue everything.. maybe change the springs.
    I wouldn't have even written this note but this acually happened with my old guitar. Sounded dull, I sold it (just got another one that I liked much better), it got a new back and some fixes - and sounded so much nicer after that.

    Also, when you're not playing for longer periods, loosen up the strings. And.. the luthiers, some keep the guitars for years but don't keep any tention on the strings.
    Then, when a client comes, they tune the guitars up and they sound fresh again.


    Now..... this is still all rumor and anectotal.
    I was curious about this matter but not enough to do some serious research.

  24. #23

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    "I never thought about too much but heard a theory - the springs get tired." emanresu

    Hi, E,
    What are "springs" on a Classical guitar? Play live! . . . Marinero

  25. #24

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    Um. its "bracing". In my language these were called "springs". Didn't even check

  26. #25

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    Just back from replacing the OEM springs on my classical to a nice set of hard racing springs. Should sound much better.