OLD WOOD vs NEW WOOD ????

[tonebone]

Originally Posted by icsm

If that resonance treatment is true, if you use a new guitar for years, it will learn the notes you play most frequently and those notes wil improve which can only be a good thing
Old guitars that has been used over decades do have that mojo.

OMG, if that's the case I'm ruining my guitar...

...maybe I should just get an epi, quit playin' my MIJ till I get a bit better? I must be infusing it with pure crap.

'cause it certainly does resonate as it is now.

[icsm]

haha good point, maybe the flip side is that guitars bombarded with "bad music" will sing out of tune.

[Nigel Tufnel's tech]

Originally Posted by icsm

If that resonance treatment is true, if you use a new guitar for years, it will learn the notes you play most frequently and those notes wil improve which can only be a good thing
Old guitars that has been used over decades do have that mojo.
Different type woods clearly makes a huge difference in tone. even the same type of wood will have individual variances. Add some placebo effect and the diference will be even bigger. Id love to compare old growth vs new growth.

The sound frequencies needed to exert a change in the woods frequencies are not are not something you can create in every day playing. Experiments have already been done and the changes in the wood's that were used have been noted. there is a change for the better and is no placebo. If you do bombard your guitar with "bad music" the only affect you will creat is one of anger from your neighbours.

[mapleflame]

Originally Posted by Nigel Tufnel's tech

The sound frequencies needed to exert a change in the woods frequencies are not are not something you can create in every day playing. Experiments have already been done and the changes in the wood's that were used have been noted. there is a change for the better and is no placebo. If you do bombard your guitar with "bad music" the only affect you will creat is one of anger from your neighbours.

It would have more of an effect to the pickups than the wood. The vibrations will loosen up the bobbin wire and affect their properties, the wood eeehh!.

[mapleflame]

Originally Posted by Nigel Tufnel's tech

The sound frequencies needed to exert a change in the woods frequencies are not are not something you can create in every day playing. Experiments have already been done and the changes in the wood's that were used have been noted. there is a change for the better and is no placebo. If you do bombard your guitar with "bad music" the only affect you will creat is one of anger from your neighbours.

It would have more of an effect to the pickups than the wood. The vibrations will loosen up the bobbin wire and affect their properties, the wood eeehh!. Accoustics probably would be more effective, more flexible. Accoustic makers have put radio's in the sound holes after building.

[geochem1st]

Acoustic Guitar Central: Aging a guitar with vibrations

Instant Vintage Folks!

[gui524]

It's pure bullshit to me, I think a major part of the tone are the original PAFS ... because when Clapton for example recorded Beano his guitar was only 5 years old

[FLICKOFLASH]

Originally Posted by Norbe

It is not old wood vs new wood, it is wood from old growth forests vs newly grown (relatively) trees planted expressly for harvest, or from "managed" forests.

No matter how long a "new growth" piece of wood sits there, it will never be "old growth" wood.

This is the fact Jack

[FLICKOFLASH]

I did have a hypotheses & did a long thread & research on LPF which I can no longer access on Micro waving & ultra sounding & treating wood to remove resins also creating micro in fractures.In other words make the wood become vibrant & lively. Many thought I was off the wagon till some companies actually did research in the use including Gibson .

[tonebone]

Originally Posted by gui524

It's pure bullshit to me, I think a major part of the tone are the original PAFS ... because when Clapton for example recorded Beano his guitar was only 5 years old

Which means I could whittle up a slab of Ponderosa Pine and get the same results. Not really ready to buy into the "all in the electronics" argument. Tho, those PAF's do play a major role.

[gui524]

Originally Posted by tonebone

Which means I could whittle up a slab of Ponderosa Pine and get the same results. Not really ready to buy into the "all in the electronics" argument. Tho, those PAF's do play a major role.

I did not talk about changing the woods, we are talking about high quality mahogany and maple here

[joebonsai]

It is all!!!
I've owned a 52 Conversion with end 60's pickups and quite a lot of bullshit work done, but it sounds beautiful. The current owner is a very well known and booked studio guitar player and will never ever sell this guitar. My bass, a precision style is made out of a 40 years ols alder piece with a very old Warmoth neck, sounds unbelieveable!!
It has to be old wood!!

[Nick59]

Originally Posted by Roman Rist

One thing some folks do not realize is this; There is a magic that gets built into the instrument, a bit of the life force of the maker gets instilled into each instrument.


Roman

So ol' Hank in the factory waaay back in '59 had magic in his fingers and it got trapped in the guitar? Is that measurable in any way? Some sort of meter that can measure Hank's mojo to 6 decimal places? As Hank was slapping on the glue while eating his lunch and thinking about filling up the Chevy on the way home there was actual measurable magic emanating from him and permanently sealed into that guitar? No wonder they sound so good!

[tonebone]

Probably lookn' forward to going home to the missus, cracking a Pabst, settlin' in and watching Crazy Guggenheim on the Jackie Gleason show, or the Peter Gunn show on tv.


edit: As I recall the Jackie Geason summer show was on Saturday. Probly lookin' forward to some other weekday show.

[ZombieAttack]

Anybody watch Axemen? Love that show. Anyway, they have a new logging "company" this year and he pulls old trees (that sank decades ago) from rivers. He mentioned in the last episode that he is starting to get into pulling instrument grade wood. He's a real character - last show he was cussing out his son like a drunken sailor for being too slow hooking a log.

[Nick59]

A 3000 year old tree will still have new wood at its surface (the outer ring will be only a year old), so it depends where the slab was sawn from. And although old growth forests are formed from trees that grew wherever their seed randomly fell and germinated, meaning usually less-suitable conditions (water, nutrients, light etc) and therefore slower, less regular growth - and tighter, less regular growth rings - some of these old growth trees which grew in moist rich soil with perfect light will have similar growth history and therefore timber structure to any plantation tree.

[bfcg]

Originally Posted by LoKi

Old wood means old 'growth' as in trees that had been standing for centuries before being cut down. Wood after it has been cut will dry out a little more over the years.

I have a 70's Paul and ever since moving to a super dry climate I've noticed a difference in tone *the last 5 years*. Call me crazy, but I can tell it is a different sounding guitar... Better to my ears even. When I lived on the coast where it was super humid all the time I never noticed a difference in 15 years of owning it, but 5 years in the 'desert' with -40 degree winters and the guitar seems to breathe better.

I won't call you crazy. I completely agree with you.
A perfect example of dry well seasoned wood can be found in any high quality acoustic guitar.
My acoustic guitars all sound much better in the winter time when they are right on the brink of cracking into tooth picks.

[ledzepzoso3]

Fleetwood!!

[Mike60]

...wood...smood...it's ALL in the reflectors...

[gmacdonnell]

Originally Posted by Nigel Tufnel's tech

You may find this very interesting. This is an interview by Dave Berrluck from Guitarist magazine with John Suhr of Suhr guitars.

G: You’re applying for your first patent, a way to induce resonance by vibrating the body, yes? Tell us about that.

JS: The patent is, I think, mainly to make sure nobody else can stop us from doing it more than something I think is going to be the next big thing. It’s really so I have the space to explore and someone can’t come along and say, “that’s my idea!” The idea itself is nothing new —it’s been done in the acoustic guitar world and in the violin world and I’m sure in the electric guitar world but the fun part for me is the analysis of the vibration of the wood. So, no ifs or buts.

For example, if I take Mike Landau’s favourite Strat and remove everything off the body and I analyse that body’s vibrations and I compare it to one I’ve cut and painted as far as I’m concerned it doesn’t matter how you got there, if they have the same response they have the same response. I don’t see any fault with analysing the vibrations of the wood because to me that’s it. Anything you do to that body is going to change it but with this process we can see what’s changed and by how much.

G: Will this process also allow you to vibrate the wood to change its response?

JS: Yes, but that’s not what my patent is because many people have proven that it is a reality. My patent is on how I’m doing it which is totally non-destructive; it doesn’t require any permanent mounting or anything to the guitar. And I am able to vibrate it with extreme amounts of energy.

G: Would this be something you could offer as a retro service, to alter and improve the response of an instrument?

JS: Yes, a customer will be able to ship the Suhr guitar back to us and have it treated. And also it kind of throws a bit of a wrench into the works. I’m not going to say that this is it, it works wonderful because I honestly don’t know yet. I just need to have the patent to allow me to explore it further but I know now that I can analyse the vibrations and to me that is the most important thing. So I can say this neck doesn’t belong on this body because they’re too close to this interval or whatever the problem is, they’re causing a dead spot or they’re causing a spot on the guitar that’s too loud, or certain frequencies are not being produced. I can even compare the output of the pickups to the resonance of the body and see what happens at different frequencies and why.

I’m convinced we’re gonna learn some things that we never knew about. I don’t know of anyone who has gone into it in this depth. People have done a lot with acoustics, looking at patterns and how dust settles on the top. Archtop makers like Bob Benedetto will sit there and tap on a guitar but I asked him once, when he taps on an archtop top what is he looking for? He said, “I’m looking to make some sense out of it before the day I die.” About the only thing he can really tell when he taps on a guitar is how thick the top is. That’s primarily what he’s looking for, the thickness of the top — is it strong enough, can he get away with removing some more wood? But as far as is this going to be a great sounding top, he’s like… someday I’ll find out.

It might be a situation that we’ll say to an artist — who has a wonderful guitar —bring in that guitar and we’ll plot it out and we’ll figure out how to make a body that vibrates the same. But I’m not going to blow smoke up anyone’s arse. If I don’t know, I’ll tell you I don’t know. However, if you think about measuring repeatable measurements compared to people just trying to listen in different environments with different pickups and bridges, there’s just no comparison. We’re talking about getting down to the root level of how this piece of wood is vibrating. It doesn’t matter if it was cut down 20 years ago or 400 years ago. If those two pieces of wood vibrate the same then they’re going to sound the same.

My hunch is that we are going to be able to selectively bombard it with frequencies to make certain frequencies come out. For example, if I find a dip at a certain frequency where its not resonating or sustaining I am pretty convinced that I can bombard it with that frequency and make it have a better response, if not correct it. It kinda throws a funny offset into it because if this is true and it really works this way then you’re basically saying that if someone has been playing the guitar badly, or one way, for twenty years, would this influence the way that piece of wood vibrates and there’s a good chance it might. If there’s molecular reasons why, in a cellular level of the wood, this might be the case it really just has to do with it loosening up at certain frequencies. It’s kind of like breaking in a speaker. We all know that you break in a speaker and it will sound very different.

There’s still a lot more to it [the electric guitar] than most people think. I’ve seen guitars, not necessarily my own, that customers would want to put pickups into and they don’t like the way something sounds and I can try everything in the world but if that guitar just doesn’t ring properly its never going to sound good.

Thanks for posting that NTT! Suhr is a really interesting guy. I met his back in his Rudy's days and still see him now and again. I'd love one of his Tele's, but I can't afford it, and he really can't afford to give away gear, he's running a very small shop. He was telling me about the violin vibration testing awhile back, and how it could be applied to guitars.
Looks like he really took it seriously, but hopefully he'll get that patent.

Anyway, thanks for posting that!

[Nigel Tufnel's tech]

Originally Posted by gmacdonnell

Thanks for posting that NTT! Suhr is a really interesting guy. I met his back in his Rudy's days and still see him now and again. I'd love one of his Tele's, but I can't afford it, and he really can't afford to give away gear, he's running a very small shop. He was telling me about the violin vibration testing awhile back, and how it could be applied to guitars.
Looks like he really took it seriously, but hopefully he'll get that patent.

Anyway, thanks for posting that!

John is a very talented man, he and his whole team were great to talk with when they were building my guitar. He has some interesting stuff coming in the future, such as "vulcanized" maple! and his Tele with the SSC system is awesome. but I'm loving my standard more at this moment.

I also read about that vibration testing about 5 years ago and then nothing after, until i read that interview with him. I really hope he employs this with his construction process in the near future.

[Soldano16]

Originally Posted by Roman Rist

I am willing to bet the old LPs were great guitars the day they left the factory.

I played some vintage Gibsons when they were younger than a lot of historics on the market today. Even then it was obvious how good the guitars were and the year to year decline from Gibson through the mid '60's to early 70's was VERY obvious.

[NowGibson]

Started this thread over at Historics:
Vibrating a guitar to enhance tone.
Read the comments/articles here and one theory about vibrating is that it redistrubutes the moisture in the wood..has some merit if you think of the woods cell walls/chemical content (movement from a high concentration to a lower concentration) but they said it wasn't permanent unless the violin was constistently played. Read about glass being still a "liquid" and as it ages gets thicker on the bottom brings to mind a Queen tune...and a toilet paper joke...I digress. So if you continually vibrate a guitar ( they did a violin for 10 cycles a minute) and orient it in a different direction, let's say towards the control cavity, can you then expect the moisture content to go up? reading with a meter...other thing is like sifting media thru different screens, it goes quicker when shaking. I've owned a 54 gt that I put PAF's in and the combination was something....
Sorry to dredge up an old thread was trying this on my 09 r9.

[Nick59]

Hell, this is poping up everywhere! Like gophers. Remember that chinese astronomers could predict the movements of the stars, but they still thought an eclipse was a dragon eating the sun. An expert luthier is quite capable of going off on a loony-tunes tangent, no matter what else he knows!

Please Google any "crystal healing" forum for lots and lots of intense expert discussion, mass agreement on theory, and specific detailed facts, which have zero merit......

[vladmaximus]

i love OLD WOOD...for a better tone...use an old wood guitar...

thanks...

[River]

Originally Posted by vladmaximus

i love OLD WOOD...for a better tone...use an old wood guitar...

thanks...

And your wood is how old, Vlad?

[River]

Originally Posted by Nick59

Hell, this is poping up everywhere! Like gophers. Remember that chinese astronomers could predict the movements of the stars, but they still thought an eclipse was a dragon eating the sun. An expert luthier is quite capable of going off on a loony-tunes tangent, no matter what else he knows!

Please Google any "crystal healing" forum for lots and lots of intense expert discussion, mass agreement on theory, and specific detailed facts, which have zero merit......

Dragons don't eat the sun? Boy, have I been sold a bill of goods!

[brockburst]

Originally Posted by BOBBO

I didn't ask about old guitars Don .. I asked about Old wood !!! Alot of people are having 52 to 57 conversions rather than having a replica made or a historic because they believe that the age of the wood makes a real difference !! When you have a complete vintage guitar there are other factors such as PAF's , metal hardware and so on that contribute to the overall tone !! I'm just asking how people feel about the WOOD !!

I have a replica made from Dave Johnson's stash of wood from 1963ish. Makes all the difference....not because that's what I want, or what I expect. But because in blind audio samples, that difference was very apparent.

[The ConGREGation]

old wood does produce a better tone , and new guitars do have to set in and age a little if they are nitro finished of course. The players that started playing older pre 60/64 guitars for better sound were really playing older guitars for the better quality as opposed to the guitars that were new. but all in all I think it is a combination of all the above plus the " every guitar sounds different" theory where like a woman they are all the same but all different.

[vladmaximus]

Originally Posted by River

And your wood is how old, Vlad?

hmmm...river?
my "1978" tokai reborn is not too old wood...but...
i dont give a damn bout it...i just like the guitar so much...
all i know,old wood sound better...thats all...

and...can you ROCK MY WORLD please???????????