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TerryLiberty
Lokahi
USA
207 Posts |
 Posted - 07/07/2012 : 3:20:14 PM
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I've been playing a little at a song circle run by a guitar dealer who markets a thing called the ToneRite. It's a device which is supposed to "age in" a guitar and make a new guitar sound better, faster. Has anyone had any experience with the device? I'm pretty skeptical but I'm open to other people's comments.
Mahalo.
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Terry
Olympia, WA
Forever a haumana |
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Allen M Cary
Lokahi
USA
158 Posts |
Posted - 07/09/2012 : 11:24:30 AM
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| We had a discussion of this a year of so ago. As I recall, Mark Nelson (who seems to have disappeared from the group, and is sorely missed) said he liked to open up his guitars by leaving them next to speakers playing Bob Marley with the volume turned up. A ToneRite is probably less likely to annoy non-Reggae-loving neighbors, and may cut down on the second-hand ganga smoke from those with Reggae-loving neighbors... |
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TerryLiberty
Lokahi
USA
207 Posts |
Posted - 07/09/2012 : 2:22:13 PM
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Allen:
Thanks for the tip! I'll do a search on the TP forum. Since my inquiry I searched Acoustic Guitar's forum and found several threads related to the device. Someone raises the question every few months and you can tell that the experience hands over there are really tired of the subject. One comment: "Here we go again." There were many opinions and they ranged all over the map from complete detractors to zealous believers. I guess the only way to tell is to spring for the US$150.00 device and see for myself. That's not likely to happen since I'm not in the income bracket to be funding $150.00 experiements.
Interesting you should mention the guy with the Bob Marley approach. I talked to a guy who owns a small local club that features mostly rock. He says he leaves his modestly priced dreadnaught on a stand onstage during the rock concerts and swears it's done wonders for the guitar's tone. Or maybe the concerts have ruined his ears? Who knows. He's offered me a place onstage for my Seagull for a small fee. Who says there aren't any entrepenuers anymore?
Mahalo. |
Terry
Olympia, WA
Forever a haumana |
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Pmahany
Akahai
USA
80 Posts |
Posted - 07/10/2012 : 11:37:40 AM
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| I think that there is some validity to the concept. When I was an aspiring starving classical musician I had a stuffy note on my new bassoon. This was after a couple of years breaking it in. My teacher, a Principle of the SF Symphony, took the bassoon and played the note quad forte. He said that would rearrange the wood fibers. It did! No more stuffy note. |
Honokowai Pete |
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Trev
Lokahi
United Kingdom
265 Posts |
Posted - 07/12/2012 : 05:11:44 AM
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If an instrument needs ‘breaking in’, and I’m not sure it does, at least not in the way that’s described, then the best way to do it is to play the thing. The one wooden guitar I’ve had from new sounded great the day I bought it, and sounds great now. The only time I’ve noticed it change is in response to humidity/climate, and what room I’m in when I’m playing it.
Mr Nelson, for whom I’ve the greatest respect, believes that putting a guitar next to a speaker and playing it reggae will make it sound better. Personally I believe this is largely nonsense, but it does no harm, and if he perceives it to sound better, then good luck to him.
Musicians are a strange bunch, prone to superstition and hocus pocus. I myself have a tiny pinch of Hawaiian sand in my guitar, and some ash from a cigar smoked in my local session on the last day smoking was allowed in UK pubs. This does not seem to have affected the acoustics, but I’m convinced that the guitar is more sacred and magical as a result. Utter rubbish, of course, but there you are.
It seems someone is selling for $150 a box that will vibrate your guitar into sounding better. . I think this is in the fine American tradition of the Snake Oil Salesman. Perhaps it works, perhaps it doesn’t. Perhaps you can learn from a book whilst sleeping if you leave it under your pillow.
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Admin
Pupule
USA
4551 Posts |
Posted - 07/12/2012 : 05:29:32 AM
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I think that new guitars do "open up," but why spend $150? Isn't the fun in playing a new guitar?!?! Nobody is going to say to you, "Put that guitar away. How dare you play it out before it is broken in!"
Hmmm, sand and ash? Hadn't thought of that. May need to try it!  |
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DennisC
Aloha
USA
27 Posts |
Posted - 07/12/2012 : 07:26:28 AM
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Recently on another forum, some guy posted that he had strapped a $7 aquarium air pump to his new guitar for days and was pleased with the "improvement". I wondered how anyone could have such a precise sound memory. Especially people who spent years listening to metal and headbanger music at 120 decibels for years.
This much like the audiophile debate about high-priced speaker cables (eg, hundreds of $$/ft). If you look into it, all the "proof" is subjective opinion; no empirical data or independent tests. Accurate recording and audio analysis technology has been around since the 50s, but I could find no hard evidence of "opening up" by playing, let alone strapping a vibrator on an instrument. That's not saying that a complex assembly of glued wooden parts doesn't continue to stabilize long after it's made and the parts may more efficiently transmit vibration as time goes on. Does playing or vibrating accelerate it? Seems pretty doubtful to this old engineer. |
Edited by - DennisC on 07/12/2012 12:58:01 PM |
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Retro
Ahonui
USA
2368 Posts |
Posted - 07/12/2012 : 10:34:50 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Admin
Nobody is going to say to you, "Put that guitar away. How dare you play it out before it is broken in!"
However, I have known some musicians who should have a longer "breaking-in" period before they play out. |
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Lawrence
Ha`aha`a
USA
1597 Posts |
Posted - 07/12/2012 : 2:57:24 PM
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quote:
This much like the audiophile debate about high-priced speaker cables (eg, hundreds of $$/ft). If you look into it, all the "proof" is subjective opinion; no empirical data or independent tests. Accurate recording and audio analysis technology has been around since the 50s, but I could find no hard evidence of "opening up" by playing, let alone strapping a vibrator on an instrument. That's not saying that a complex assembly of glued wooden parts doesn't continue to stabilize long after it's made and the parts may more efficiently transmit vibration as time goes on. Does playing or vibrating accelerate it? Seems pretty doubtful to this old engineer.
Maybe the vibrations do help a little, but yes, if it cannot be measured by modern test instruments (which are vastly more sensitive than the human ear), then does it exist? And it is well known that the simple passage of time greatly affects the sound of a new instrument.
There was a special on PBS about the construction of Steinway Grand Piano's and it followed the complete process for a particular one: serial #1137 (or thereabouts). Near the end of the process they put it in a room where a special machine pounds on all the keys for a long period of time (several weeks?- I forget). Part of this is to work-in the hammer action, but they claimed in the documentary that they also did it to "mature" the sound. It would not be the first time that a company did such a thing for superstitious reasons or more accurately for the superstitious demands of their customers.
So if a little vibration is good, more MUST be better - YES?
I therefor recommend a string of Chinese firecrackers or better yet, a dozen M-80's placed into the sound hole and the fuses lit!! 
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Mahope Kākou...
...El Lorenzo de Ondas Sonoras |
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TerryLiberty
Lokahi
USA
207 Posts |
Posted - 07/12/2012 : 6:22:15 PM
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| Not in MY Seagull you ain't!! |
Terry
Olympia, WA
Forever a haumana |
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noeau
Ha`aha`a
USA
1105 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2012 : 4:50:37 PM
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| you guys too scientific. nuttin wrong with belief systems but to judge them as superstition? well.... Most guitar makers always talk about guitars opening up after a time. But they also qualify that it is spruce that does that. Cedar and redwood are already there. So maybe it depends on the kind of sound board one has. but I believe acoustic guitar magazine has done some research in that area. When yu talking music why the heck bring in science anyway? could be it is just too humid in GB for anything to change except to get moldy. While we are at it why all the mystique about Stradivarius violins? |
No'eau, eia au he mea pa'ani wale nō. |
Edited by - noeau on 07/23/2012 4:53:19 PM |
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 08/07/2012 : 04:14:29 AM
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The breaking-in process is real enough--at least, on a redwood re-top job that the builder and I passed back and forth for about an hour right after the basic work was done, noting how the guitar's sound changed (for the better) as we played. The anecdotal evidence suggests that the curve of change flattens out after a few months and a guitar's sound remains stable (to the human ear) thereafter, though the very long-term (50-plus years) effects of, say, wood and other structural components aging might also be detectible if one were to compare sample recordings. (I'd love to know what my 1920 0-18 sounded like in, say, 1921.)
So the ToneRite might really accelerate the process of settling a guitar's voice--assuming that there's more to that process than, say, lacquer and glue hardening and putting the whole instrumental structure into a stable configuration for the long term. (That re-top job was in the white, though, so whatever happened there was not finish-related.)
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mike mccrary
Aloha
USA
6 Posts |
Posted - 04/14/2013 : 11:00:28 AM
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| Bob Benedetto endorses ToneRite. He certainly doesn't have to, but must think they are of value. I have one and it helped to open up a new archtop, but I didn't think the improvement was permanent and periodic use does seem to help. I have a flat top that never sounded just right until I had played it for about half an hour. Over the years, it has finally fully opened up and sounds good all the time. Luthier Ted Megas says he's experimented with playing in and straight, chronological aging and he's convinced it just takes aging for the guitar to reach its potential. I think it's a combination of frequent playing and aging. |
mike |
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Topic |
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ToneRite Device: Any Experience?
