Guitars & aging

[muttley600]

But there's more to it than that. Glue. Finish. Environment.
And no, I don't think that guitars settle in months. It takes years.
Give it up. Science can't answer everything.

I believe my ears more than my meters

So do I and I'll wager I've listened and examined and built and studied a bunch more than you'll ever do. So by that argument I win too. Yes?

Plus at the very outset you stated "Theoretically...", are you revising that bit now as that was what I pulled you up on.

 

[dintymoore]

Not to disagree with ya because I don't know if a cymbal will change over the years, but don't you think your memory changed a little in 20 years? Or your perception? Or your frame of reference?

For sure, but when I got that cymbal, it only had two volumes: 0 and 120 db. It just barked. I was playing in a Zeppelin type band at the time and even in that band it was loud. Now, I could play that cymbal with people eating lobster 6' away. It's dramatically different... smooth from 0 db to 120 db.

I have another Zildjian I've used continually for the last 40 years and it's a soft cymbal... what I can do with it hasn't changed. That's all I have to go by but it's hard for me to think I'm imagining that degree of difference.

How? Why? Got any evidence to back that up? Other than your ears and perception that is.

No controlled A/B tests. If you go on drum and cymbal websites, there is 100% agreement that cymbals do change with age. It's accepted by those who should know. That doesn't mean it's true but my ears tell me it is. I think anyone could hear it. There's much discussion on how to accelerate the aging as people see it as an improvement.

Sabian recently buried some cymbals in the ground for a year to try and speed it up; they claim (of course) that it did something. I find that kinda out there, but do recall reading some literature from Zildjian long ago that said their last stage in making cymbals was to put them in a vault and age them before selling them.

My guess is that the metal isn't as stable as it appears and takes a few years to stabilize some stresses. I really don't know.

 

[muttley600]

For sure, but when I got that cymbal, it only had two volumes: 0 and 120 db. It just barked. I was playing in a Zeppelin type band at the time and even in that band it was loud. Now, I could play that cymbal with people eating lobster 6' away. It's dramatically different... smooth from 0 db to 120 db.

I have another Zildjian I've used continually for the last 40 years and it's a soft cymbal... what I can do with it hasn't changed. That's all I have to go by but it's hard for me to think I'm imagining that degree of difference.



No controlled A/B tests. If you go on drum and cymbal websites, there is 100% agreement that cymbals do change with age. It's accepted by those who should know. That doesn't mean it's true but my ears tell me it is. I think anyone could hear it. There's much discussion on how to accelerate the aging as people see it as an improvement.

I have no experience of cymbal's aging specifically so I'll pass on that one too until you or someone can provide an explanation.

Sabian recently buried some cymbals in the ground for a year to try and speed it up; they claim (of course) that it did something. I find that kinda out there, but do recall reading some literature from Zildjian long ago that said their last stage in making cymbals was to put them in a vault and age them before selling them.

My guess is that the metal isn't as stable as it appears and takes a few years to stabilize some stresses. I really don't know.

I'm sorry but someone saying some thing is so has never cut it for me. Thankfully it doesn't for a bunch of other people that call themselves scientists. They provide a model by which we can prove or disprove such claims.

Frankly I've seen so much bunkum in my 30 years in the business that I just ignore all of it unless it comes with qualified explanations and a firm grounding in the science. If people really want to believe something they will and many suckers will pay good cash for it as well. People can claim burying cymbal's improves them, people can claim that firing high pitched sound at a guitar or violin ages it like a Stradavari, if people want to believe that Monstor cables improves signal quality they will. Pure snake oil.

I have no experience of cymbal's so Ill pass on that until you or someone can provide some evidence. Like I said all along I'd love it to be true but only science will convince me.

 

[dintymoore]

muttley600 I agree with your thinking completely. What I've noticed is that even though a whole group of experts agree something is true it still might not be. It's best to question everything.

 

[Chili]

muttley600 I agree with your thinking completely. What I've noticed is that even though a whole group of experts agree something is true it still might not be. It's best to question everything.

Right, without numbers to back it up, it's all mob-mentality.

 

[antichef]

cymbals tarnish with age - I've got an old one that sounded brighter after I polished it. Now I have to wait another 20 years or so for it to go back.

I've been playing the same D-28 since 1984 (it's a 1972) - I can't tell you it sounds different, but it's more beat up now. What's changed over time is my playing - and that dramatically affects the sound

 

[dintymoore]

Cymbals have complications - hitting them a zillion times might and probably does something, they tarnish and even if you clean them the grooves get worn down, plus the possible/claimed effect of metal aging.

I do know for a fact that I personally have improved vastly in every area with aging - looks, sexual performance and most of all humility.

 

[Milnoque]

FWIW

In my subjective opinion some of the finest guitars ever to have been made are being made today. I like old wood very much indeed, but I can't deny my own ears (insert nod to psychoacoustics here). With the prices of even marginal collectors instruments as high as it is, a high quality new guitar is a better value. If it is true that they continue to improve with age then the new instrument is an even better choice.

 

[dintymoore]

A friend of mine came around with a new Taylor acoustic and I was blown away - it sounded old! It didn't have any ugly treble and I imagine that it will sound even better with time.

 

[suprstar]

Not to disagree with ya because I don't know if a cymbal will change over the years, but don't you think your memory changed a little in 20 years? Or your perception? Or your frame of reference?

Or your ears? Just throwing that out there, and IDK either, but it's a reasonable theory... In 20 years I'd expect my hearing to go a little, esp. if I'm subjected to loud music more than the average Schmoe. And esp. the high freq's - isn't that what starts going first?

 

[Sky Blue Lou]

With the prices of even marginal collectors instruments as high as it is, a high quality new guitar is a better value.

Define value. A collector piece now will always be. They don't go out of fashion. A new guitar may never become a collector piece.

But that is one definition of value. I think there is another, eh?


lou

 

[guido #2]

Seriously, it's called EXPERIENCE. It's what made you what you are today.
Scientists are wrong everyday. Happens all the time.

"So do I and I'll wager I've listened and examined and built and studied a bunch more than you'll ever do. So by that argument I win too. Yes?"

I don't know what YOUR experience is, but I know what mine is. Perhaps yours IS more than mine, But I'll tell ya, mine is more, WAY more than the average player. Now I'm not gonna get into a pissing match anybody over anything. It's never productive. But when someone discounts experience out of hand, I do get suspicious.

 

[mshilarious]

I don't know what YOUR experience is, but I know what mine is. Perhaps yours IS more than mine, But I'll tell ya, mine is more, WAY more than the average player. Now I'm not gonna get into a pissing match anybody over anything. It's never productive. But when someone discounts experience out of hand, I do get suspicious.

Trust me, you lose to mutts on experience

 

[guido #2]

I didn't say I wouldn't

 

[mshilarious]

I didn't say I wouldn't

But you said mutts was discounting experience. He was not, he was demonstrating that he would win the argument on the basis of experience, and he would also win the argument on the basis of science.

 

[muttley600]

Seriously, it's called EXPERIENCE. It's what made you what you are today.
Scientists are wrong everyday. Happens all the time.

"So do I and I'll wager I've listened and examined and built and studied a bunch more than you'll ever do. So by that argument I win too. Yes?"

I don't know what YOUR experience is, but I know what mine is. Perhaps yours IS more than mine, But I'll tell ya, mine is more, WAY more than the average player. Now I'm not gonna get into a pissing match anybody over anything. It's never productive. But when someone discounts experience out of hand, I do get suspicious.

I only played that card because you did. If it is a question of selectively using your ears I do it constantly in a number of ways. I have to be good at that.

I ain't doing down your experience or your opinions. What I have been doing is questioning your initial argument that stated "theoretically" guitars. timber, whatever improve with age. All I have done is to give you an insight into what that is and is not regarded to be the case and pointing out that there are those in the trade that would use those claims for their own end. You don't have to believe it but others may be interested.

There is no science to prove it other than the known phenomenon I have outlined covering "opening up". There are a bunch of reason why it may appear that instruments improve over long periods of time. Some I believe may have value but they don't involve wood or musical acoustics.

Once again I'd be happy to entertain serious explanations on how and why what you say may be the case and see if they reflect my real world experience. From my years of doing just that I'm afraid I don't expect to see any just yet.

 

[muttley600]

Seriously, it's called EXPERIENCE. It's what made you what you are today.
Scientists are wrong everyday. Happens all the time.

"So do I and I'll wager I've listened and examined and built and studied a bunch more than you'll ever do. So by that argument I win too. Yes?"

I don't know what YOUR experience is, but I know what mine is. Perhaps yours IS more than mine, But I'll tell ya, mine is more, WAY more than the average player. Now I'm not gonna get into a pissing match anybody over anything. It's never productive. But when someone discounts experience out of hand, I do get suspicious.

Yes scientist are wrong everyday. Thats how science works. Every scientist postulates, designs a model, examines it, explains it then sets about publishing it to the wider world to be disproved. Science moves forward in a load of tiny steps and the occasion leap.

That is my point however. Science has attempted to prove that guitar tops and violins and pianos etc improve measurably with age. They can't.

A good scientist has no fear of being wrong because it removes one more variable from the problem. I once spent two years trying to prove a relationship between two properties of timber acoustically only to accept at the end that there wasn't one despite there being a strong intuitive and observable possibility. That is how the grunt work in science is done and that is how others that pickup on it are able to narrow down to an acceptable explanation.

 

[Milnoque]

Define value. A collector piece now will always be. They don't go out of fashion. A new guitar may never become a collector piece.

But that is one definition of value. I think there is another, eh?


lou

The thread is about tone, not cash. But, the value judgement does have a cash component. Call it a cost benefit analysis where tone (whatever that means to you) is the goal.

I would like to follow that with the admonition that one shouldn't make a purchase based on what they think a guitar might sound like later. Some guitars change very little if at all.

This seems to me to be another thread from someone looking for some alchemy that will define a great guitar. It is of a kind with nitrocellulose threads, rosewood/ebony/maple fingerboard threads, and many others. These are very useful discussions. Really though, I would encourage folks to learn what they can and then ignore it in favor of their preferences in tone and feel. Unless you are concerned about something in the construction that might make it unstable, close your eyes and let your ears tell the tale.

 

[muttley600]

The thread is about tone, not cash. But, the value judgement does have a cash component. Call it a cost benefit analysis where tone (whatever that means to you) is the goal.

I would like to follow that with the admonition that one shouldn't make a purchase based on what they think a guitar might sound like later. Some guitars change very little if at all.

This seems to me to be another thread from someone looking for some alchemy that will define a great guitar. It is of a kind with nitrocellulose threads, rosewood/ebony/maple fingerboard threads, and many others. These are very useful discussions. Really though, I would encourage folks to learn what they can and then ignore it in favor of their preferences in tone and feel. Unless you are concerned about something in the construction that might make it unstable, close your eyes and let your ears tell the tale.

Pretty much correct as far as I'm concerned.

All those years of study and research I have done were a result of wanting to know what is going on with musical acoustics. When it comes to my efforts in the workshop I now have a fairly keen grasp on what is fact, what is supposition and what is hogwash.

What I use in the workshop mostly are my ears and my experience in what I know works. That is a culmination of all the experiences I have gained on these very interesting subjects and some very solid understanding of what is critical and what is not. Even then I'm only shooting at a rough sound as a result. The very beauty of our instrument is that it is impossible to predict exactly what you will get.

I wouldn't want it any other way and it's that that keeps me wanting to make the next one.

 

[Lt. Bob]

One thing that happens, which people tend to discount, is that any changes in a guitar that might happen will happen over a period of years.
It's simply not possible for an individual to have a good enough memory of sound to know for sure that it's the instrument and not his ears if the time period is very long.
It's been shown that we only have a great 'memory' of sound for a few minutes which is why for small differences between gear we usually need to A/B them side by side.
If you have a guitar that you say sounds SO much better than when you you bought it 20 years ago, there's absolutely no way to seperate the guitars' changes from your hearing changes.
ANY differences you think you might hear could very easily simply be a difference in your perceptions.

As a piano tuner I can say flat out that your hearing and your perception of what you're hearing changes from day to day. Not just physically but also because of your mood.
Anytime someone tells me they hear a difference in something now as opposed to what they heard 10 years ago, I tend to discount that.
People like to think that hearing is very precise and always repeatable and doesn't change.
But the A/D's of our brains do change .............. sometimes a lot.


Personally, and I've got a hard 45 years of experience at this and have played literally thousands of guitars and have owned at least a couple hundred, I've never really noticed much change of gits over the years. I have some acoustics that might sound different now than when I got them but it could very easily just be my increased ability to hear subtle things that I was unaware of before.

When I tune peoples' pianos ...... there will often be sounds that the piano makes that the customer will suddenly notice and be convinced that the tuning must have caused.
But it didn't because I heard the noise in the first place and it's often something that it's not possible for tuning to have altered.
All that has happened is that now that their piano is tuned, they pay more attention to the sound because they now expect it to be perfect and when it isn't they blame the tuning. But it's simply that prior to tuning they just dismissed the sound and didn't listen very deeply because, knowing it was out of tune, they just ignored anything they heard.
A complete psycho-acoustic phenomena in this case.