Cedar, 'opening up'?

Ok, so people talk about cedar 'sounding good' straight away and not going through the same opening up process as, say, spruce. So does that mean that a solid western red cedar top wont open up at all? Or just not as much? In short, will my cedar top ukulele's sound still improve over time??

I think the "opening up" thing depends more on the build than necessarily on the wood.

The only acoustic guitar I ever had that I could say with conviction "opened up" was a cedar-top Seagull S6. For the first three to six months I owned that guitar it literally got better every time I picked it up. I've never had one open up that obviously before or since. By contrast, my Taylor guitar (spruce) that I've had for more than a decade and that has been played far more than that S6 hasn't changed a speck from the day it was new (not that I can tell, anyway). So, if the Taylor opened up at all it did so very slowly - of course, it was an amazingly good guitar to begin with while the Seagull started out just about average for a solid-top guitar.

John

Yes. Cedar will open up. It is a softer/less dense wood than spruce, so it takes less time to "open up" and meet its full potential. This is, of course, a super general reply. This article will help fill in some of the blanks. http://www.acguitar.com/article/default.aspx?articleid=24089

haolebrownie said:

Yes. Cedar will open up. It is a softer/less dense wood than spruce, so it takes less time to "open up" and meet its full potential. This is, of course, a super general reply. This article will help fill in some of the blanks. http://www.acguitar.com/article/default.aspx?articleid=24089

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Agreed, my cedar Mainland definitely has a better sound now then the day I took it out of the box.

haolebrownie said:

Yes. Cedar will open up. It is a softer/less dense wood than spruce, so it takes less time to "open up" and meet its full potential. This is, of course, a super general reply. This article will help fill in some of the blanks. http://www.acguitar.com/article/default.aspx?articleid=24089

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+1 Cedar will open up faster than spruce. More mellow sounding than spruce, too.

The 1600 yr old red cedar on my Griffin tenor has definitly opened up. He does a French polish so as a result, it's turning into a deep rich brown. I love the cedar for a soundboard. May try redwood nextime.

i was bored.

weerpool said:

i was bored.View attachment 38262

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Confused.....