Instruments Opening Up

Steveperrywriter

Steveperrywriter

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The phenomenon of an instrument "opening up," is something about which there is more than a little debate. I'm not here to crank that argument to life again, but I wanted to point to a fascinating section of Ron Saul's how-to vid you might find interesting.

Made me grin real big when I saw it.

Those of you who haven't heard of this, the opening up thing has to do with the way wooden instruments change tone over time, often getting louder, mellower, or more resonant. Lot of folks believe it happens, me being one of them, but exactly why is trickier. Some combination of woods, glue, finish, time, and one more difficult to pin down, a kind of attunement of the instrument by the musical vibrations flowing through it as it is played.

Again, I'm not the guy to say, but there is a school of thought that says you can hurry this process up by vibrating the instrument at certain frequencies, and there are folks here who know how to do that, using sound generators.

Gotta love guys who postulated this and then came up with a way to do it. Ingenuity.

What I thought interesting about the Saul video is a mechanical way of working the uke to hurry the opening up process.

Fast forward to the 23:30 mark and have a look …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_HRFovZAYo
 
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all I have to do is pick up my 1934 Martin style 0 to believe in "opening up"!
 
I used to take the concept of woods 'opening up' with a pinch of salt. When the uke 'sounds' better years later, does it really sound better, or is our playing better? Until my recent experience with a brand new uke.

When the uke first arrived, out of the box, I strummed a few times, less than 20, I recall, and the sound was abnormally quiet. I then kept it in its case.

After about 3 hours, I played it again. This time the uke was less quiet--it was still quiet, but it sounded much louder, and I'm very certain it's not my imagination. I kept it in its case again.

After another 3 hours, I played it again. This time the uke was no longer quiet. It's not the loudest uke I own, but at least it's no longer quiet.

I take it that this experience was the result of the wood 'opening up'. I just didn't expect the opening-up to take less than a day, with less than 20 strums each time. I'm now a believer.
 
Woods change over time and, so it appears, with use. People naturally assume that this change is always for the better. While my experience suggests that this is generally true, I have often wondered if it is more true for some woods than others (my guess is that softer woods as in tops see the greater change).

I know that my MP (cedar top/mango sides and back) sounded better than any of the ukes I tried out at last years Uke fest in Reno, but the change in both volume and tone has been dramatic since then. If it had sounded then as it does today, I might not have spent hours making my decision.

Another trick that I have tried is placing instruments (guitars and mandolins) in front of speakers while playing classical CDs. I know that many of the proponents of this "maturation" approach suggest that the type of music is not importand, but I figure that the widest range of tones the new instrument "hears" early on, the more it will feel like reproducing them later in life.:D
 
I've been using the ToneRite for a couple of years now and I generally have one of my ukes being conditioned by
it at all times.

I believe the concept of getting the entire instrument vibrating in unison (?) is the 'key' if there is any key :)

Since the uke is made up of several pieces of wood glued together, I think having the ToneRite vibrate the unit
constantly at whatever 'speed' (vibrations per cycle?)... wouldn't hurt.

Most, not all, of the ukes I've thus 'conditioned' by the ToneRite, appear to be louder and mellower - to my ears.
There are a couple of ukes I'm still 'conditioning' with the ToneRite. the nice thing for me, is that all I do is set it
up and let the ToneRite do its thing for days or weeks, or even for a month. I have enought other ukes to play that
I can simply let one get conditioned and wait to play it after a few weeks.

If nothing happens, I might change strings or let it get conditioned again! :)

I seem to get similar results with laminate construction and with solid wood construction. Solid wood seems to 'open up' more and more easily, but even my laminates sound better than they did when I first got them - to me.

It will probably be a very personal assessment, but if you like the sound, great! (it works!), if you don't, perhaps you could sell the ToneRite to someone else who might like it :)

keep uke'in',
 
I believe that opening up is generally true over time as the wood changes after building. I have had ukes sound great when I got them and then sound much more mediocre later on and vice versa, and then later sound like they had originally or better. I have discovered that for my stable it seems more related to humidity levels and how moist or dry the wood is. Strings also have a lot to do with it. New strings can totally revitalize or transform a uke into a bland player. As far as a brand new uke "opening up" in a matter of hours, no offense meant but I would suspect it had more to do with a combination of the instrument coming up to room temperature and strings settling and operator adjustment.

I just got a new to me soprano and was not that happy with it, it seemed unresponsive and plinky. I took maybe 1.5mm off the bottom of the saddle and restrung it, it's got a completely different sound now, very responsive and clear.
 
SailingUke said:
Gordon from Mya-Moe has a few good videos on the subject.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-Lm7DlHNfk#t=46
Click to expand...

Interesting that he mentioned the developing bond between instrument and player. There is no doubt in my mind that increased familiarity along with enhancing ones technique with a particular instrument will result in that instrument sounding better with frequent use.

Fretting finger placement and touch play an enormous part in developing the best tone and projection possible. The same is true with strumming/finger picking technique.
 
Out of all the acoustic guitars and ukes I've owned I have had one guitar and one uke that very clearly and obviously improved over the first several weeks I owned them. There have been a few others that might have gotten better but if so it's a subtle enough difference that I can't be certain. Many don't seem to have changed at all, and at least one actually got worse over time (which I suspect happens very nearly as often as instruments that clearly "open up" but the ones that sour get traded off or collect dust in a closet somewhere).

Also, I can't say that "opening up" was more noticeable in better quality instruments - maybe even the opposite. I bought my Taylor guitar new and have had it for 12 or 13 years and as near as I can tell it plays and sounds exactly like it did the day I bought it.

The bottom line is that you should never buy an instrument in the hopes that it is going to open up and get better. If you don't love it now, don't buy it on speculation. You might get lucky and it might open up...or you might have to engage in a bit of that time-honored practice of self deception. :)
John
 
OldePhart said:
Out of all the acoustic guitars and ukes I've owned I have had one guitar and one uke that very clearly and obviously improved over the first several weeks I owned them. There have been a few others that might have gotten better but if so it's a subtle enough difference that I can't be certain. Many don't seem to have changed at all, and at least one actually got worse over time (which I suspect happens very nearly as often as instruments that clearly "open up" but the ones that sour get traded off or collect dust in a closet somewhere).

Also, I can't say that "opening up" was more noticeable in better quality instruments - maybe even the opposite. I bought my Taylor guitar new and have had it for 12 or 13 years and as near as I can tell it plays and sounds exactly like it did the day I bought it.

The bottom line is that you should never buy an instrument in the hopes that it is going to open up and get better. If you don't love it now, don't buy it on speculation. You might get lucky and it might open up...or you might have to engage in a bit of that time-honored practice of self deception. :)
John
Click to expand...

Definitely: don't buy an instrument if it doesn't sound good from the start. This entire "opening up" or "breaking in" matter to be construed in such a way that if an improvement occurs over time, it's just an added bonus.

It has been my experience that most of the apparent breaking in happens early on. Spruce, perhaps, takes a little longer than some other tone woods. No doubt, as bborzell states above, I have adapted my playing on some instruments in response to their inherent qualities. I guess I am saying that, for me anyway, the ideas about opening up and playing better are not mutually exclusive. It's both.
 
I'm new to the ukulele but I can say from experience that guitars and mandolins "open up".
 
equina said:
When the uke first arrived, out of the box, I strummed a few times, less than 20, I recall, and the sound was abnormally quiet. I then kept it in its case.

After about 3 hours, I played it again. This time the uke was less quiet--it was still quiet, but it sounded much louder, and I'm very certain it's not my imagination. I kept it in its case again.

After another 3 hours, I played it again. This time the uke was no longer quiet. It's not the loudest uke I own, but at least it's no longer quiet.

I take it that this experience was the result of the wood 'opening up'. I just didn't expect the opening-up to take less than a day, with less than 20 strums each time. I'm now a believer.
Click to expand...
Haha No offense, but instruments do not open up after only 6 hours. It takes years, as in decades, for instruments to open up. And requires lots of playing, not intermittent playing.
 
In all fairness, while the classical opening-up might not happen in a few hours, strings will stretch and settle some in that amount of time. Typically, my new strings go flat pretty quick and it might be a week of daily playing before they begin to stay in tune, so there is apt to to be an improvement in sound and tone just on that front alone. Equina's experience seems perfectly valid to me, albeit probably not due to big shifts in the wood and/or glue.

As I pointed out when I started this thread, I wasn't trying to ring the bell for a new fight to begin, only to point out a video with a cleverly-done device designed to help the break-in period along.
 
I like to put a new instrument in front of a stereo speaker and hope that some good notes fall into it while vibrating the top.
 
bborzell said:
Woods change over time and, so it appears, with use. People naturally assume that this change is always for the better. While my experience suggests that this is generally true, I have often wondered if it is more true for some woods than others (my guess is that softer woods as in tops see the greater change).

I know that my MP (cedar top/mango sides and back) sounded better than any of the ukes I tried out at last years Uke fest in Reno, but the change in both volume and tone has been dramatic since then. If it had sounded then as it does today, I might not have spent hours making my decision.

Another trick that I have tried is placing instruments (guitars and mandolins) in front of speakers while playing classical CDs. I know that many of the proponents of this "maturation" approach suggest that the type of music is not importand, but I figure that the widest range of tones the new instrument "hears" early on, the more it will feel like reproducing them later in life.:D
Click to expand...

Works for plants, animals, babies and people in general, improving concentration and all sorts of things... Why not ukes? Can't hurt, anyway, exposing ourselves and them to more music.
 
Steveperrywriter said:
In all fairness, while the classical opening-up might not happen in a few hours, strings will stretch and settle some in that amount of time. Typically, my new strings go flat pretty quick and it might be a week of daily playing before they begin to stay in tune, so there is apt to to be an improvement in sound and tone just on that front alone. Equina's experience seems perfectly valid to me, albeit probably not due to big shifts in the wood and/or glue.

As I pointed out when I started this thread, I wasn't trying to ring the bell for a new fight to begin, only to point out a video with a cleverly-done device designed to help the break-in period along.
Click to expand...
I'm not trying to fight, either. If opening up took only a matter of hours and a few strums, it wouldn't be a big deal worth talking about. Just pointing that out.

Breaking in strings is a different matter altogether.
 
I don't have any vintage ukes, but my 40 something year old clarinet just sounds better and better. I've played it for almost 30 years.
 
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