Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
|
|
|
Why guitars sound better with age?
|
You are logged in as Guest
|
|
Users viewing this topic: none
|
|
Login  | |
|
   
Arash
Posts: 4495
Joined: Aug. 9 2006
From: Iran (living in Germany)
|
 RE: Why guitars sound better with age? (in reply to lukeofgod)
|
|
|
I am not professional, but i can say that this is not always the case.
I have heard and played old guitars which sounded like pile of poo, stifled with a pillow, and new guitars which sounded amazingly "open" and ready to kick ass.
But i guess if you take two guitars with exactly the same specifications and woods, one of them was played (and i mean regurarly played, not just put in a glass case in a museum) for some years and one is brand new and never played, then often times the older one sounds a bit better, the wood settled, opened up, etc.
But there is also a lot of myth etc. involved in such discussions.
It really depends on the guitar, the woods which were originally used, what is been done to the guitar during those years, etc. you never know. Just play the guitar and compare. Don't base your judgement on some written fancy describtions. play the thing. I even played a very old Archangel which i hated.
_____________________________
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date May 18 2013 8:50:54
 |
|
Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
|
|
RE: Why guitars sound better with age? (in reply to Ricardo)
|
|
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
Ramirez talked about crystals in the finish aligning a certain way that adds to the sound shaping up being played and drying out at the same time.
Ricardo
Ramirez III said quite a lot of stuff I didn't necessarily believe. I thought some of it was absolutely false. Still, I kept buying guitars from him and selling them in the USA, because he made the best instruments generally available at the time.
The catalyzed polyurethane finish on my '67 1a blanca got thinner as time went on and various components gradually evaporated over a period of years. But I didn't notice a big change in sound. I played it just about every day, so I probably would have adjusted to a gradual change.
A friend had a pro in Madrid (classical, with a name I recognized, but now don't recall) pick out a 1973 Conde blanca for him at the Gravina shop, and send it to the USA.
When it arrived, I thought it was a dog. Dead as a doornail. Three years later it was one of the few guitars I had played that I preferred to my '67 Ramirez.
I thought probably the Conde was made with wood that was incompletely seasoned, and the wood matured after the guitar was made. But that's just what I thought...no empirical verification.
Like Ricardo, I have heard/played other guitars that I definitely thought had improved considerably over a period of months or a couple of years...but auditory memory is notoriously unreliable.
What's important is what the guitar does for you at the moment. I remember playing a used Santos Hernandez blanca in a big music store in Mexico City some time in the late 1960s. I played much better than usual, because the guitar felt and sounded so great.
RNJ
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date May 20 2013 15:55:54
|
|
BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
|
|
RE: Why guitars sound better with age? (in reply to gj Michelob)
|
|
|
quote:
...but lapsing of time itself is initially beneficial [as in "opening" the guitar or violin] but later detrimental as in causing natural deterioration. ...yet, I doubt that those fiddles sound as good as they did in the hands of our ancestors, when they were new... and young!!
I have conflated your statements above, gj, because they appear to describe both the life cycles of the instruments and of the human beings who play them! At the age of 70, I can remember well when I was "new" and "young," just like a newly minted instrument. And now I can detect the "natural deterioration," although I suspect mine is occurring at a faster rate than that of a well-made violin.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date May 21 2013 16:41:21
|
|
 New Messages |
 No New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/ New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/o New Messages |
 Locked w/ New Messages |
 Locked w/o New Messages |
|
Post New Thread
Reply to Message
Post New Poll
Submit Vote
Delete My Own Post
Delete My Own Thread
Rate Posts
|
|
|
Forum Software powered by ASP Playground Advanced Edition 2.0.5
Copyright © 2000 - 2003 ASPPlayground.NET |
0.09375 secs.
|
Printable Version
