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Does older wood really sound better? and how long does it take?

#101
kraigo said:
Not necessarily - on their own, the magnets deteriorate very slowly, but there are a lot of external factors - external magnetic fields from speakers, trauma from being dropped, etc. In real world use, I'd wager that it's much more than 2%/100 years.

KO
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Not so sure about that being true.

If you're into old motorbikes you'll know that the magnetism in the flywheel deteriorates after ~50years and it needs remagnetising so it will start easily and the lights bright again. Lots of firms make this their business. IS there a reason why these would ode magnetism faster than a pickup?

Mind you, the old flywheels sound better!
 
#102
LawrenceH,

Just to be clear, my argument isn't that "there are lots of other factors, so therefore the wood makes no difference".

It's that there are so many factors that it's very hard to determine what difference (if any) the age of the wood makes.

The problem with these arguments is you have two camps, each of whom misuse what scientifc evidence there is to "prove" their point:

People who want to believe wood makes a difference point to evidence showing the wood changes somewhat, and say "See! That's what I'm hearing!" They ignore all the other factors except the wood.

People who want to disbelieve that the age of the wood makes a difference say "You haven't proven that it's the wood, and the wood alone, so it must be due to one of the many other factors we know about!"

Neither of these have anything to do with science. Science is rigorous, and requires isolating the interesting factors - which leads to the need to be very careful about what we can infer from limited evidence. And the opinions of "experts" is useful in science only in that what they are saying needs to be either accounted for or to be debunked. Proper scientific testing is required to do this, but with so many factors in this case, how can you isolate the changes in the wood alone for testing?

I think we must also be careful when talking about violins, AG's and other acoustic instruments. In those cases the wood is used to vibrate like a membrane to increase acoustic volume. This is different from a solid body instrument, where you're mainly talking about internal absorption of different frequencies, and perhaps internal resonances at the structural/molecular level. I doubt most solid bodies have much audible "membrane effect" (necks do vibrate somewhat like a tuning fork however). The point is, changes in the wood may affect how a thin piece vibrates more and differently, than how it affects a much thicker piece.

And as for all of luthiers, top musicians and other folks, I don't see anyone using/lusting after old instruments in general, but generally only after the best examples of a given age. Violinists may worship Strad's, and a few other violins from that era, but there are lots of instruments produced at the same time that no one is raving about. And the ones they rave about generally earned their reputaion a long time ago, when the wood was much younger. This "proves" (if the opinion of certain people proves anything) that wood isn't the only, or even the most important factor, in instruments.

My point here isn't that the age of the wood can't make any difference, or that it would make too small of a difference to matter. It's that there are so many other factors of equal or greater importance, that it's hard to draw any real scientific conclusions here. So people end up believing what they wanted to believe before this discussion was started.

drewfx
 
#103
JaydeePlayer said:
Not so sure about that being true.

If you're into old motorbikes you'll know that the magnetism in the flywheel deteriorates after ~50years and it needs remagnetising so it will start easily and the lights bright again. Lots of firms make this their business. IS there a reason why these would ode magnetism faster than a pickup?

Mind you, the old flywheels sound better!
Click to expand...

I think the point is, in the absence of an external magnetic field, most magnets have a very, very long half life, and thus change very slowly. In the real world, exposure to outside elements can make a magnet change much more quickly.

Of course, this also implies that you can "mellow" a magnet by other, more practical means, than just by waiting for 40 years or so.

drewfx
 
#104
Getting away from sound for a minute to stability. I have a 23 year old Jaydee (funnily enough) and it has a mahogany sandwich neck. Its a crafted joint into the body (not bolt on, not straight-through) and the body is made from two matching pieces of mahogany.

I did some recording in a basement studio. I had raised the action for a clean sound. After 3-4 days the bass was more than buzzing, by Thursday morning it was unplayable. The neck had tightened such that I had to slacken the truss rod to get it straight. After a week or so at home it had bowed the other way and needed the truss rod tightening. This straightened it out again. Never had this before, and its been left in cold churches etc before.

Its a fully lacquered neck apart fom the ebony fretboard. If the basement was damp could it have absorbed moisture to such an extent? If so t wouldn't take too long to vary the moisture content of the body too, but not necessarily towards being drier.

Can someone explain?
 
#105
JaydeePlayer said:
Its a fully lacquered neck apart fom the ebony fretboard. If the basement was damp could it have absorbed moisture to such an extent? If so t wouldn't take too long to vary the moisture content of the body too, but not necessarily towards being drier.

Can someone explain?
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Judging from your empirical evidence I'd say it did.

Wood is funny stuff and so is water, mix the two together and wackiness ensues.
 
#107
mongo2 said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by smcd View Post
And used a lot of words to do it.
+1
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+1
For sure, eh? I like to think I give vague answers, but they're definitively vague answers!

smcd said:
This exact same arguement, i.e. "There's no scientific proof whatsoever, but a lot of knowledgeable people say it's so" can be used to prove the existence of God. Yet still there are skeptics...
Click to expand...

No, I think that's irrelevant. This is a misunderstanding of scientific method. If we dismiss all the observations made by many, many people just because they are not trained scientists we are likely to miss important data. Ultimately, if we consider all sensory data as worthless we can't know anything! That's pretty useless. The question is whether we can use that preliminary data subsequently. God's existence is an abstract concept proposed as an explanation of observed phenomenon. The world exists as far as we can tell, so again something's obviously going on (!) that is worth looking into. BUT, the existence of God per se gives no testable predictions hence it is not a workable scientific hypothesis and so your guess is as good as anyone's. The same is not true for the acoustic properties of wood versus age, since this is verifiable by experiment. Ultimately (and physicists/mathematicians sometimes forget this because in those subjects theory so far outstrips the practical) science is built upon empirical observation. I would say your typical decent musician is an expert on tone, and if they are used to hearing a very particular sound will be able to perceive very small alterations in it compared to the layman, hence their opinion is worth more than eg some guy who claims he has seen Jesus on a piece of toast or even the Pope. Science is a meritocracy rather than a democracy!

Furthermore it's misleading to say the only evidence is musicians'/builders' hearsay. Changing properties with aging of factors known to significantly effect acoustic tone are pretty well established scientific fact for many acoustic instruments. The only issue really is whether it's audible on bass guitar. I said I wouldn't dig into it but have been motivated by curiosity. Have a look at this, p199 onwards in particular deals with aging, but earlier sections summarise the general acoustical properties of wood discussed
http://www.scribd.com/doc/7621786/acoustics-of-woodvoichita-bucur

It's a VERY comprehensive summary of the topic, I won't attempt to rehash it here other than to say it deals with moisture content, chemical changes, anatomic changes (a lack of, actually) and long-term loading (string tension) and varnish all in relation to acoustic properties. The only thing I'll pull out is
'It takes 3-10 years to achieve hygroscopic stabilisation of wood.'
This suggests a guitar built of relatively new wood could undergo significant changes in moisture content over its early years off the production line, and elsewhere earlier in the book outlines the resultant effect on acoustic properties.
So effectively with our guitars, any noticeable changes early on probably relate to moisture stabilization whereas later more subtle effects are more due to chemical alteration.
 
#108
DrewFX
Sorry, I missed your excellent post. I definitely agree with most of what you've said, all very valid points, I was really just trying to get away from the two misuses you cite. However I would say that individual expert opinion should be taken with a pinch of salt but that consensus requires more active input to explain away, since these observations are being repeated many many times so any false trend would have to be due to a correlation with something that is constant across many of these individuals' experiences, rather than random sample noise.

Regarding care taken interpreting violin data - definitely, but it's the best data there is at the moment. But the principles behind solid body resonance are pretty well understood and I think it fair to make inferences from the known data and principles. I'm not quite sure about your point regarding minimal membrane effect though. More, yes, but different? Not so much. A change in resonant frequency is going to have an audible effect regardless. Physical modelling is I suppose the answer to how the known general data and understood principles will apply in a given system other than violin/piano etc.

I would 100% agree with the point that wood age is not going to be the most critical factor but that is not really what anyone is seriously suggesting, surely? We're talking incremental differences and that is totally valid in the context of the OP's question. Obviously Strads have sounded good for ages and I initially brought them into it not due to their age but just to make the point that there's often relative consensus about tone (regarding KJung's scepticism on this). I would be inclined to give more weight to reports of changes over the course of a few years for obvious reasons.
 
#110
The age makes less difference than how much the wood has been vibrated from what I understand. Construction with young growth wood is more difficult because it seems to tend to change more drastically more quickly.

I know it's common with very expensive violins and cellos for the players themselves not to actually buy them. Face it, the concertmaster of the NY Phil probably doesn't make enough to buy a $1,000,000 violin. Instead they enter into contracts with investor groups who buy the instruments and let the musicians play them. But typically it is specifically written into the contract that the instrument be PLAYED with regularity as apparently they don't sound as good if they just sit and stagnate...hence they don't increase in value as much as quickly. Interesting take I think. Probably based more on concensus that science...but you can't argue with what you hear. Especially if you hear it over, and over, and over again.
 
#111
That book I linked to has quite a lot to say on the effect of continual vibration on redistributing stress through the instrument.

You're right about the violins being loaned out, one of my college friends actually had a Stradivarius like this! I would be so worried about leaving it on a bus, or sitting on it, or something daft like that, I think it would stress me out too much to actually play!
 
#112
my experiment:

ive try the JB USA 2007 and JB USA 1983. the 1983 deliver more presence, richer low-high freq, fuller tone. the 1983 high freq was more transparent, extra clear. i got more presence. the new fender deliver the good tone, but old fender deliver it better.
 
#116
JaydeePlayer said:
Getting away from sound for a minute to stability. I have a 23 year old Jaydee (funnily enough) and it has a mahogany sandwich neck. Its a crafted joint into the body (not bolt on, not straight-through) and the body is made from two matching pieces of mahogany.

I did some recording in a basement studio. I had raised the action for a clean sound. After 3-4 days the bass was more than buzzing, by Thursday morning it was unplayable. The neck had tightened such that I had to slacken the truss rod to get it straight. After a week or so at home it had bowed the other way and needed the truss rod tightening. This straightened it out again. Never had this before, and its been left in cold churches etc before.

Its a fully lacquered neck apart fom the ebony fretboard. If the basement was damp could it have absorbed moisture to such an extent? If so t wouldn't take too long to vary the moisture content of the body too, but not necessarily towards being drier.

Can someone explain?
Click to expand...
That's a bit of a surprise. Wood gives off moisture for a while, whether it's kiln dried or air dried. I personally think that air dried wood is more stable and easier to work with, but dry is dry. As wood dries, it moves. If it dries quickly, it moves more quickly, and that creates internal stresses, but none of that should be an issue when it comes to a bass guitar or other instrument. If it's fit and finish is good and it doesn't move to the point that it's all warped, then how it got dried shouldn't make any difference. My experience with guitar necks is that they dance around for a while until they settle in. After a few years, I don't have to do much adjusting to keep things working.

Mahogany doesn't move as much as maple, at least that's been my experience in making things with both materials. A 23 year old mahogany neck shouldn't be moving like that unless there's some kind of other weirdness going on, like a really radical temperature change or the fretboard delaminating or who knows what. If you have had it a long time, and the neck is moving all of a sudden, look for some kind of physical damage, because I would be surprised if it's the wood.

Now on to the structure of wood. The cellulose does change with time. It crystallizes over time. The Japanese will buy a log and submerge it in a pond for something like 100 years before making a lacquer box with it. They don't want it to move at all. I'm not sure if that makes any difference at all in the sound of an instrument, and I'm really not convinced that it's enough to make a difference after 30 or 40 years. I tend to lean toward the wood matters less than other factors school, although I won't deny that wood has some effect.

tl;dr - it's all voo-doo and wood might matter.
 

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