Old guitars sound better because those still played into their vintage years were made from high-quality wood by experienced craftsmen. Also, the vibration of the strings causes a richer sound over time as wood sap breaks down. The main components of a guitar are the neck and the body, and each of these contains multiple integral parts.
The headstock is the top of the guitar at the end of the neck, where the tuning pegs sit. The tuning keys adjust the sound of the instrument, while the pegs attach strings to the guitar. The nut is a narrow strip at the end of the neck on which the strings rest.
The frets are narrow metal strips on the fingerboard that connect the strings when pressed down, and the fretboard or fingerboard runs along the neck on which the frets are installed. Fret markers are aesthetic additions that personalize your guitar and provide position references. Apart from varying to some degree in thickness, the neck of the guitar is uniform across all types. The body varies depending on whether the guitar is electric or acoustic. Acoustic guitars all have hollow bodies, while most electric guitars have solid wood bodies — though some have semi-hollow bodies.
The soundboard is the wooden top of the guitar body that vibrates to create the sound and tone. The pickguard protects the soundboard from getting scratched while playing, and the soundhole is in the middle of the body projects sound.
Bridge pins hold the strings in place on some guitars , and strap buttons serve as attachment points to add a guitar strap. Pickups function like microphones as they pick up the string vibrations and deliver them to the amplifier. Humbucker pickups are wide pickups that eliminate hum and create a warm tone, while single-coil pickups create a brighter tone.
The volume and tune knobs control volume and tone from pickups, while the pickup selector controls whether the neck or bridge pickups are active. As with all stringed instruments, sound comes from the vibration of the string when it is picked or plucked. The energy from these vibrating strings transfers through the bridge to the soundboard. The variations of sound come from differences in the length, tension, and weight of the strings, as these characteristics determine how fast they vibrate.
We refer to the rate of vibration as the frequency. The faster a string vibrates, the higher the note will be. The highest notes come from shorter, tighter, and lighter strings, and the lowest notes from longer, looser, and heavier strings source. With an acoustic guitar, players pull the strings down with their fingers on the fretboard to make the string tighter. It only takes a minute to sign up. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search.
Guitars are often said to sound better with age. How much of it is due to worse-sounding guitars being discarded before they reach vintage age? It is possible that some guitars just never live long enough to become "vintage", because they never sounded good in the first place.
And a bad sounding guitar is not going to improve much with age. In the case of a laminate top cheap mass produced guitar, no amount of aging is ever going to make it sound like a new solid wood guitar. Acoustic guitars have proven to the ears of many players - to sound better as they age.
The theory that best explains this is - that as the wood in the body ages, it becomes lighter and more responsive and more resonant. In an acoustic guitar, the sound comes from the vibration of the top - also known as the sound board. The vibration of the strings alone produce very little sound. The vibration of the strings is transferred to the top through the bridge and saddle. The vibration of the soundboard top is what produces the audible sound we hear from an acoustic guitar.
To prove this, take a tuning fork and strike it to set it into vibration. It makes very little sound on it's own. But if you touch the end of the vibrating tuning fork to the top of an acoustic guitar, the note created by the tuning fork rings loud and clear.
Some folks believe that the more an acoustic guitar is played, the better it sounds because the vibration of the top loosens up the wood and leads to greater responsiveness. I have heard that some guitar owners will set their guitars in front of their speakers and turn up the volume on their home stereo believing that the vibrations will help loosen up the top and make it sound better. But I think this vibration theory is more like speculation and difficult to prove.
Yamaha is convinced that aged wood has superior tone producing qualities so they developed an accelerated aging process knows as Acoustic Resonance Enhancement Technology A.
They started using it on violins and have recently began using this process on some of their acoustic guitars. Another reason "vintage" guitar's may sound good is that the wood available decades ago may have been a better quality wood than what is available today. It's also possible, that older guitars from reputable makers, were more meticulously crafted with more of the work done by hand and more time devoted to finding the best sounding wood for the soundboard and more time tweaking the building process to get the best sounding guitar possible.
Mass produced guitars - even by well respected companies such as Martin, Gibson and Taylor, don't get the same amount of individual attention as they did in the "old days". Most of the foregoing relates to acoustic guitars sounding better with age. Electric guitars which rely more on their electronics to produce sound, are less likely to show any dramatic improvement in tone through the aging process.
The factors discussed above all offer plausible reasons why 'vintage" guitars seem to sound better than newer guitars. And certainly - a really good sounding new guitar is more likely to live to become vintage due to receiving better care. But I believe that tone woods used to make acoustic guitars, do improve their sound producing quality as they age. Different tone woods have been shown to improve at different rates - characteristic of the particular type wood Spruce, Cedar, Maple, Rosewood, Koa etc.
And I am convinced that a given well made guitar that sounds good when new, will if well cared for sound better as it ages. In some circumstances the vintage instruments sound better due to changes in the manufacturer's specs.
The moisture is stored in these hollow cells. There is evidence to suggest that over a long period of time these cells tend to collapse, which in turn limits how much moisture they can absorb. In other words, the older wood becomes more stable and reaches equilibrium.
These changes cause the guitar top to become dryer, and lighter and more stiff as it ages… the perfect recipe for an improving top. The lighter and stiffer a top is, the better it will sound if everything else is equal.
Most acoustic players are familiar with the reality that new guitars break in as they are played, and will sound better and better as they are regularly subjected to the vibration of the strings. There are even commercial devices being marketed that propose to simulate this effect, although the actual results from using them get mixed revues.
This is yet another possible reason for the great tone many older guitars have. To sum up: If an older guitar has a great top that has become more stiff and light with age, that has been individually voiced for optimum response, and has played with love over many years, the resulting tonal changes can be extremely pleasing to the ear.
No magic, no mystery, just great materials, great craftsmanship, and time! Search out any discussion about tone and tonewoods on the internet and you will quickly find a wide variation of opinions among players and builders alike.
More Technical Articles. There are a lot of choices out there for the prospective buyer of a fine guitar. It's no secret; a handmade instrument can cost a lot.
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