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Comment by 6stringmerc | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me of some of the goofy aging snake-oil techniques that audiophile-type guitarists try on their guitars. Putting them in vibrating jigs and stuff. That said, if there's a way to significantly tighten / age / enhance the density or resonance of wood using some kind of technique, that's pretty awesome. Then drink aged liquor before playing on aged guitar. Win-win.

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I think that is real, though:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/technology/05tonerite.html https://www.tonerite.com

I've heard from several musicians that say that it genuinely works. I've also witnessed first hand the "breaking in" process with an instrument that results in a better sound after being played a lot. Note that an old instrument doesn't break in - it is the playing.

I've also heard, from Ed Maday - http://www.edmaday.com - that the vibrations are why he says away from power machinery in his craft - he believes that the use of that machinery might damage the potential tone of the wood. I am skeptical, but if there is a mechanical process involved, then maybe he's not wrong.

Well it might do a little something but in the grand scheme of things, in my opinion, professional of sorts, is that there are far too many variables in the Electric Guitar chain to ever really care too much about any one element. Collectively, yes, different aspects have flavors to add, such as type of wood, age, mass...but then there's all sorts of other aspects - set up height, string quality / material, type of pickups, winding of said pickups, type of amplifier, what effects pedals might be in the chain...so I don't feel like going beyond skepticism is necessarily worth the effort.

By comparison, I had a guitar teacher who would play his G&L Strat 5 days a week for lessons, and you could just see how he was working the fretboard and neck into the sweetest playing, conditioned piece of gear. He always had a line of people waiting to buy his guitar whenever he felt like he wanted a change. I can understand wanting a guitar that "broken in" but by comparison getting something artificially relic'd or aged doesn't seem appealing.

Gains from pretty much all "advanced" techniques are incremental. Most improvements - whether cars, sports, business, marketing, etc. - come from mastering the basics.

Well sometimes yeah, but I can state without reserve that when I tried a different set of strings - Ernie Ball Cobalt vs. the Slinky, I actually could hear a significant difference. Same goes for changing pick thickness. I think it's important to note that it's really only at the top % where improvements become kind of logarithmic / incremental. 10,000 hours is kind of just a start with guitar.

I'd agree - with an electric instrument you rely on resonance, but to a lesser degree than with a violin or cello. I would consider it with an acoustic-only instrument like that.

Yeah I wanted to specify Electric Guitar for that purpose. Acoustic instruments are a whole different design and technique realm. While technically the same family, I view steel string Electric and bronze string Acoustic as two very different instruments.

Shouldn't that kind of change be measurable using both methods on wood from the same part of the same tree?

What is the nature of this "aged" quality that is desirable?

Aged liquors aren't speaker cables. You can get before/after and old-wood/new-wood flights from distillers to see the difference: age makes a huge difference, and cask type makes a huge difference --- as, apparently, does cask size, according to Chuck Cowdery.

> Aged liquors aren't speaker cables.

So what? He was talking about guitars made of wood, not speaker cables.

He was noting the difference in comparison...which was the op's point. its apples to oranges.

I'm assuming cask size would effect ageing, by altering the surface to volume ratio.

With a wooden beer cask I had (4.5gal) you could taste the vanilla from the wood, which I believe was so prominent because of the small cask size, because of more wood touching the beer.

I'm wondering if the cask size also effects the amount of angels share too.

Cowdery finds the opposite: that smaller barrels produce a less pronounced aging effect. It's counterintuitive.

That's very interesting!

I've just been skimming: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2050-0416.1995....

Although it says "An increased surface to volume ratio of the miniature cask, and increased oxygen concentration, appeared to enhance both extraction and further transformation of wood components, resulting in the dominance of a single characteristic, sweet, after 21 months of maturation." they go on to mention

"maturation of Scotch malt distillate in miniature casks did not enhance the sensory quality of the final product, nor did miniature casks provide a suitable model of an accelerated Scotch whisky maturation process."

Sounds like a market opportunity: pre-distressed guitars to go with your pre-distressed jeans. :P

Pre-distressed guitars are sold all the time as "relics". Both Fender and Gibson do it. Their custom shop will relic them to match a particularly famous one or generally.

I would link to a source, but they are all pretty much just advertisements. Your favorite search engine could find them.

Here's one, just for the sake of completeness:

http://www.fendercustomshop.com/series/artist/jaco-pastorius...

I'm guessing it won't make me play like Jaco. ;-)

Ugh, sounds like Leica's B.S. M.O. http://www.popphoto.com/gear/2015/02/new-gear-leica-m-p-corr...

A close friend of mine made https://www.tonerite.com/ to distress your own guitars. I know it's done well.

All of this marketing is giving me pre-distressed wrinkles in my pre-distressed face and receding my pre-distressed hairline.

I'd prefer talent and scotch on a cheap Yamaha any day.

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