On the thing about vibration changing the tone of a solid body guitar, I make no comment one way or another on this (way above my paygrade). But Yamaha have introduced a treatment pioneered on their top end violins and now extended to their (expensive) SG2000 electrics which they call Initial Response Acceleration.

What I recall from a magazine article (which I am too lazy to look out right now) is that various frequencies of sound are directed through the finished guitar and monitored in some way to measure a response. This gives numbers which are the "frequency signature" of that individual guitar.

The guitar is then strapped to a machine which is set to vibrate hard at those particular frequencies for a period: 20 - 30 minutes; something like that. The idea is that at the end of that the wood has somehow been realined at a cellular level, and Yamaha claim that the tone is improved to an extent that players can detect.

I recall that the magazine article said the treatment was comparable to having the guitar ride around in the trunk of a car on bumpy roads for a year or so.

Yamaha themselves are pretty skimpy on info. This sounds the kind of nonsense I heard from an osteopath one time, before he proceeded to wreck my back for me:

http://uk.yamaha.com/en/products/musica ... e=features

I presume something along these lines was what Matthias Jabs was hoping to achieve (above).

I have no view on all this - but I bet I can guess what dgonz will make of it...!!

Cheers - C

Being a numbers guy, you can guess what my response is. If they've got "numbers," then one should be able to compare them before and after the shaking treatment.
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BTW, I have Googled (it's my friend, you know) some of your work and I would say that you have had some success! I didn't want to jump into the tail-end of that other crazy thread to add this comment. I try hard to avoid the trolls and troll-like behaviour.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

(Yes, I've tried to avoid those situations too. But all is well and friendly now, I'm very glad to say.)

Haha - thank you! Assuming you found the right one, that is. Problematically, there seems to be a young blonde female model around at present with exactly the same name, and with whom I seem to have been mistaken at least once, to much bewilderment...

As to the shaken guitar thing: the article I read was in a review of the SG2000 in Guitarist. I believe the description of the process was given in a tone of studiously suspended judgement...

Cheers - C

FWIW - a rather seasoned Fender Gold Tech who does some stellar work for a handful of known players had something to say on this topic. He was confident that sympathetic vibrations helped to keep the copper in the pickups from going to a brittle state, thereby mellowing their tone over time. His advice was to leave the guitar near a good sized speaker with the music on and let the sound waves do the rest. There was no mention of molecular structure of woods, though!

One thing I have learned over the last year is that you are not a young blonde female model. So I have high confidence that I found some of your accomplishments.



Getting the guitar's pickups too close to the magnets of some good sized speakers can certainly affect the future sound output! That's an experiment I don't wish to attempt, at least not until I get set up to remagnetize the AlNiCo pole pieces.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Excellent - my work here is done!

- C

deleted!

Do you give tours of Astoria?

Can you get me on stage with EC?

Does that phone booth have a trap door to David Bowie's hidden lair?

Is there really a spanner in the works?

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

O-o-o-oh... Now don't you start!

- C

Er, no.

Movin' swiftly on: I hear if you dunk your guitar in yoghurt it produces a fantastic tone. Helps the finish breathe better.

Or something...

- C

deleted on tuesday !:wink:

Agreed... and, well... said much the same to him and he laughed, saying "tell that to all the early players who thought that big amps were great guitar stands!"

However, it seems that his main point had more to do with the pickups being left near enough to a good source of vibration to improve the "life" of the copper within.

That's actually a good idea. Since the middle pickup isn't used quite often as the bridge or the neck, why not set it closer to the strings to get a different kind of tone out of it to put it to better use?

Watch out though. If you set the middle pickup too close to the strings, the magnets may affect the string vibration and give your guitar the dreaded "Stratitis" disease.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

That is actually a legitimate claim. Sound waves going through the wood really does help- especially on acoustics. One of the big guitar magazines did a test with a brand new Taylor that had been treated to several hours of sitting above a loud speaker and another that had not and everyone on their staff agreed hands-down that the sound wave treated guitar sounded better.

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Custom Shop '59 Strat with John Cruz Master Design Pickups
Vibro King
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