Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

[Archer250]

Re: Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

A similar thing happend in Super bike racing... about 10 year ago Ducati was wiping the floor with everyone and before every race the other teams noticed that a crew man would walk up to the back of the bike and pump the rear suspension up and down a few times before they would start. Soon you saw everybody doing it and when asked the teams were saying it was to warm up and loosen the shocks before the race. This went on for about 4 years until Ducati let the cat out of the bag that it had nothing to do with the shocks that their fuel pump needed to be primed so the bike would start and they hooked the priming arm to the suspension as a convenient way to do this.

So this behavior is not limited to the guitar world, I see.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

This is new one for me. And I've been doing this for awhile.

So, I return a guitar back to a customer/friend today who's a working musician. He's got at least one CD out and appears on local radio, and gigs. This is a custom built twin humbucker style guitar. He says the first thing he's going to do is "break-in" the electronics. I give him a blank stare. He says he plugs it into his amp, with every control dimed. He puts a dummy plug in the speaker output so he doesn't have to listen to the hum and feedback. He leaves it in each position of the selector switch, (4-way Tele style, in this case), for 24 to 36 hours. Huh? :dunno:

I've never, ever heard of anything like this before. He's says it makes a notable improvement in the guitars sound. Anyone ever heard of this before?

Artie

Does he have before/after recordings?

I'm always willing to listen to the exotics. In this case, however, he lost me when he goes through all positions separately. Surely just turning all pickups on would do whatever he thinks gets done there?

 

[aleclee]

Re: Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

Dummy plug in the speaker out is bad for the amp, unless it's an active load.

It probably doesn't matter in this case because there's hardly any signal going through the amp, either.

The notion that a guitar can somehow be broken in by being plugged into an amp seems pretty ridonkulous to me.

 

[Grenade]

Re: Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

Dummy plug in the speaker out is bad for the amp, unless it's an active load. Burning in guitar components is hogwash.

However, if the idea is to make a new guitar 'good' like an old guitar, then the way to break it in like that is dip the entire guitar in a wading pool of sea water, leave outside for 7 days in the sun/moon until dry, light several cigarettes and set in an ashtray and hold the pickup area over the smoke coming up from the ashtray until the cigarettes are consumed, set the guitar down on concrete and kick it, then set the guitar down on grass and kick it, fill the wading pool with a solution of chlorinated pool water and vinegar and dip the entire guitar in the pool again to clean off the grass and concrete dust, then dry with a blow dryer. Thus completes the Antiquity process for an entire guitar. Happy jamming!

Nope, you forgot the beer and sweat.

 

[Little Pigbacon]

Re: Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

It probably doesn't matter in this case because there's hardly any signal going through the amp, either.

The notion that a guitar can somehow be broken in by being plugged into an amp seems pretty ridonkulous to me.

Well, if we're going to entertain the notion, being plugged into some kind of active device that's on and allowing current to run through the guitar's pickups, wiring, and other circuit elements would be pretty different from letting it just sit there. But you'd have to build one of those robot things to strum the strings. Or something. I guess.

Personally, the whole thing just makes me rub my temples and wonder if I'm getting a migraine. But that's okay, too.

 

[ErikH]

Re: Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

This sounds like cork sniffer voodoo to me.

On a side note, with a tube amp, having it on without a load is bad for the output transformer. There are some that are exceptions to the rule.

 

[Diego]

Re: Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

Maybe it just sounds amazing because he's an amazing guitar player.

 

[David Collins]

Re: Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

Fact is, if your friend feels better about the instrument, more confident a real effect has been created, then it will sound better because their feelings and confidence will make them sound better.

Another fact is that if they plugged in the guitar with a dummy cable (fake wire or no solder joints) yet believed it was truly plugged in, that they would find the exact same improvements. That's because the notion of this exercise having any effect at all is less likely than the odds of wet sanding the guitar with water from a toilet that Jimi Hendrix puked in 40 years ago would make him sound like Jimi.

But as you said, it's Christmas. People will have their own superstitions, and there's really no need to slap them straight until they start trying to package and sell BS, or give too much bad advice to others who are looking for truly effective results.

 

[Mr. B]

Re: Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

It's called confirmation bias...

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

At the risk of pointing out the bleedin' obvious, through a well-maintained vintage MESA/Boogie amplifier, any half-decent electric guitar should sound very good.

 

[Marbledecker]

Re: Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

This is pretty much the same thing I do to warm up my car stereo:

- Turn on the battery, but not the ignition.
- Switch the receiver to FM
- Find a spot on the FM dial between the local college station, and the local Christian station. Something nice and scratchy/unlistenable.
- Dial in a barely audible volume.
- Turn the treble and mid all of the way down, and then turn the bass all the way up.
- Roll up the windows so you can't hear it outside of the vehicle.
- Walk away from the vehicle for 3 days.
- Return to the vehicle; by this time the battery should be totally drained.
- Charge up your battery using the neighbors car; *their stereo must also be dialed to a non-station for this to work*
- Once you're re-charged, turn on your ignition and subsequently turn down the bass
- Turn up the treble and mid as high as they will go, then dial in the local country station (if you don't have one, Ranchero music will work as well)
- Leave the car running with the country/ranchero station on full blast... no bass... and spend the next 6 hours in the trunk of the car while this is happening. This step works best if you're in a Wal Mart parking lot.
- Once you wake up, turn the ignition off, walk into the Wal Mart, and punch the manager in the mouth. This should be easy since the carbon dioxide you were breathing in the trunk should have given you the illusion that the manager is actually a man-sized dragon.

I do this on every new stereo installation. I swear, Nickelback has never sounded so good.

 

[MacBradley]

Re: Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

This is pretty much the same thing I do to warm up my car stereo:

- Turn on the battery, but not the ignition.
- Switch the receiver to FM
- Find a spot on the FM dial between the local college station, and the local Christian station. Something nice and scratchy/unlistenable.
- Dial in a barely audible volume.
- Turn the treble and mid all of the way down, and then turn the bass all the way up.
- Roll up the windows so you can't hear it outside of the vehicle.
- Walk away from the vehicle for 3 days.
- Return to the vehicle; by this time the battery should be totally drained.
- Charge up your battery using the neighbors car; *their stereo must also be dialed to a non-station for this to work*
- Once you're re-charged, turn on your ignition and subsequently turn down the bass
- Turn up the treble and mid as high as they will go, then dial in the local country station (if you don't have one, Ranchero music will work as well)
- Leave the car running with the country/ranchero station on full blast... no bass... and spend the next 6 hours in the trunk of the car while this is happening. This step works best if you're in a Wal Mart parking lot.
- Once you wake up, turn the ignition off, walk into the Wal Mart, and punch the manager in the mouth. This should be easy since the carbon dioxide you were breathing in the trunk should have given you the illusion that the manager is actually a man-sized dragon.

I do this on every new stereo installation. I swear, Nickelback has never sounded so good.

HAHA. The funny thing, is that this isn't really much more far fetched than the OP's friend.

 

[El Supremo]

Re: Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

Ah, the power of 'someone well known' doing something senseless and others following like sheep.

A great example in a similar vein is Robert DeCastella, an Australian marathon runner. Late in one race he was seen sponging off his legs. After this for a couple of months you saw literally hundreds of people sponging their legs too.
Asked later why he did this, it turned out he had a bad stomach issue, and was trying to wipe the diarrhea off.

And listening to famous musos is not the best way to get the most sane or, er....chemically-free response.

I heard Ritchie Blackmore screwed some weird metal thingy in the headstock of one of his guitars and being all secretive about it, just so people would wonder what that the hell it was for. Great sense of humour .

 

[Kac]

Re: Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

I heard Ritchie Blackmore screwed some weird metal thingy in the headstock of one of his guitars and being all secretive about it, just so people would wonder what that the hell it was for. Great sense of humour .

I'm definitely down with doing stuff like that.

 

[ItsaBass]

Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

It's total nonsense, yet not much, if any, more ridiculous than the stuff that routinely passes for truth around here and other musicians' circles. If someone really believes something, you can't convince him/her that that belief is wrong, no matter how logically you make your argument. You can't use logic to defeat something that is not logically conceived in the first place. Just ignore it and privately enjoy the fact that you know better.

 

[B2D]

Re: Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

He says he plugs it into his amp, with every control dimed. He puts a dummy plug in the speaker output so he doesn't have to listen to the hum and feedback.

That's a good way to ruin your amp (if it's a tube amp) while also not doing jack sprat to improve your guitar sound.


I have a book with a bunch of old GP interviews, and the guy from REO Speedwagon says that he will take new guitars and leave them in front of cranked speaker cabs during rehearsals and live gigs> He does this because he believes that the SPLs and vibrations get into the wood and make the guitar more resonant via exposure to sound, and he says the best-sounding guitars he owns are the ones that have been played the most.

I don't even know if that works, but at least his thinking behind it, on the surface, makes some sense. What this guy's talking about is just... derp.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

Can somebody be more specific why a dummy load should be bad for an amp? (also saying what exactly is a dummy load and when does it cross into acceptable soak categories?)

 

[Little Pigbacon]

Re: Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

Can somebody be more specific why a dummy load should be bad for an amp? (also saying what exactly is a dummy load and when does it cross into acceptable soak categories?)

Some folks say that a resistive dummy load (with an impedance that's pretty much all real, with little or no reactive component) is bad for a tube amp and especially bad for the output transformer. An actual speaker load has significant inductance and, therefore, a substantial reactive component to its impedance. The inductive reactance tends to resist instantaneous changes in the current through it, which (I guess) helps the tube amp to run more stably, since tube amps tend to want to run more like a current source than like the voltage source that a solid-state amp usually models.

By that reasoning, a safe dummy load should have some series inductance, in addition to DC resistance. Some power resistors are inherently inductive by the way they are made; I don't know if this is enough for what you'd want in a dummy speaker load.

 

[Artie]

Re: Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

Does he have before/after recordings?

I doubt it. I just wanted to ask before I wrote it off entirely.

Thanks all.

Artie

 

[uOpt]

Re: Breaking in "guitar" electronics?

Some folks say that a resistive dummy load (with an impedance that's pretty much all real, with little or no reactive component) is bad for a tube amp and especially bad for the output transformer. An actual speaker load has significant inductance and, therefore, a substantial reactive component to its impedance. The inductive reactance tends to resist instantaneous changes in the current through it, which (I guess) helps the tube amp to run more stably, since tube amps tend to want to run more like a current source than like the voltage source that a solid-state amp usually models.

By that reasoning, a safe dummy load should have some series inductance, in addition to DC resistance. Some power resistors are inherently inductive by the way they are made; I don't know if this is enough for what you'd want in a dummy speaker load.

Fair enough. "Inductive" here means that resistance is changing with frequency I assume, which is what a magnetic coil does. There is definitely a change in resistance here.

It is just that if the resistance changes with many Hz, I cannot think of a way to damage or otherwise change the output transformer. The reason why output transformer are damaged when run with no load is that they overheat and some of the winds melt. Changing the resistance pattern many times a second cannot build up heat.

Now, obviously you don't want to replace a 8 ohm impedance speaker with a D/C only resistor measuring 8 ohm D/C, because that will be a different resistance for A/C depending on frequency and the amp runs into the wrong resistance.

At the same time that illustrates why I am so skeptical about "artificial" loads damaging output transformers. The reason for me is that it is the speakers that constantly change resistance as you play. You play a full 1st fret F chord it has a different average resistance than if you play something high with the same volume. It is hard for me to imagine that the output transformer actually requires a changing resistance, and even if it does how do you ensure that your playing is the right pattern?

To me it looks far more likely that, if there is a difference at all beyond "no melting", that a constant resistance must be better.