Official Luthiers Forum!

Todd : Find this very interesting and seem to recall someone making a device call a stinger from a speaker by removing the outer flexible section and attaching a wooden button to the voice coil. this was attached to the guitar bridge somehow with the button touching the bridge. The speaker cable was then plugged into an amp playing your favorite guitar music. Let it run for a length of time and hopefully the magic will happen. This may have been Alan Carruth,not sure.Hope there are some replies.
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

I`m by no means an expert on this, but I think I remember an article on this subject in Popular Mechanics somewhere between 1973 and 1980 (maybe a couple years after that).
IIRC, there was also a couple issues that had Les Paul in them.
Cheers
Coe
Ain`t showin` my age, am I?

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Give me 50 cents worth of regular.
Check my oil too, if you don`t mind,,,

Steinway has a "pounding room" where their new pianos are played for hours and hours to loosen the soundboards before they are sold. And many violin makers make sure to play them in before delivering to the customer.

In my opinion, there may be some truth behind this... But to me, I think the experience of actually playing a guitar for hours on end and learning about all of the nuances of its tone, etc will have an even greater effect on tone than strapping it to a machine.

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Don't confront me with my failures--I have not forgotten them.

The repair person and sales staff at the store where I sell are convinced they work and they've been around a long time and are hard to impress. They use it. I am tempted to try it on my new builds.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

The AGF has also touted this quite a bit. Tim McKnight seems to be a real strong proponent of the product.

Todd...tell us more about the aquarium pump method, please.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

I am looking forward to trying it out. I think it is cool to play in a guitar for yourself (or for your commission customer to get to hear that for themselves) but if your instrument is on the wall in a store, it cannot hurt to have that little bit extra.

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

I play at least a couple hours a day, and I play customers guitars every day for a couple weeks before I do a final setup. I've also got another break in method. I bought a used E-bow at a pawn shop for almost nothing. I've got it securely mounted on a mic stand. I let it "play" new guitars, both with and without a capo to expose it to different frequencies. The minus is, it makes noise. I do this in my shop, when I'm not there. I've also used it in my house when I'm not home. The plus is, it's actually moving the strings, and making every part of the guitar "work" that works when it's played.

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I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said.
http://www.brackettinstruments.com/

About ten years ago I came up with this device and put it up on my website:

http://www.ukuleles.com/Technology/HulaGirlShaker.html

The little speakers were somewhat frail but even so they worked surprisingly well...

aloha,

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David C. Hurd
http://www.ukuleles.com

Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. Through the Looking Glass by L. Carroll

"Since my house has burned down, I have a much better view of the moon"

The ToneRite works ... period It is the first such device (that I am aware of) that excites the strings, not the bridge or the top, in a similar manner to real playing. Regardless of how it works, it works. I had a less than stellar guitar that I refused to sell and it set in the corner for a number of years. After hearing Michael Lewis, all giddy about the ToneRite at Winter NAMM, I decided to order one and try it for my self. I put it on the "corner guitar" and let it run for several weeks and darn near forgot about it. I walked by the guitar one day and decided to see if it made any change and when I played the guitar and I was blown away

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tim...
http://www.mcknightguitars.com

I have one and it certainly works. Its power is not much greater than a cellphone oscillator.

There has been a lot of talk about the toneRite over on Mandolin Cafe too, check out this discussion
http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47418&highlight=tonerite

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin