The Tonerite Chronicals,,,

[Kerry Krishna]

If any of you serious guitarist' s or mando'ists out there have not heard about this Tonerite device, please go over to the Collings Forum (powered by EVE) and look in the Acoustic Guitar Threads section for the "Tonerite" thread. 31 pages and counting, all within a week! There has not been a topic this vast amoungst these Collings luminaries since the "Great Varnish Debate" of'07. Get you wallets and purses out..... now! (I have no financial intrest in this by the way. But I DID order mine today!)

[Greg Yavorsky]

Love you bro....but I'm not biting.....it's a shame the most lame thread in years on the Collings forum goes on ad nauseum....Good luck with the wait on the D1 custom....10 days into the varnish I'll tell you it's the real thing

[Gary Foster]

It just became a hot topic on the UMGF too. I think they have convinced me but I won't be buying one for a while yet. You have one yet?

[Bruce Bushaw]

If you are at UMGF, search the same thread 'tonerite' for 'fish pump'. Seems you can do the same thing with a $7 aquarium air pump and a few rubber bands (instead of $149). Probably all you need is any kind of 60 Hz buzzer that you can couple to the bridge well enough to make you guitar 'hum'. You have to play around with the rubber band a bit to get the coupling right - as loud as possible, but without buzzing.

[Kerry Krishna]

Bruce, I did this exact same thing a few months back. Its not quite the same and I did'nt get very good results.

[Bruce Bushaw]

Kerry,
Glad to hear there is some reason they charge as much as to do . . .

Do you see much of a change on an already reasonably well broken-in guitar?

BTW: I haven't used this, I prefer just playing a whole lot to open up a guitar - something about the full range of frequencies and vibration patterns that correspond to, well, playing . . .
I just tested the fish-pump idea before posting, it worked better with single-point contact on one of the open sides of the bridge plate, but I couldn't rig adequate mechanics that I was sure wouldn't do damage.

[Kerry Krishna]

If I remember correctly what I did... I got a piece of quarter inch plywood about one half inch wide by 4 inches long and drilled a hole right in the middle of it. Then I drove a vera short wood screw through straight into the rubber side of the pump, right into exact center. When the screw was tightened up enough, I slid it through the strings, and turned the piece of wood 90 degrees ( picture an airplane prop). It was way tight and I did'nt have to worry about it coming off. Take the pump apart 1st and make sure that you are not gonna put a hole in anything that matters. According to Tonerite, they say to put the pump about a half inch from the bridge.

[Bruce Bushaw]

Clever and simple - Thanks!

[Kerry Krishna]

I'm pretty sure, Bruce that it WILL do something good to the tone, as opposed to nothing at all. Just kind of a pale imitation of what a Tonerite will do is all. There have now been 60 high end Collings done . The worst was no change at all, but that is with a guitar that has been played 4 hours a day for a decade, and an old 50's Martin with the same thing. It's not what these things are for anyway. The best reviews over there are, actually, almost all of them. And these people are ,for the most part, guitar audiophiles.

[Bruce Bushaw]

My favorite is ~4 years old and played 1-2 hrs a day, but has an Adi top - notoriously slow to open - so might still make an improvement. I'll give it a try.
Thanks!

[Bruce Bushaw]

Kerry,

I continued to wonder about this. Particularly the 'deep scientific study' that lead ToneRite to conclude that 60 HZ was just the right frequency to maximize aging or loosening. Some coincidence that this just happens to be line frequency and you can build vibrators for ~ $0.02 at this frequency. So I looked a little more deeply - attached a stick-on PZT mic (Shadow) and hooked up to to a sound-card based oscilloscope/spectrum analyzer (shareware, Vertins Technology). Then simply give a firm fingetip rap to the bridge and record the frequency spectrum. Do it with the strings muted so you find the box resonances, not the strings. Resonances are strong and narrow if you get the FFT set up right - very characteristic strong lowest frequency fundamental resonance:

'73 D-35 93 Hz
'05 000-28 NB 106 Hz
'07 Larrivee` P-09 Parlor: 131 Hz

Then use Test Tone Generator (V 4.2 also shareware) to to drive the computers subwoofer (10") near those frequencies with the guitar lower bout a few inches in front.

Still watching the raw waveform signal (not frequency spectrum) tweak the frequency to maximize pzt mic signal (i.e., body vibration. Turns out the the resonant driving frequency is a few Hz below natural free resonance, and is also pretty tight - I can discern the maxium coupling within 1/2 Hz.

Turn up the volume a little and the guitar goes absolutely crazy - touch the back and you'd think it was flexing an 1/8" (well maybe a couple of .01"). Take it across the room and you can still feel the guitar body vibrating in you gut - like a good one does when you play it hard. I think you could get the guitar to explode if you cranked the woofer a bit more. (Ever see video of the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge - amazing what a well-tuned, driven resonant oscillator can do!)

The thing you don't want to do is tune to one of the string resonances (Low E 82.4, Low A 110). If you do, the given string will start to vibrate wildly, but the guitar body does not (you can feel the body vibrations go away) - the string is acting as a resonant trap and the excitation energy is transferred from the body to the string, and stays there.

Attached JPG shows the frequency response of the 000-28 when the Frequency of the Subwoofer is sweep (strings not damped). This is effectively just the envelope of a .wav file and the amplitude shows the total vibration (all frequencies) picked up by the PZT mic as a function of the swept drive frequency. Note the Drop off below the 106 Hz fundamental resonance of the body (Not to mention how much excitation you get with 60 Hz drive). You can clearly see notch in the 106 Hz Fundamental caused by the the 110 Hz A string, as well as the other strings and their first harmonics - as labeled.

So, proof will still be in the actually application. Have to find some time when I am away for a few days, or build a sound room to contain the infernal hum.

If you already have a pzt mic and subwoofer on you computer, nothing to buy to try this out- the software is free trial for a few weeks and cheap ($30-ish) to license.

-Bruce

[Bruce Bushaw]

Just a follow up..

Finally had a chance to try it out on the 000-28. First tuned to the 110 Hz-A string and turned up woofer volume until the string is vibrating wildly and starts to buzz on the frets. Then detune to the body resonance @ 106 Hz (string doesn't vibrate much unless exactly tuned to it) and turn up the volume a bit more. After only 3 hours, I could tell a significant difference in the sound - all the things you think of with opening up (i.e., the box is becoming a better resonator):longer sustain, clearer midrange, and longer lasting higher harmonics that make everything 'brighter'. Also E - G on the low E string (which are at frequencies below the 1st body resonance of a 000 body) seem fuller and ring more like D sized guitar, less of the dead-woody bass that you get with smaller bodies. After another 30 hours, there was maybe some further improvement, but not much. Overall, the difference was significant for a guitar that already had well over 1000 hours playing time - wonder what it would do for newer guitars?

Anyway, it is pretty clear to me that improved tone through 'acoustic conditioning' is real and can be significant. Kind of like adding 30 years of playing age to your guitar without all the associated wear and use damage.

Probably doesn't matter too much whether you use the Tonerite, an aquarium pump, or your computer and a sub-woofer. One may just take a bit longer than the other, depending on how much energy they can couple into the guitar body vibrations.

I like the sub-woofer because (a) I already had it, (b) I could do some fun physics along the way, (c) there is no mechanical contact to the guitar, and (d) you can tune to the exact body resonance frequencies and precisely adjust the interaction strength simply with the woofer volume. Also, with these finer points, it seems to work quite fast (a few hours compared to 'first time' 72 hours recommended by Tonerite). Finally, I like the way the back 'sizzles' when touched lightly while being conditioned - it is clear that is being 'exercised ' quite hard, and maybe as important (compared to regular playing), continuously. The 'sizzle' is a great 'hands on' way to find the body resonances it you can't or don't want to do the spectrum analysis.

Bad part is the cats hate me and the wife is feigning migranes - they don't seem to like the 106 Hz hum (although volume is only set about same as I typically play regular music).

Happy Holidays All!

[Kerry Krishna]

Wow Bruce you sure went to an awful lot of trouble here. Was it worth it?