How to Restore Musical Tone to Old Guitars
Old guitars that have been abused or ignored can have a dull, lifeless sound. Luckily, if it is a nice instrument an old guitar can be revived with some special attention. This article will look at several things you can do to restore musical tone to your old guitar.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
A Clean Guitar is a Happy Guitar (and good sounding too)
-
1
Remove the strings.
-
2
Clean the entire guitar using a cloth and a guitar-cleaning product. These products are specially designed to remove the gunk that builds up on guitars from contact with human skin. After your guitar is clean you may want to apply a polish to the top to give it a nice shine.
-
-
3
Put on a new set of strings. Medium or heavy strings will have a better tone than light strings. This is because the larger strings can vibrate the top of the guitar more than light strings, therefore making the instrument louder and giving you more tone. If you are concerned about the difficulty of playing heavier-gauge strings, remember that a properly set up guitar with medium or heavy strings is still easy to play.
-
4
Play your guitar every day for several weeks to help "open" it up. Old, unplayed guitars often have a tight sound but usually will open up --- become louder with better tone --- after being played for a while.
-
5
Find a guitar repair shop with a good reputation to do a proper setup on your guitar. Old guitars may need frets dressed or replaced, and, most likely, they will need a neck setup too. You can also discuss options such as bridge and saddle materials with the people at the repair shop; sometimes replacing these will enhance the sound of an instrument.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Taking your guitar to a good shop for set up is the best thing you can do to improve the tone of your guitar. Knowledgeable guitar repairmen can make a good instrument great.
