Toneright

Ian Rossiter

Has anyone had any experience with the Toneright device? It's the little black box that sits on your strings and puts out a sympathetic vibration that allegedly helps to "open-up" new instruments.
Yes,yes...I know...only playing time can truly break in an instrument. But, Benneto apparently uses these on his guitars,and raves about the results.
Just courious,
Thanks.

lindydanny

I've heard a lot about these things. My thoughts are of a practical nature:

They are a sham. They are about as useful special labels audiophiles buy for CDs to make them "sound better".

I just can't see how this would affect the tone as much as the natural settling process or the strings being actually played and the wood vibrating out chords (as opposed to open).

Best thing to "break-in" a new guitar or strings is to play them. A little do-dad is not going to replace a musician's fingers.

As for Benedetto, likely he is getting a sponsorship out of that deal. I have nothing against it. Hell, I'd say Dean guitars are the best ever guitars in the world if they paid me to do it. Michael Jordan sold underwear, Happy Gilmore sold sandwiches, Benedetto sells guitar accessories.

~DB

wayne nakamura

I've used it on Dupont Busatos. I think it works great and makes a noticeable difference. I think the more responsive the guitar the greater the effect.

I found if you mount the TR upside down so the feet were very close to the bridge, you can find the sweet spot. When you turn the unit on, making sure the cord isn't touching the guitar, you can turn the volume up to max and the guitar should start loudly humming and the guitar should be vibrating to the touch on the guitar stand right up through the peghead. The sound should be loud enough to be really annoying. The top should be vibrating in a very sexy manner! I stuck the guitar in a closet with the unit not quite on max. It was a bit like listening to Jimi make his guitar feedback for a long period of time. Over the course of weeks I found the guitars sounded less trebly and more full bodied. THey have more prescence or impact and sound more played-in.

Mechanically, it really gets the whole guitar vibrating, but especially the top and the bridge. Although it's not the same as having a great player, with strong technique, play your guitar for months, it does continue to vibrate the guitar, even when it's not being played. If you leave it on 24/7 and only take it off to play the guitar, i found it helps accelerate the break-in process noticeably.

YMMV

noodlenot

hi there! there´s a lot of talk, specially on forums regarding luthiery, about this little device. although the principle is elegant and persuasive, the problem is it is never easy nor straightforward to compare the before with the after results. you´d have (at least) to record the exact same passages, with the exact same strength and attack, with the exact same mic, with the exact same mic and guitar placement in the same room position and with a suitable audiocard with appropriate D/A converters in a good enough room and have good enough ears to A/B the results properly.
on top of that, obviously, you would have to have a subject audience and a control audience who would not know which result was each. this is just for practicalities (you could complicate matters further and go and analyse the sound in a computer with some fancy spectrogram or other FFT tools, but these subtleties are hard to grab and would probably be disguised under the room noise or lost within the guitar upper partials).
well, to my knowledge no independent and unbiased tests such as this hypothetical one have been ran (or, at least, publicly announced) . without them we´re just talking opinions and hear-say.

of course there is no obligation to stop at tonerite. i´ve heard folks that said that their guitars turn better if they were left near 50/60 Hz hum noise. others preferred white noise, for a more broad spectrum of frequencies, while others still prefer pink noise for it´s musicality. some swear by reagge, dub and other bass heavy music to open-up their guitars, while others relish the more open steely dan sound, or even bluegrass. creedence get their fans too. i´m not kidding you, this is just to show how wild speculation and wishful thinking go around in this "guitar open-up" turf.

i´ve never used it myself, so take my comment as such, but i´m with lindydanny on this one. a little money goes a long way.
besides, and moving into a camp of principles, if tonerite does work, it´s only vibrations being transferred to the guitar, no magic bullet here, no secret recipe. besides, even it was, no two guitars (and their eigenvalues) are the same (materials, construction, design) so i´d venture the "same physics that naturally occur while playing" that tonerite "safely recreates and magnifies" are either rather vulgar broadband noises / frequency sweeps or whatever OR, if more than that, i´m still to understand how would they work on different guitars, which are - physically and after all - different resonators / filters systems.

i understand the charm of tonerite for both players and builders, and it´s not that expensive, but still too good to be true. lastly, if you feel inclined, go and read Frank Ford´s post on guitars maturing (n. 17 on this page : http://theunofficialmartinguitarforum.y ... giQVlszKSo - hope it´s OK to link to another forum, if not please remove this). still an opinion, but a robust one.

cheers,
Miguel.

Ian Rossiter

Humm, this is all very,very interesting stuff.
Of course there is no real substitute for real playing time, I'm sure we all know that, and that no device can replace it...nor should it. But,it'd be kinda cool if this little thing helped the process along a wee' bit.
Good conversation/debate!!