Your Guitar Needs Humidity!

Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke BSEd, MA

"songthief"

Besides the structural and wood protecting aspect
of using a humidifier, there are also sonic benefits.
If you're interested in seeing how the sound of your
guitar will be affected by improved humidity, here's
a simple experiment you can do.

Right now, while the guitar is dry, take that guitar
and a watch into a quiet room. Strum the open strings
good and hard to get them moving. Time how long it takes
for the sound of the strings to completely die out and
stop sustaining. Do it a couple of times to get a good average.

Then when your humidifier arrives, install it and allow
it to do it's thing for a couple of weeks.

After that couple of weeks, repeat the sustain timing
experiment. It's a pretty sure bet that you will be
able to measure increased sustain.

You'll likely experience overall volume increase and
a little more "brilliance" in tone as well, but those
things are a little harder to measure.

- Here's the reasoning -

Wood is made up of millions of cells. Those cells, when
the tree is alive, are filled with water. When the tree
is cut down, it is dried, then milled into lumber, then
stored (dried even more) and eventually shaped into our guitars.

Wood will continue to dry out as it gets older.
Dry wood is millions of cells no longer filled with
water, but now filled with air.

Water is a better conductor of sound than air. If you
knock on the bottom of your boat, the fish can
hear it for a great distance. If the boat was out
of the water, the sound wouldn't travel as far in the air.

Air is an insulator of heat and sound. Fiberglass
insulation, goose down, long john underwear are all
made up of "air spaces" or "cells". If you hold a
pillow in front of your face while singing, the
person on the other side of that pillow can't
hear you as well as if you didn't have the pillow.

So as our guitars dry out, they become a box made
up of millions of air filled cells or insulators.
The purpose of the box and bracing and all the other
components of a guitar is to take the tiny sounds
produced by the vibration of the strings, and
amplify that vibration into an audible sound.
If the guitar is essentially an insulator, that
ability to transmit sound waves is hindered.

Humidifiers put back some of the moisture
that time takes away from our guitars. It allows
the sound vibrations to more easily travel through
the bridge, top, braces, back, sides etc. The result
is louder sound, more separated tones, more balanced
tones from treble to bass.

To wet the humidifier, simply hold it under the tap
for a few seconds. Squeeze it a little to allow the
internal sponge to fill. Then shake it, towel dry it,
wring it out. We want it MOIST internally, not WET externally.

At this point, I recommend playing your guitar for
a while. Allow the humidifier to dry off just a little,
and you get to play for a while..;-)

Then, when you're finished playing, hang the thing in
the guitar soundhole, as shown on the picture on the
package. Tomorrow, repeat the entire process, and be
sure to NOT leave out the step about "play your guitar"..:-)

For the first few days, your humidifier may need refilling
every 24 hrs. Your guitar will suck up moisture at a faster
rate now, while it is dry. Then after a few days, the rate
of evaporation from the humidifier will slow and you might
not need to recharge it every day. You CAN recharge it as
often as you like. It won't overhumidify the guitar. As long
as the sponge feels soft and moist, it is working. If the
sponge feels hard and dry, it needs wetting or recharging.

After a few years, you may see white mineral deposits on
the outside of the humidifier rubber parts. When that
happens, treat it as you would a coffee maker. Soak
the thing in vinegar for a few minutes, then brush
and rinse it off and it's good as new.

Also after a few years, the ends of the rubber tube
may become enlarged so that the rubber stoppers fall
out. Or the ends may dry and become cracked. When
this happens, simply snip off the last half inch
or so with regular scissors. I have some humidifiers
that have been in use for 30+ years. They have lost
maybe an inch and a half over the years. They still
work just fine.

Unless you lose it or the dog eats it, your humidifier
should last virtually forever.

................................................ Lumpy