Jason Isbell got the guitar world talking last year when he revealed his unusual method of breaking in his guitars, which involves blasting loud – and preferably bass-heavy – music in order to get the wood moving.
Sharing the unorthodox method while unveiling his fresh pre-war-inspired signature Martin 0-17 and 0-10E Retro acoustics, Isbell revealed Outkast to be the artist he generally opts to subject his fresh-out-the-box guitars to.
Now, in a new interview with Guitarist magazine, the Americana star says he continues to swear by the technique, despite not having “any real way of quantifying it”.
“When I take a new acoustic guitar out of the case for the first time, it sounds new to me,” Isbell says. “So I leave it in front of the speakers and play some music – something with a lot of bass, like Outkast – just to keep the wood moving.”
He goes on: “I think there are devices that do it now, where you can put them in the soundhole and they’ll just constantly keep the vibrations going. I used to set the guitar out on a table and prop an EBow up on either the D or G string and just leave it there until the battery ran out.”
“I’ve done no scientific testing,” he says, “but I think it helps to bring it in a little quicker.”
We all know the feeling of playing a guitar that’s been thoroughly broken in; somehow, through hours and hours of playing, it just feels more comfortable to play, and has more character in its tone. So we can totally buy that artificially vibrating the wood with loud music might have a similar effect in getting things on their way.
Elsewhere in the interview, Isbell reflects on his personal relationship with Martin guitars over the years.
“I’ve always held Martin in the highest regard,” he says. “When I was a kid, I had a lawsuit guitar – y’know, one of those from the late ‘70s when everybody was ripping Martin off. And then there was an uncle of mine who had a herringbone D-28 he would bring by, and everybody would pass it around and play it. I just remember feeling like, ‘Oh, this is as good as it gets. This is the best possible guitar you could play.’”
And speaking to us here at Guitar.com in December, Isbell shared a similar sentiment:
“I’ve never felt like I could do something that a Martin couldn’t do,” Isbell enthused. “You know, it’s kind of like my laptop. Especially with the really good old ones or the nice Custom Shop new ones. It’s like I’m doing emails on here, and this thing could operate a city or an automobile, y’know?
“And so I think that’s it – you don’t want your tools to create the ceiling. You want your creativity to create the ceiling and the tools should be able to follow you there. And that’s always been the case for me with Martins.”
Sam is the Associate News Editor for Guitar.com and MusicTech. Thoroughly immersed in music culture for the majority of his life, Sam has played guitar for 20 years, studied music technology and production at university, and also written for the likes of Guitar World, Total Guitar, Metal Hammer and MusicRadar.