{"id":452921,"date":"2026-02-06T18:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T18:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/452921\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T18:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T18:02:12","slug":"jason-isbell-elaborates-on-his-unorthodox-method-of-breaking-guitars-in-by-playing-outkast-for-hours-straight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/452921\/","title":{"rendered":"Jason Isbell elaborates on his unorthodox method of breaking guitars in by playing Outkast for hours straight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jason Isbell<\/a> got the guitar world talking last year when he revealed his unusual method of breaking in his guitars<\/a>, which involves blasting loud \u2013 and preferably bass-heavy \u2013 music in order to get the wood moving.<\/p>\n

Sharing the unorthodox method while unveiling his fresh pre-war-inspired signature Martin 0-17 and 0-10E Retro acoustics<\/a>, Isbell revealed Outkast to be the artist he generally opts to subject his fresh-out-the-box guitars to.<\/p>\n

Now, in a new interview with Guitarist<\/a> magazine, the Americana star says he continues to swear by the technique, despite not having \u201cany real way of quantifying it\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I take a new acoustic guitar out of the case for the first time, it sounds new to me,\u201d Isbell says. \u201cSo I leave it in front of the speakers and play some music \u2013 something with a lot of bass, like Outkast \u2013 just to keep the wood moving.\u201d<\/p>\n

He goes on: \u201cI think there are devices that do it now, where you can put them in the soundhole and they\u2019ll 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve done no scientific testing,\u201d he says, \u201cbut I think it helps to bring it in a little quicker.\u201d<\/p>\n

We all know the feeling of playing a guitar that\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the interview, Isbell reflects on his personal relationship with Martin guitars over the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always held Martin in the highest regard,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I was a kid, I had a lawsuit guitar \u2013 y\u2019know, one of those from the late \u201870s 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, \u2018Oh, this is as good as it gets. This is the best possible guitar you could play.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

And speaking to us here at Guitar.com in December<\/a>, Isbell shared a similar sentiment:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never felt like I could do something that a Martin couldn\u2019t do,\u201d Isbell enthused. \u201cYou know, it\u2019s kind of like my laptop. Especially with the really good old ones or the nice Custom Shop new ones. It\u2019s like I\u2019m doing emails on here, and this thing could operate a city or an automobile, y\u2019know?<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so I think that\u2019s it \u2013 you don\u2019t 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\u2019s always been the case for me with Martins.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jason Isbell got the guitar world talking last year when he revealed his unusual method of breaking in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[212146,12566,4,450,518,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-452921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-acoustic-guitars","tag-artist","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-gear","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}