D'AddarioAccessories Guitar Humidifier - Acoustic Guitar Soundhole Humidifier with Sponge - Non Drip - Suspends from Strings

Its a simple solution to a simple problem, keeping your guitar humidified. Its not a good solution if you go long periods of time without playing your guitar. Obviously, keep your guitar in a closed case while not in use. You will need to refresh it every few days during winter in Maine. But it works well for my purposes.I play my guitar nearly every day, the guitar is stored in its case while not in use. The guitar lives in New England. Your results may vary.

Your wooden musical instruments need to be properly humidified, especially during the winter when home heating systems dry out the air. These are easy to use and work great.I did notice, though, that sponges in the new ones are not as large as what I got a couple of years ago.

I thought I would throw my two-cents in about the new design and effectiveness of this soundhole humidifier.After making a few homemade case humidifiers out of things like a travel butter container with many holes drilled into it and a sponge, I started thinking about how some of the cases separate the body cavity from the neck & headstock cavity inside the guitar case and not allowing the humidity to flow freely to all areas, especially the body where it is needed the most.Even though I was getting acceptable humidification in the case I was concerned about the body being dryer in comparison so I went ahead and splurged the 8 bucks on these. (I actually bought three of them.)I crank the gas heat up in the house in the winter and A/C in the summer, keep my guitars inside their cases and inside a closet. The humidity drops quite low, but the sponges remain moist for several days before I can no longer fight the urge to re-wet them. lol.Two great tips in one:Use a regular, more dense sponge, thicker like the ones at the dollar store. Cut them to size and stuff them in!Throw away the sponge when it starts to get yucky and don't worry about distilled water, unless you want to. I can't argue using very pure water compared to the possibly toxic crap that comes out our faucets, but for one dollar you can get a boat load of them after you cut them to size, and toss them away without any regard when needing replaced.Don't worry about the "thing" hanging in-between your strings. It will not damage anything unless you get the sponge too saturated and it leaks. I will either squeeze the excess water out, or shake the container with the sponge inside until I am satisfied that it won't drip.The humidifier will not cause any stress or damage to your strings by spreading them when you wedge this inside your soundhole.If you ARE rough, careless, thoughtless, or stupid, you could possibly knock this loose and have it rub or fall out, but I would be more worried about the guitar and what it would take for this to happen. This would be more extreme to the guitar than the humidifier or any harm it could cause.The top snaps on by squeezing the sides to release little tabs that stick through the top cover. The sponge inside is quite small, and there isn't too much room for a much larger sponge. The device is simple and fairly solid. Treat it gently and it will last forever. You can easily clean the inside or run it through a dishwasher. If you give the inside a quick rinse every few fills, I'm sure it would be a decade before anything "built up" to require extensive cleaning or replacement.Keep an eye on it for the first few days and then weeks to get a feel for when you should be re-wetting the sponge.Try to keep the sponge moist when it's dry.I strongly suggest getting an Oasis case humidifier, (or similar) mini sized about 1" X 4" costing around 17-20 bucks.This will take any guesswork out of the equation and give you fairly accurate readings inside your guitar or instrument case.Remember, too much humidity can cause your acoustic guitar to warp. Too dry and it will shrink and crack, split the soundboard (top) also leaving the edges of the frets sticking out like the backbone of a fish and quite abrasive!If you spent more than one hundred dollars on your guitar and live where it gets cold and/or dry, you would be negligent (if not careless) to spend the pittance to make sure your 'baby ain't thirsty', or worse...dead & broken!Hope this helps!

User friendly works good

I have found I do not prefer this style of humidifier.However they work well as designed.

Sponge dries out quicker than other brands we use.

THESE WORK GREAT EVERYONE WHO OWNS AN ACOUSTIC GUITAR SHOULD OWN ONE.

I bought several of these to use on my Taylor guitars during the colder/drier 6 months of the year here in Washington DC. I've tried pretty much every guitar humidifier out there, and these Walden Planet Waves ones are the best.The material used in this humidifier seems to hold the water MUCH better than the sponge types. It gets quite dry in my apartment in the winter, but I only have to add water once per week to my 4 guitars. With many other humidifiers you end up having to add water once every other day, which is just too often when you have 4 guitars to take care of.I keep a single gallon of distilled water for these. I fill a shot glass with water and then fill the syringe and inject into the humidifier until it's saturated. A brand new one might take a few syringes worth to become saturated, but I only end up adding 1 to 1.5 syringes per week after that, and the guitars are hovering nicely in the 45 to 50% range.I plan to buy a handful more soon.EDIT 11/2/2013: I don't think Planet Waves makes the same humidifiers anymore. The new version of their humidifier has a different type of sponge, which I believe probably dries out much more quickly than the old version, though admittedly I have not yet confirmed at the time of this writing. The old material wasn't a sponge at all but rather was some other type of water-retaining material. I believe it was actually a floral foam, absorbent material. Be mindful of what you're purchasing. I'm not sure that a better, longer-lasting humidifier exists, but my original review above was based on the older version of the humidifier made from a different material than the newer ones which use a standard sponge. I plan to purchase some standalone floral foam to insert into my Planet Waves humidifiers to replace the old foam that was in their previously but has since worn out.