Electric Guitar

Electric guitars were originally designed by guitar makers and instrument manufacturers. Guitar innovator Les Paul experimented with microphones attached to guitars. Some of the earliest electric guitars adapted hollow bodied acoustic instruments and used tungsten pickups. The first electrically amplified guitar was invented by George Beauchamp in 1931. Commercial production began in late summer of 1932 by the Ro-Pat-In Corporation (Electro-Patent-Instrument Company Los Angeles), a partnership of Beauchamp, Adolph Rickenbacker, and Paul Barth. The wooden body of the prototype was built by Harry Watson, a craftsman who had worked for the National Resophonic Guitar Company. By 1934 the company was renamed Rickenbacker Electro Stringed Instrument Company.

The need for the amplified guitar became apparent during the big band era as orchestras increased in size, particularly when guitars had to compete with large brass sections. The first electric guitars used in jazz were hollow archtop acoustic guitar bodies with electromagnetic transducers. By 1932 an electrically amplified guitar was commercially available. Early electric guitar manufacturers include: Rickenbacker (first called Ro-Pat-In) in 1932, Dobro in 1933, National, AudioVox and Volu-tone in 1934,Vega, Epiphone (Electrophone and Electar), and Gibson in 1935 and many others by 1936.

The solid body electric guitar is made of solid wood, without functionally resonating air spaces. Rickenbacher offered a cast aluminum electric steel guitar, nicknamed "The Frying Pan" or "The Pancake Guitar", developed in 1931 with production beginning in the summer of 1932. This guitar sounds quite modern and aggressive.

Posted in: Gitar Elektrik