1.
Headstock
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A headstock or peghead is part of a guitar or similar stringed instrument such as a lute, mandolin, banjo, ukulele and others of the lute lineage. The main function of a headstock is to house the pegs or mechanism that holds the strings at the head of the instrument, at the tail of the instrument the strings are usually held by a tailpiece or bridge. Machine heads on the headstock are commonly used to tune the instrument by adjusting the tension of strings and, consequentially, two traditional layouts of tuners are called 3+3 and 6 in line tuners, though many other combinations are known, especially for bass guitars and non-6-string guitars. When there are no heads, the guitar headstock may be missing completely. The headstock may be carved separately and glued to neck using some sort of joint, there are two major trends in headstock construction, based on how the string will go after passing the nut. The advantages and disadvantages of both trends are very debatable and subjective, so these two variants are used, Straight headstocks form a plane with a flat surface of neck. This makes neck and headstock easier to manufacture, they can be constructed from a piece of wood. Fender usually uses non-angled, straight headstocks, because of the low angle of the string over the nut, string trees may be used to avoid the string coming out of the nut while playing. Angled headstocks form some kind of angle with a surface of neck. The value of magic angle that gives the best tone and stability is also very debatable, but it is usually in a range from 3° to 25°. Fragile construction is cited as a disadvantage of each style too, single-piece necks are more likely to break on occasional hit and are harder to repair, apart from its main function, the headstock is an important decorative detail of a guitar. It is the place where overwhelming majority of guitar manufacturers draw their logo, some guitars without machine heads have a headstock for purely decorative reasons. Most major guitar brands have signature headstock designs that make their guitars or guitar series easily recognizable, on some electric guitars and basses the finish used on the body is also applied to the face of the headstock. Generally, matched-headstock models carry a premium over their plain counterparts due to the extra processes involved in the finishing process. Although Fender no longer offers matched headstocks on production models made in the United States or Mexico, generally, a guitar is only considered to have a matching headstock if the guitar is usually produced without matching body and headstock finishes
2.
Double bass
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The double bass, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra. It is an instrument and is typically notated one octave higher than sounding to avoid excessive ledger lines below the staff. The double bass is the modern bowed string instrument that is tuned in fourths, rather than fifths, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2. The instruments exact lineage is still a matter of some debate, the double bass is a standard member of the orchestras string section, as well as the concert band, and is featured in concertos, solo and chamber music in Western classical music. The bass is used in a range of genres, such as jazz, 1950s-style blues and rock and roll, rockabilly, psychobilly, traditional country music, bluegrass, tango. The double bass is played either with a bow or by plucking the strings, in orchestral repertoire and tango music, both arco and pizzicato are employed. In jazz, blues, and rockabilly, pizzicato is the norm, Classical music uses just the natural sound produced acoustically by the instrument, so does traditional bluegrass. In jazz, blues, and related genres, the bass is typically amplified with an amplifier and speaker, the double bass stands around 180 cm from scroll to endpin. However, other sizes are available, such as a 1⁄2 or 3⁄4 and these sizes do not reflect the size relative to a full size, or 4⁄4 bass, a 1⁄2 bass is not half the size of a bass but is only slightly smaller. It is typically constructed from several types of wood, including maple for the back, spruce for the top and it is uncertain whether the instrument is a descendant of the viola da gamba or of the violin, but it is traditionally aligned with the violin family. While the double bass is nearly identical in construction to other violin family instruments, like other violin and viol-family string instruments, the double bass is played either with a bow or by plucking the strings. In orchestral repertoire and tango music, both arco and pizzicato are employed, in jazz, blues, and rockabilly, pizzicato is the norm, except for some solos and also occasional written parts in modern jazz that call for bowing. In classical pedagogy, almost all of the focus is on performing with the bow and producing a good bowed tone, some of these articulations can be combined, for example, the combination of sul ponticello and tremolo can produce eerie, ghostly sounds. Classical bass players do play pizzicato parts in orchestra, but these parts generally require simple notes, vibrato is used to add expression to string playing. In general, very loud, low-register passages are played with little or no vibrato, mid- and higher-register melodies are typically played with more vibrato. The speed and intensity of the vibrato is varied by the performer for an emotional and musical effect, in jazz, rockabilly and other related genres, much or all of the focus is on playing pizzicato. In jazz and jump blues, bassists are required to play extremely rapid pizzicato walking basslines for extended periods, as well, jazz and rockabilly bassists develop virtuoso pizzicato techniques that enable them to play rapid solos that incorporate fast-moving triplet and sixteenth note figures. In jazz and related styles, bassists often add semi-percussive ghost notes into basslines, to add to the rhythmic feel and to add fills to a bassline
3.
Worm drive
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A worm drive is a gear arrangement in which a worm meshes with a worm gear. The two elements are called the worm screw and worm wheel. The terminology is confused by imprecise use of the term worm gear to refer to the worm. Like other gear arrangements, a drive can reduce rotational speed or transmit higher torque. A worm is an example of a screw, one of the six simple machines, a gearbox designed using a worm and worm-wheel is considerably smaller than one made from plain spur gears, and has its drive axes at 90° to each other. With a single start worm, for each 360° turn of the worm, therefore, regardless of the worms size, the gear ratio is the size of the worm gear - to -1. Given a single start worm, a 20 tooth worm gear reduces the speed by the ratio of 20,1, with spur gears, a gear of 12 teeth must match with a 240 tooth gear to achieve the same 20,1 ratio. There are three different types of gears that can be used in a worm drive, the first are non-throated worm gears. These dont have a throat, or groove, machined around the circumference of either the worm or worm wheel, the second are single-throated worm gears, in which the worm wheel is throated. The final type are double-throated worm gears, which have both gears throated and this type of gearing can support the highest loading. An enveloping worm has one or more teeth and increases in diameter from its middle portion toward both ends, double-enveloping wormgearing comprises enveloping worms mated with fully enveloping wormgears. It is also known as globoidal wormgearing and this can be an advantage when it is desired to eliminate any possibility of the output driving the input. If a multistart worm is used then the ratio reduces accordingly, Worm gear configurations in which the gear cannot drive the worm are called self-locking. Whether a worm and gear is self-locking depends on the angle, the pressure angle. The use of a worm screw reduced this effect, further worm drive development led to recirculating ball bearings to reduce frictional forces, which transmitted some steering force to the wheel. This aids vehicle control and reduces wear that could cause difficulties in steering precisely, Worm drives are a compact means of substantially decreasing speed and increasing torque. Worm drives are used in presses, rolling mills, conveying engineering, mining machines, on rudders. In addition, milling heads and rotary tables are positioned using high-precision duplex worm drives with adjustable backlash, Worm gears are used on many lift/elevator and escalator-drive applications due to their compact size and the non-reversibility of the gear
4.
Banjo
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The banjo is a four-, five- or six-stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity as a resonator, called the head. The membrane, or head, is made of plastic, although animal skin is still occasionally but rarely used. Early forms of the instrument were fashioned by Africans in America, the banjo is frequently associated with country, folk, Irish traditional and bluegrass music. Historically, the banjo occupied a place in African American traditional music. The banjo, with the fiddle, is a mainstay of American old-time music and it is also very frequently used in Traditional Jazz. The modern banjo derives from instruments that had used in the Caribbean since the 17th century by enslaved people taken from West Africa. Written references to the banjo in North America appear in the 18th century, the etymology of the name banjo is uncertain. The word could have come from the Yoruba word Bami jo and it may derive from the Kimbundu word mbanza. A Banza, a five double string courses Portuguese viuhela with two short strings, mbanza is a string African instrument that has been built after the Portuguese Banza. Banza is quite similar to Banjo, various instruments in Africa, chief among them the kora, feature a skin head and gourd body. Banjos with fingerboards and tuning pegs are known from the Caribbean as early as the 17th century, 18th- and early 19th-century writers transcribed the name of these instruments variously as bangie, banza, bonjaw, banjer and banjar. Instruments similar to the banjo have been played in many countries, another likely relative of the banjo is the akonting, a spike folk lute played by the Jola tribe of Senegambia, and the ubaw-akwala of the Igbo. Early, African-influenced banjos were built around a body and a wooden stick neck. These instruments had varying numbers of strings, though often including some form of drone, the five-string banjo was popularized by Joel Walker Sweeney, an American minstrel performer from Appomattox Court House, Virginia. In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white performer to play the banjo on stage and his version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth string. This new banjo was at first tuned dGdf♯a, though by the 1890s this had been transposed up to gcgbd, Banjos were introduced in Britain by Sweeneys group, the American Virginia Minstrels, in the 1840s, and became very popular in music halls. In the Antebellum South, many black slaves played the banjo, two techniques closely associated with the five-string banjo are rolls and drones. Rolls are right hand fingering pattern that consist of eight notes that subdivide each measure
5.
Gibson Firebird
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The Gibson Firebird is a solid-body electric guitar manufactured by Gibson from 1963 to the present. The Gibson Guitar Corporation released several new styles during the 1950s to compete with Fenders solid-body instruments, after success with the Les Paul in the 1950s, Gibsons popularity began to wane in the 1960s. Fenders colors, shapes and multiple pickups were endorsed by notable guitarists, Gibsons guitars, most of which were hollow or semi-hollow designs, seemed old-fashioned. Coupled with higher prices, this contributed to a decline in sales, Gibson had made forays into radical body shapes - the Flying V and Explorer in the 1950s - which met limited initial success. The president of Gibson, Ted McCarty, hired car designer Ray Dietrich to design a guitar that would have popular appeal, under Dietrich, the Firebird took on the lines of mid-50s car tailfins. Dietrich took the Explorer design and rounded the edges, the most unusual aspect is that the guitar is backward in that the right-hand horn of the body is longer than the other. Thus, the original Firebirds were unofficially referred to as reverse, the Firebird looks like an Explorer with softer points, or maybe a reverse Fender Jaguar or Jazzmaster. The Firebird is the first Gibson solid-body to use neck-through construction, the neck itself is made up of five plies of mahogany interspersed with four narrow strips of walnut for added strength. Other features were reverse headstock and banjo-style planetary geared tuning keys, there are no screw poles on Firebird pickups. Some Firebirds from 1965 featured Gibsons single-coil P-90 pickup, the Firebird line went on sale in mid-1963 with four models distinguished by pickup and tailpiece configurations. Unlike the Les Paul and SG line, which used the terms Junior, Special, Standard and Custom, Gibsons line of Thunderbird basses is rooted in the design of the Firebird, and uses even Roman numerals to distinguish it. From 1965 to 1969, Gibson introduced non-reverse models after failing to achieve marketing success with the unusual reverse-body design, Gibson had also received complaints from Fender that the Firebird headstock mirrored the Stratocaster and that the body violated Fenders design patents, with Fender threatening a lawsuit. The non-reverse body is a more standard double-cutaway design, with the horn being longer than the treble horn. It also had a standard glued-in neck rather than construction, as well as other, less noticeable changes in design. Pickup and tailpiece configuration for the V and VII were the same as the earlier models, although the I-. After a few years of disappointing sales, the line was dropped. Reverse body Firebirds were first reissued in 1972, with a commemorative Bicentennial modelreleased in 1976, the bicentennial model was distinguished by a red-white-blue logo on the white pickguard. The logo on most other models is red, the reissue Firebirds are usually based on the original reverse body design, however Gibson reintroduced the non-reverse Firebird in 2002 as a Custom Shop guitar
6.
Classical guitar
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The classical guitar is the member of the guitar family used in classical music. It is an acoustical wooden guitar with strings made of nylon, the traditional classical guitar has twelve frets clear of the body and is held on the left leg, so that the hand that plucks or strums the strings does so near the back of the soundhole. The modern steel string guitar, on the hand, usually has fourteen frets clear of the body and is commonly played off the hip. Examples of early guitars include the early romantic guitar. Classical guitar strings once made of catgut are now made of polymers as nylon. A guitar family tree may be identified, the flamenco guitar derives from the modern classical, but has differences in material, construction and sound. Todays modern classical guitar was established by the designs of the 19th-century Spanish luthier. Cultural baroque court music, 19th century opera and its influences, 19th century folk songs, Latin American music, thus over recent decades we have become accustomed to specialist artists with expertise in the art of vihuela, lute, Baroque guitar, 19th-century guitar, etc. Different types of guitars have different sound aesthetics, e. g. different colour-spectrum characteristics, different response and these guitars in turn sound different from the Torres models used by Segovia, that are suited for interpretations of romantic-modern works such as Moreno Torroba. When considering the guitar from a perspective, the musical instrument used is just as important as the musical language. As an example, It is impossible to play a historically informed de Visee or Corbetta on a classical guitar. The reason is that the guitar used courses, which are two strings close together, that are plucked together. This gives baroque guitars an unmistakable sound characteristic and tonal texture that is an part of an interpretation. Additionally the sound aesthetic of the guitar is very different from modern classical type guitars. However, they are considered to emphasize the fundamental too heavily for earlier repertoire, Some attribute this to the popularity of Segovia, considering him the catalyst for change toward the Spanish design and the so-called modern school in the 1920s and beyond. Some people consider it to have been influence of Segovia. It was the 19th century classical guitarist Francisco Tárrega who first popularized the Torres design as a solo instrument. Vihuela, renaissance guitars and baroque guitars have a bright sound - rich in overtones -, later in Spain a style of music emerged that favored a stronger fundamental, With the change of music a stronger fundamental was demanded and the fan bracing system was approached
7.
Steel-string acoustic guitar
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The steel-string acoustic guitar is a modern form of guitar that descends from the classical guitar, but is strung with steel strings for a brighter, louder sound. It is often referred to simply as a guitar, though the nylon-strung classical guitar is also sometimes called an acoustic guitar. The most common type is called a flat top guitar, to distinguish it from the more specialized archtop guitar. The standard tuning for a guitar is E-A-D-G-B-E, although many players, particularly fingerpickers, use alternate tunings, such as open G, open D. There are many variations in construction and materials used in steel-string guitars, different combinations of woods and construction elements affect the timbre or tone of the guitar. Many players and luthiers are convinced that a well-made guitars tone improves over time, acoustic guitars are commonly constructed in several different body types. The proportion and overall size of two parts helps determine the overall tonal balance and native sound of a particular body style – the larger the body. The 00, also called the Double-Oh or the Grand Concert and it has the thinnest soundbox and the smallest overall size of the major styles, making it very comfortable to play but also one of the quietest. Its smaller size makes it suitable for younger or smaller-framed players and these guitars are commonly called parlor steels as they are well-suited to smaller rooms. Martins 00-xxx series and Taylors x12 series are common examples, the Grand Auditorium guitar, sometimes called the 000 or the Triple-Oh, is very similar in design to the Grand Concert, but slightly wider and deeper. Many 000-style guitars also have a back panel to increase the volume of space in the soundbox without making the soundbox deeper at the edges. Eric Claptons signature Martin guitar, for example, is of this style, Martins 000-xxx series and Taylors x14 series are well-known examples of the Grand Auditorium style. The Dreadnought style was designed by Martin Guitars to produce a deeper sound than classic-style guitars and this body styles combination of a small profile with a deep sound has made it immensely popular, and it has since been copied by virtually every major steel-string luthier. Martins D series guitars, such as the highly-prized D-28, are examples of the Dreadnought. This comes at the expense of being oversized, with a very deep sounding box, the foremost example of this style is the Gibson J-200, but like the Dreadnought, most guitar manufacturers have at least one jumbo model. Any of these body type can optionally incorporate a cutaway, a cutaway guitar has a redesigned upper bout that removes a section of the soundbox on the underside of the neck, hence the name cutaway. This allows for access to the frets that are located on top of the soundbox past the heel of the neck. The tradeoff is reduced soundbox volume, and often a change in bracing, the 12-string guitar replaces each single string with a course of two strings
8.
Electric guitar
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The vibrations of the strings are sensed by a pickup, of which the most common type is the magnetic pickup, which uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction. The signal generated by a guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is plugged into a guitar amplifier before being sent to a loudspeaker. The output of a guitar is an electric signal. Invented in 1931, the electric guitar was adopted by jazz guitarists. Early proponents of the guitar on record included Les Paul, Lonnie Johnson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, T-Bone Walker. During the 1950s and 1960s, the guitar became the most important instrument in pop music. It has evolved into an instrument that is capable of a multitude of sounds and styles in genres ranging from pop and rock to country music, blues and jazz. It served as a component in the development of electric blues, rock and roll, rock music, heavy metal music. Electric guitar design and construction vary greatly in the shape of the body and the configuration of the neck, bridge, Guitars may have a fixed bridge or a spring-loaded hinged bridge that lets players bend the pitch of notes or chords up or down or perform vibrato effects. The sound of a guitar can be modified by new playing techniques such as string bending, tapping, hammering on, using audio feedback, in a small group, such as a power trio, one guitarist switches between both roles. In larger rock and metal bands, there is often a rhythm guitarist, many experiments at electrically amplifying the vibrations of a string instrument were made dating back to the early part of the 20th century. Patents from the 1910s show telephone transmitters were adapted and placed inside violins, hobbyists in the 1920s used carbon button microphones attached to the bridge, however, these detected vibration from the bridge on top of the instrument, resulting in a weak signal. With numerous people experimenting with electrical instruments in the 1920s and early 1930s, Electric guitars were originally designed by acoustic guitar makers and instrument manufacturers. Some of the earliest electric guitars adapted hollow-bodied acoustic instruments and used tungsten pickups, the first electrically amplified guitar was designed in 1931 by George Beauchamp, the general manager of the National Guitar Corporation, with Paul Barth, who was vice president. The maple body prototype for the one-piece cast aluminum frying pan was built by Harry Watson, commercial production began in late summer of 1932 by the Ro-Pat-In Corporation, in Los Angeles, a partnership of Beauchamp, Adolph Rickenbacker, and Paul Barth. In 1934, the company was renamed the Rickenbacker Electro Stringed Instrument Company, in that year Beauchamp applied for a United States patent for an Electrical Stringed Musical Instrument and the patent was issued in 1937. The Electro-Spanish Ken Roberts provided players a full 25 scale, with 17 frets free of the fretboard and it is estimated that fewer than 50 Electro-Spanish Ken Roberts were constructed between 1933 and 1937, fewer than 10 are known to survive today. The need for the guitar became apparent during the big band era as orchestras increased in size, particularly when acoustic guitars had to compete with large
9.
Gibson Les Paul
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The Gibson Les Paul is a solid body electric guitar that was first sold by the Gibson Guitar Corporation in 1952. The Les Paul was designed by Gibson president Ted McCarty, factory manager John Huis and their team, the Les Paul was originally offered with a gold finish and two P-90 pickups. In 1957, humbucking pickups were added, along with sunburst finishes in 1958, the sunburst 1958–1960 Les Paul – today one of the best-known electric guitar types in the world – was considered a failure, with low production and sales. For 1961, the Les Paul was redesigned into what is now known as the Gibson SG and this design continued as a separate guitar when the traditional single cutaway, carved top bodystyle was re-introduced in 1963. The Les Paul has been produced in countless versions and editions since. Along with Fenders Telecaster and Stratocaster, it was one of the first mass-produced electric solid-body guitars, Les Pauls have been used in many genres, including rock, country, pop, soul, rhythm and blues, blues, jazz, reggae, punk, and heavy metal. In 1950, the ancestors of Fender Telecaster were introduced to the musical market, in reaction to market demand, Gibson Guitar president Ted McCarty brought guitarist Les Paul into the company as a consultant. Les Paul was an innovator who had been experimenting with guitar design for years. He hand-built a solid-body prototype called The Log, often suggested as the first solid-body Spanish guitar ever built, in 1951, Paul, McCarty, and his team at the Gibson Guitar Corporation began work on what would eventually become the Les Paul Model. Early prototypes are very similar to the final version, the new Les Paul guitar was to be an expensive, well-made instrument in accordance with Gibsons reputation at the time. Although recollections differ regarding who contributed what to the Les Paul design, however, this reversal would have caused the guitar to become too heavy, and Pauls request was refused. Paul states that the original Custom should have had the maple cap, Les Pauls contributions to the guitar line bearing his name were more than cosmetic, but certainly included them. For example, Paul specified that the guitar be offered in a finish, not only for flashiness. The later-issue Les Paul models included flame maple and quilted maple tops, the 1952 Les Pauls featured two P-90 single coil pickups, and a one-piece, trapeze-style bridge/tailpiece with strings fitted under a steel stop-bar. The guitar made its debut when Paul used it onstage in June,1952. On July 24,1952, at a special musicians clinic at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, it was previewed by prominent guitarists such as Tiger Haynes, George Barnes, Mundell Lowe, Tony Mottola, and Billy Mure. The clinic preceded the annual NAMM Show held at the New Yorker hotel starting July 27, a second Les Paul model was introduced in 1953. Called the Les Paul Custom, this guitar with gold-plated hardware was dubbed the Black Beauty
10.
Fender Telecaster
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The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele /ˈtɛli/, is the worlds first commercially successful solid-body electric guitar. Its simple yet effective design and revolutionary sound broke ground and set trends in electric guitar manufacturing, the Fender Telecaster was developed by Leo Fender in Fullerton, California in 1950. In the period roughly between 1932 and 1949, several craftsmen and companies experimented with electric guitars, but none had made a significant impact on the market. Leo Fenders Telecaster was the design that made bolt-on neck, solid body guitars viable in the marketplace, players had been wiring up their instruments in search of greater volume and projection since the late 1920s, and electric semi-acoustics had long been widely available. That hand-built prototype, a white guitar, had most of the features of what would become the Telecaster. The initial single-pickup production model appeared in 1950, and was called the Esquire, fewer than fifty guitars were originally produced under that name, and most were replaced under warranty because of early manufacturing problems. In particular, the Esquire necks had no truss rod and many were replaced due to bent necks, later in 1950, this single-pickup model was discontinued, and a two-pickup model was renamed the Broadcaster. From this point onwards all Fender necks incorporated truss rods, the Esquire was reintroduced in 1951 as a single pickup Telecaster, at a lower price. The so-called Nocaster was a variant of Telecaster. Produced in early to mid-1951, it was the result of action from the Gretsch company over the guitars previous name. By the summer of 1951 the guitar was officially renamed as the Telecaster and has known as such ever since. The term Nocaster was originally coined by collectors to denote these transitional guitars that appeared without a name on the headstock. Since they were manufactured in this form for only a few very early in the Broadcaster/Telecasters history, original Nocasters are highly prized. There are no official numbers, but experts estimate that fewer than 500 Nocasters were produced. Fender has since registered Nocaster as a trademark to denote its modern replicas of this famous rarity, in 1951, Fender released the innovative and musically influential Precision Bass as a similar looking stable-mate to the Telecaster. This body style was released as the Fender Telecaster Bass in 1968 after the Precision Bass had been changed in 1957 to make it more closely resemble the Stratocaster guitar. Leo Fenders simple and modular design was geared to mass production, Guitars were not constructed individually, as in traditional luthiery. Rather, components were produced quickly and inexpensively in quantity and assembled into a guitar on an assembly line, the bodies were bandsawn and routed from slabs, rather than hand-carved individually, as with other guitars made at the time, such as Gibsons
11.
Fender Stratocaster
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The Fender Stratocaster is a model of electric guitar designed in 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporation has continuously manufactured the Stratocaster from 1954 to the present and it is a double-cutaway guitar, with an extended top horn shape for balance. Along with the Gibson Les Paul, it is one of the most often emulated electric guitar shapes, Stratocaster and Strat are trademark terms belonging to Fender. The Fender Stratocaster was the first guitar to feature three pickups and a spring tension tremolo system, as well as being the first Fender with a contoured body, the Stratocasters sleek, contoured body shape differed from the flat, slab-like design of the Telecaster. The Stratocasters double cutaways allowed players access to higher positions on the neck. Starting in 1954, the Stratocaster was offered with a solid, deeply contoured ash body, a 21-fret one-piece maple neck with black dot inlays, the color was originally a two color sunburst pattern, although custom color guitars were produced. In 1956, Fender began using alder for sunburst and most custom color Stratocaster bodies, in 1960, the available custom colors were standardized, many of which were automobile lacquer colors from DuPont available at an additional 5% cost. A unique single-ply, 8-screw hole white pickguard held all electronic components except the recessed jack plate—facilitating easy assembly, in this floating position, players could move the bridge-mounted tremolo arm up or down to modulate the pitch of the notes being played. Hank Marvin, Jeff Beck and Ike Turner used the Strats floating tremolo extensively in their playing, as string gauges have changed, players have experimented with the number of tremolo springs, and modern Stratocasters ship with three springs. Some Strats have a bridge in place of the tremolo assembly. There is considerable debate about the effects on tone and sustain of the used in the tremolo systems inertia bar. The Stratocaster features three single coil pickups, with the originally selected by a 3-way switch. In 1977 Fender introduced a 5-way selector making such pickup combinations more stable, dick Dale is a prominent Stratocaster player who also collaborated with Leo Fender in developing the Fender Showman amplifier. In the early 1960s, the instrument was also championed by Hank Marvin, guitarist for the Shadows, in 1965, George Harrison and John Lennon acquired Stratocasters and used them for Help. Rubber Soul and later recording sessions, the double unison guitar solo on Nowhere Man is played by Harrison and Lennon on their new Stratocasters, after the introduction of the Fender Stratocaster Ultra series in 1989, ebony was officially selected as a fretboard material on some models. In December 1965 the Stratocaster was given a broader headstock with altered decals to match the size of the Jazzmaster, during the CBS era, particularly the 1970s, the perceived quality of Fender instruments fell. During this time, vintage instruments from the era became popular. Dan Smith, with the help of John Page, proceeded to work on a reissue of the most popular guitars of Leo Fenders era
12.
Music Man (company)
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Music Man is an American guitar and bass guitar manufacturer. It is a division of the Ernie Ball corporation, the Music Man story began in 1971 when Forrest White and Tom Walker formed a company they would call Tri-Sonix, Inc. Tom Walker approached Leo Fender about financial help in forming Tri-Sonix, Tom Walker worked as a sales rep at Fender. Because of a 10-year non-compete clause in the 1965 contract that sold the Fender companies to CBS, the name of this partnership was changed to Musitek, Inc. by 1973 and in January 1974 the final name, Music Man, appeared. Leo Fender did not like the name Tri-Sonix, so the name evolved under Leo Fenders suggestion to call the new company Music Man, in 1974, the company started producing its first product, an amplifier designed by Leo Fender and Tom Walker called the Sixty Five. It was a hybrid of tube and solid state technology, the number of designs rapidly increased. 15 of the 28 pages from 1976 catalogue were dedicated to amplification, in 1975, Fenders legal restriction had expired and after a vote of the board he was named the president of Music Man. However, this wasnt Fenders sole enterprise and he also owned and ran a consulting firm called CLF Research in Fullerton, California. By 1976, it had built a facility for musical instruments and was contracted to make Music Man products. In June 1976, production started on guitars and in August basses followed, the 1976 catalogue shows the first offerings, A two pickup guitar called the StingRay 1 and the StingRay Bass. The StingRay Bass featured a single large hum-bucking pickup with a two-band fixed-frequency EQ, a row of string mutes sat on the bridge. Basses were produced in fretted and fretless versions and these instruments were designed by Leo Fender and Forrest White. Tom Walker played a part in the design of the bass preamp. They were the first production guitar and basses to use active electronics which could boost levels in selected frequency bands, the preamps were coated with epoxy to prevent reverse engineering. While highly innovative electronically, the guitar was not blessed cosmetically, part of the reason for the poor sales of the guitar was that the preamp actually made the sound too clean for most Rock and Roll guitarists. In December 1978, a two pickup bass was introduced called the Sabre, a redesigned guitar bearing the same name followed. CLF Research and Music Man were treated as separate companies, headed by Leo Fender and Tommy Walker, Fender made the guitars and basses, while Walkers company made the amplifiers and sold accessories. The instruments were made at CLF and shipped to Music Mans warehouse, problems with fibers in the finish caused Music Mans inspectors to reject a high percentage of the instruments, and return them to CLF for refinishing
