This little essay comes from the Grex Jeopardy item in the Agora conference, and it's relocated here with cyklone's permission. The original "answer" was about the non-musician responsible for the sound of much contemporary music, or some phrasing like that, and the "question" was "who is Leo Fender?" ------- #86 of 86: by Cyklone (cyklone) on Fri, Apr 24, 1998 (08:51): McNally has got it. The other person to whom I was refering was Les Paul, but Les was also a chart-topping musician. Leo and Les defined the *sound* of popular music by perfecting electronic pick-ups for stringed instruments, thus permitting the widespread use of electric guitars and basses. Even many "acoustic" musicians benefit from the Leo and Les, inasmuch as there are now electronic pick-ups for those instruments. However, neither man invented the pick-up. Early jazz pioneers such as Charlie Christian were electrifying guitars in the big band era. The sound was extremely feeble though, and feedback was also a problem. Les Paul invented the "humbucking" (double-coil) pickup that was a quantum leap from existing technology. Les affiliated with the Gibson company, which eventually named one of its most popular guitars after him. Leo, who did not have the musical talent of Les, is best known for creating some of the most popular electric instruments of all time: the Stratocaster, the Telecaster, the Precision Bass and the Jazz Bass. Even now the pickup type/layout of those guitars is imitated by Fender's competitors, and virtually every electric guitarist/bassist has at some time owned or played one of these four instruments. Indeed, a review of the VH-1 list would reveal that the vast majority of those listed had a connection to Fender instruments. In 1964, Fender sold his company to CBS, but stayed on. In the 80s (I think) he left to form another company called Music Man. He later left Music Man and formed his final company: G & L. Even his G & L instruments had a little "Designed by Leo Fender" logo to capitalize on his name. Leo died in 1990 or 91. When he died I ran out and bought a G & L bass, the SB-2, which IMNSHO was the epitome of Fender's idea of the electric bass. Flawless construction, built to close tolerances and using Precision and Jazz bass style pickups, it has only two knobs (volume for each pickup) and no active electronics. It is damn near perfect.40 responses total.
As Senna pointed out after this entry, the design of the guitar under the pickups was also quite important. In particular, the solid-body guitar was also a very important development, as it permitted higher volumes without feedback. Nevertheless, hollow- and semi-hollow electric guitars remained popular for many, particularly blues and jazz players. And of course, many musicians discovered the joys of making a solid-body guitar feed back as well.
define IMNSHO? active electronics? They've built that into electric guitars? (I am aware that guitars have been MIDI implemented-- I think as an alternative to a wah-wah pedal, somewhat.) how does Muddy Waters fit into this? I understand he started the fashion of electric guitar in blues and is considered by some musicologists as the granddaddy of rock n' roll. Those not familiar with acoustic guitars should remember that pickups were designed only for steel-stringed 'folk' (flat-top) acoustics. Nylon stringed 'classical' guitars have not been electrified, as far as I know. Makes me wonder how classical guitars play solos with orchestral accompaniment (besides having the orchestra fall silent when the soloist takes the melody again). It would be nice to have a separate item for acoustic guitars, especially classical and flamenco guitars, discussing pioneers such as Fernando Sor and Andres Segovia, discussing the craftmanship of these instruments and makers like Manning, Tekaki, etc. (which I'd like to find out), how these instruments came to be played on the fingernails, etc., etc., etc. I'd also like to hear more about 10-string and 12-string classical guitars. (Yes, 10-stringed guitars do exist!) There is also a little 10-stringed Spanish guitar made from an armadillo shell, but I can't remember its name. Ah...it's a charango! (It's Bolivian/Peruvian, actually. Did a little web searching. Heh. Sorry-- I love Spanish/Latin American culture :) ) Sorry-- got on a tangent. Keep talking; I'm listening.
By active electronics I am refering to battery operated preamps that are built into guitars for volume boost and sometimes for EQ. As far as the putting a pickup on a classical guitar, I believe that is possible, although mikes may still be the more common method. The new pickups can be placed almost anywhere on the vibrating portion of the instrument. They are called "contact" pickups. And yes, as I understand it, Muddy Waters was one of the first to popularize electric blues, and he was an influence on many early rockers (I don't know what brand of guitar he used though). In My Not So Humble Opinion refers to my twenty-five years as an electric bassist (and dabbler in other instruments). I played my first paying gig in my first year, and actually supported myself playing professionally one summer (between semesters in grad school, ironically enough) I originally started with Fender basses (still have my '65 Jazz Bass). In my jazz-rock phase, I coveted all the newest and fanciest basses that had active electronics, three pickups, body-length necks, etc. Then I came full circle and realized that craftsmanship (including well-designed pickups) were all I needed. FWIW, the G & L pickups on my current fave have managed to combine phenomenal output (I can actually create noticable amp distortion when they are turned up) with great frequency response. From what I've been told, that is quite rare, as "hotter" pickups tend to have a corresponding decrease in frequency response.
FWIW - electric-guitar-type pickups will not work on strings of any material but steel. The 'pickups' used on nylon-stringed guitars, violins, etc., pick up the vibrations of the bridge or the body, not those of the strings. Does anyone understand how MIDI guitars or guitar synthesizers work?
FWIW? the answer to #4 would likely be found in understanding the difference between analog and digital synthesizers, and how acoustic pianos are patched into a MIDI system. Two possibilities, I suppose: 1) the guitar has a direct MIDI patch-- instead of a plugging in an audio cable into a pickup, a MIDI cable (usually 5-pin cable) is plugged into a MIDI port. But that probably wouldn't work since you'd have to make the guitar electronic. 2) the audio cable goes into a box that converts the audio sound into MIDI signals. Same principle when plugging into a guitar synthesizer. I don't rightly know, really-- I may have to visit a big city music store again. I've seen the synthesizers.
(FWIW = For What It's Worth) Your option 1 wouldn't work - a MIDI signal isn't _sound_ at all, just a series of "note on" and "note off" messages and so forth. #2 sounds more likely.
I realized that after I wrote it :#) Essentially, then, you don't need a special guitar-- just a converter box. Evidently, this is how you manipulate tracks recorded from an acoustic piano by MIDI, too.
The tricky part is accurately sensing pitch, fast enough to give a decent playing feel. Once you have pitch and an attack, you can produce MIDI data to run a synth. That's what guitar-to-MIDI converters do. Also, it would be incredibly difficult to read chords, so most converters use a separate pickup for each string.
There are pitch-to-MIDI converters that will work with any instrument. You plug a mic into it, sing a note, or play a note and it will convert it to MIDI data. The limit here is *one note at a time* or one note polyphony. With "MIDI guitars" you have a separate pickup for each string that is multiplexed into a pitch-toMIDI converter, so you can get up to 6 note polyphony. A piano that has been modified with a MIDI pickup system doesn't use a pickup, but rather switches (note on/off) and sensors (note velocity, etc) so the polyphony is 88 notes. There is nothing special about a modern "guitar synth" excepth that the patches (sounds) are probably optimized for a guitar player and it has an input for the 6 pickup device mentioned above. A MIDI guitar is a guitar outfitted with such a pickup. Guitar synths of yesteryear (ARP Avatar cones to mind) used more basic pitch detection so again chords were a problem. The ouput was connected to a synth with no keyboard. "Classical" guitars or nylon/gut string guitars (the violin family too) can use piezo pickups under the bridge or string saddle. Actually these pickups are available for most electrics too so you can get a pretty convincing "acoustic" sound out of an electric. Okay, I've written enough.
I beleive Fender just put out one of the first MIDI ready guitars. Rather that having to install the extra picup and have wires dangling everywhere, now the pickup is built in and it has both instument and MIDI outputs built in too. I think Leo Fender was distributing Music Man equipment(amplifiers specifically) in the mid 70's. I own a Music Man stack and something tells me it's not from the 80's. Also, Music Man amps are extremely similar to Fender amps in elctronics, cosmetics and design. They can be hard to tell apart except for the name on the front. Some intersting, although not recent info on pickups: Lace Sensor pickups have seperate magnetic fields for each string. Seymore Duncan has created humbucking pickups in a single coil width, for use in strats and other single coil setups. This is nice because your guitar doesn't have to be modified to get the humbucking qualities on all pickup configurations. The first pickups were wound by hand where as most modern pickups are wound by machine. This is one of the reasons why some older guitars have a characteristic sound that even a same year, exact model guitar can't replicate. When the pickups were wound by hand, some workers would put too many or too few windings on the pickups, or they would do a quick and sloppy job. This resulted in some great sounding pickups, or at least many of the same pickup, none of which sounded exactly the same.
A few minor nits.... ;) I think either Yamaha or Casio made the first MIDI guitar, back a few years. It also had built in sounds. Music Man was Leo Fender's next company after selling Fender to CBS. The amps are sort of similar, but had solid state preamps with tube output sections. Lace Sensor pickups have something like 22 little magnetic fields. Normal pickups have one field for each string.
Fender's Strat with built in Roland hex pickups has been around for about three years now.
What is the advantage of more than one magnetic field per string?
Smoother (more even) coverage, perhaps when you bend a string to one side or another. Some pickups solve this with one huge magnetic field, formed by a continuous strip of metal as the source. Lace Sensors do the opposite, breaking up the field into many small bits with overlap. My own guitar with Lace Sensors has a very clean, evenly balanced sound, with plenty of bass. I like a bit more character, though, so I usually have single coil pickups in the guitar. These have a bit more dynamics, at the expense of not being as evenly balanced.
RE#13 -- It's so each string can be analyzed individually, and converted into MIDI data. With a conventional pickup that has only one output, you can only play single note lines into a pitch-midi converter, chords would make it go nuts.
Okay, that makes sense. Thanks.
It's surprising what you can make a guitar do. Watching and listening to people like Adam Jones and Tom Morello (who, incidently, used to play together) do things with their guitars is magic. Midi allows more direct manipulation, but what you can get out of the effects boxes is astounding. I'm pleasantly surprised with how nice the tone on my relatively cheap electric is... great deep end, particularly. Unfortunately, my tunings have screwed up the electronics something fierce, but oh well. Hmm. this is a late response.
Cheap guitars are often really good sounding, in one particular style or another. There's my old Teisco Del Rey, for instance, which has a presence my Strat still can't match...
Teisco Del Rey? Any relation to the book publisher? :) That a solid body?
That guy who calls himself "Teisco Del Rey" stole the name from the line of guitars. "Tokyo Electric Instrument and Sound Company" is where "Teisco" comes from. They made masses of guitars, they were the Huffy of guitars. They made several lines of their own, plus the Sears Silvertone line...
Nice to see my "Grex Jeopardy" item has lived on and generated some intelligent discussion. I haven't had much time go on-line, but I'll try to look in more often . . .
Teisco died recently too, I think.
Sears had a guitar line? That's kinda sad. It's nice to see guitars not named fender or gibson thriving, because some marketplaces are a lot more monopolized than electric guitars. Paul Reed Smith is one of the highest quality makes available, and I'd own one if I could afford the bloody thing :) Korn is doing weird stuff with Ibanez again...
PRS (Paul Reed Smith) guitars are a big hit with the "guitar as investment" crowd. I just recall the short-lived line of PRS basses that were beautific but didn't sound very good. The Sears Silvertone line, along with makes like Montgomery Wards Airline line, are semi-famous in the history of rock'n'roll from all the famous players who started as dirt-poor kids with a guitar from Sears and the like. Sears had a cool combo where a small guitar amp was built into the guitar case... Boss Guitars has a couple on display.
Sounds fascinating. I really like the tones I hear from Paul Reed Smith players, but alas I can afford neither a PRS nor a top of the line Les Paul that would be it's top competitor. Just because you make good guitars doesn't guarantee that your basses will be good, though.. brand equity concerns would seem to dictacte that guitar companies actually put work into them.
Well, there's much more to making good instruments than just using exotic woods and the most expensive components. Even more so in basses. The most interesting recent "classic guitar reissue" is not a Fender or Gibson, but a Danelectro! Those were the cheap semi-hollowbody guitars made with Masonite bodies and pickups inside lipstick tubes which were often used in surf music. The newly-reformed (or formed) Danelectro company has reissued an old classic, and it lists for about $300. Gibsons and Fenders are nice, but you really *pay* for the name.
That sounds about right with what else Danelectro is putting out... and they put out some quality stuff, for good prices. I've been meaning to get that trio of stomp boxes they put out. Often, buying a guitar for a lot cheaper only skims the quality you're getting by a little bit. Those $500 Les Pauls aren't all that inferior to their $2500 cousins, and there's a lot someone like me who likes to play with the amp and the tuning knobs can do to keep you from noticing. I'd be actively interested in the Danelectro re-issue if it wasn't a hollow-body... I need something solid. Actually, what I need to is to fix my electronics, still. The signal loss has become ridiculous.
The Dano reissue is a "semi-hollow" body. No holes on the front, but some cavities in the interior. BTW, there are now *5* stomp boxes... they added a tuner and an echo.
i've got an mpg. file of the Majic Band (beeheart ...early 70's) and the bassist is playing what appears to be a danelectro bass...the quality of the vid is poor so i cant really tell...anybody ever seen one of those?
Really? Do you know how good they are?
the audio is pretty crappy too...but the bass sounds pretty thunky & dead, perhaps on purpose...hold on a sec...weerd, i hadn't checked out the file in over a year...it is a danelectro (i'm pretty sure) double-neck with the bass neck being what looks like a 3/4 scale and the guitar neck a simple six-string. again the audio is choppy.
One of the bands at Top of the Park appeared to have a Danelectro bass guitar. Senna, if I were you I'd buy one of the Japanese-made Fender guitars. The quality is pretty good, and the low price/low quality is concentrated in components like pickups and tuners that you can replace later with better stuff.
i don't know what's around detroit/a2 but i'd definitely pop up to elderly in lansing before i bought anything.
Yeah, but even locally Nalli and Music-go-round have OK deals on new stuff. And the low end of new guitars is *really* good these days; mass production coupled with much-improved QC means that $300 guitars are much better than they used to be. Elderly Instruments in Lansing is a cool store, but I'd be more likely to go there if I was looking for acoustic vs. electric. And it's starting to happen that you can even get a better deal on a cheap new guitar with decent quality vs. used stuff. If I was looking for a good starter electric guitar, I'd look either at the Fender line that is a step above the "Squier" line, or (if'n I liked Gibsons) at the Epiphone stuff. The "real" Gibsons right now are priced at ridiculous levels, and the American-made Fenders are rather expensive for quality that isn't much greater than the cheap lines. Right now even the cheap guitars being built are better than the "real" (brand name, Fender/Gibson) guitars that were built in the 70's and 80's. Well, in general. I sure wouldn't pay much for a 70's or 80's used instrument, unless it was something really special.
I've noticed that Music-Go-Round is turning into quite a good place to pick up guitar and bass gear. It's usually a bit cheaper than, say, Herb David, and depending on what you're looking for the selection may be better, too. Plus, they get a lot of good "factory outlet" type guitars that have minor cosmetic defects but can't be sold at full price. What I need now is an amp...
Has anyone been to Guitar Center in Roseville? They have a great selection of not only guitars, basses, but also keyboards and such.
Roseville? Long walk. Also, I don't really need keyboards :)
Someone mentioned Danelectro back there....A compnay purchased the Danalectro name a while back and is now making some effect pedals branded Danelectro, plus they are now makeing a very nice remake of the old Danny model U-2 for around $300.
Yeah, that's what we were talking about, the reissue company.
Ooops, that's what I get for skimming...;-)
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