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Company type | Private |
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Industry | Musical instrument |
Founded | 2001 |
Founder | Miles Jackson, Paul Dutton, William Pizzey, Adam Cole and Bradley Clark |
Headquarters | , |
Key people | Miles Jackson CEO |
Products | Acoustic guitars Acoustic electric Hybrid guitars Bass guitars Lap steel guitars |
Number of employees | 58 |
Website | coleclarkguitars.com |
Cole Clark is an Australian manufacturer of guitars and other fretted instruments. The company is based in Bayswater, Melbourne and was founded in 2001. Cole Clark uses unique construction and designs, advanced live pickup technology [1] and have a strong focus on sustainably sourced timbers. [2]
Cole Clark guitars are made almost entirely using Australian indigenous timbers. Solid timber is used in preference to plywood. [3] Top timbers span equally across Bunya Pine, Australian Blackwood and Australian Grown Californian Redwood as top sellers, with small numbers of Spruce, Mahogany and Huon Pine. Back and side timbers include Australian Blackwood, Queensland Maple, Silky Oak, European Maple and Maple Silkwood.
The company has been compelled to replace endangered fretboard timbers like rosewood and ebony with alternatives such as Blackbean and Sheoak.
Primarily, Cole Clark produce acoustic guitars, but also venture into lapsteels and bass. Previously the company has produced ukuleles and electric guitars. These are currently not in production.
The Cole Clark acoustic range includes the FL Dreadnought models in 6 and 12 string, AN grand auditorium and LL travel guitar. The timber combination possibilities mean that the above models have up to 30 different combinations and back and side timber, hence a different product name.
FL and AN models are available in 1, 2 and 3 series. Each with varying levels of features. The LL is available only in a 1 and 2 series.
In a joint venue with Melbourne bass maker Neil Kennedy, Cole Clark released the ‘LLBN’ electric bass line in 2017.
Cole Clark uses a patented ‘3-way’ pickup system that combines three elements (under saddle piezo assembly, face brace sensor, and a condenser mic) that work together, hearing only frequencies they are best equipped to handle to deliver less ‘quack’ and ‘ping’ that the average acoustic pickup and eliminating many of the feedback issues associated with such instruments.
In 2019 Cole Clark released a series of Acoustic Guitars with additional Humbucker Pickups as a second output, giving the guitars the ability to switch between acoustic and electric tones as well as blend the two together with the flick of a switch. They come in FL, LL, AN, FL 12 string and the Lloyd Spiegel signature model.
In 2023, Cole Clark released their next generation ‘True Hybrid’ models, [4] featuring dual outputs for both acoustic and full electric pickup configurations.
At midday on 27 August 2013, a fire devastated the Cole Clark factory, halting production for almost a year. [5]
Some notable artists that use and endorse Cole Clark guitars include:
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length. The bass most commonly has four strings, though five- and six-stringed models are also relatively popular, and basses with even more strings or courses have been built. Since the mid-1950s, the bass guitar has largely come to replace the double bass in popular music due to its lighter weight, the inclusion of frets in most models, and, most importantly, its design for electric amplification.
An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickups to convert the vibration of its strings into electrical signals, which ultimately are reproduced as sound by loudspeakers. The sound is sometimes shaped or electronically altered to achieve different timbres or tonal qualities from that of an acoustic guitar via amplifier settings or knobs on the guitar. Often, this is done through the use of effects such as reverb, distortion and "overdrive"; the latter is considered to be a key element of electric blues guitar music and jazz, rock and heavy-metal guitar-playing. Designs also exist combining attributes of the electric and acoustic guitars: the semi-acoustic and acoustic-electric guitars.
The guitar is a stringed musical instrument, that is usually fretted and typically has six or twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A guitar pick may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant hollow chamber on the guitar, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier.
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A pickup is a transducer that captures or senses mechanical vibrations produced by musical instruments, particularly stringed instruments such as the electric guitar, and converts these to an electrical signal that is amplified using an instrument amplifier to produce musical sounds through a loudspeaker in a speaker enclosure. The signal from a pickup can also be recorded directly.
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The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to guitars:
A solid-body musical instrument is a string instrument such as a guitar, bass or violin built without its normal sound box and relying on an electromagnetic pickup system to directly detect the vibrations of the strings; these instruments are usually plugged into an instrument amplifier and loudspeaker to be heard. Solid-body instruments are preferred in situations where acoustic feedback may otherwise be a problem and are inherently both less expensive to build and more rugged than acoustic electric instruments.
An acoustic-electric guitar is an acoustic guitar fitted with a microphone, or a magnetic or piezoelectric pickup. They are used in a variety of music genres where the sound of an acoustic guitar is desired but more volume is required, especially during live performances. The design is distinct from a semi-acoustic guitar, which is an electric guitar with the addition of sound chambers within the guitar body.
Electric guitar design is a type of industrial design where the looks and efficiency of the shape as well as the acoustical aspects of the guitar are important factors. In the past many guitars have been designed with various odd shapes as well as very practical and convenient solutions to improve the usability of the object.
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Starcaster by Fender is a range of instruments and accessories aimed at students and beginners, marketed by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation from the early 2000s until at least 2011. As of April 2018, no products were being marketed under this brand.
The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele, is an electric guitar produced by Fender. Together with its sister model the Esquire, it was the world's first mass-produced, commercially successful solid-body electric guitar. Its simple yet effective design and revolutionary sound broke ground and set trends in electric guitar manufacturing and popular music.