An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric sound 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 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 electric and acoustic guitars: the semi-acoustic and acoustic-electric guitars.
The Chapman Stick is an electric musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s. A member of the guitar family, the Chapman Stick usually has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and is used to play bass lines, melody lines, chords, or textures. Designed as a fully polyphonic chordal instrument, it can also cover several of these musical parts simultaneously.
Guy Adam Pratt is a British bassist. He has worked with artists including Pink Floyd, Roxy Music, Gary Moore, Madonna, Peter Cetera, Michael Jackson, the Smiths, Robert Palmer, Echo & the Bunnymen, Tears for Fears, Icehouse, Bananarama, Iggy Pop, Tom Jones, Debbie Harry, Whitesnake, Womack & Womack, Kirsty MacColl, Coverdale•Page, Lemon Jelly, the Orb, All Saints, Stephen Duffy, Robbie Robertson and A. R. Rahman.
Emmett Chapman was an American jazz musician best known as the inventor of the Chapman Stick and maker of the Chapman Stick family of instruments.
A machine head is a geared apparatus for tuning stringed musical instruments by adjusting string tension. Machine heads are used on mandolins, guitars, double basses and others, and are usually located on the instrument's headstock. Other names for guitar tuners include pegs, gears, machines, cranks, knobs, tensioners and tighteners.
The electric cello is a type of cello that relies on electronic amplification to produce sound. An acoustic cello can be fitted with a bridge or body mounted contact pickup providing an electric signal, or a built-in pickup can be installed. A few pickups work by other principles like magnetic coil guitar type needing steel strings to work, or by an unusual pickup system employing the string itself as a linear pickup element, thus avoiding any modification of tone-producing parts on an acoustic cello.
The Spector Musical Instruments is an American manufacturer of instruments. Spector produces electric guitars, acoustic and electric bass guitars; however, it is best known for its solid-body electric bass guitars, particularly the NS-2. The company was founded in Brooklyn, New York by Stuart Spector in 1976. Its current headquarters are in Long Island, New York.
Steinberger is a series of distinctive electric guitars and bass guitars, designed and originally manufactured by Ned Steinberger. The name "Steinberger" can be used to refer to either the instruments themselves or the company that originally produced them. Although the name has been applied to a variety of instruments, it is primarily associated with a minimalist "headless" design of electric basses and guitars.
Modulus Graphite is an American manufacturer of musical instruments best known for building bass guitars with carbon fiber necks. The company, originally called Modulus Graphite, was founded in part by Geoff Gould, a bassist who also worked for an aerospace company in Palo Alto, California, and coworker Jerry Dorsch. When they split, Jerry started Graphite Guitar Systems in Washington state.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to guitars:
A headstock or peghead is part of a guitar or similar stringed instruments such as a lute, mandolin, banjo, ukulele and others of the lute lineage. The main function of a headstock is to house the tuning pegs or other mechanism that holds the strings at the "head" of the instrument; it corresponds to a pegbox in the violin family. 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, consequently, the pitch of sound they produce.
Don Schiff is a bass guitar, Chapman Stick, NS/Stick, and bowed guitar player on recordings, TV, and film sessions. He is one of the earliest Stick, NS/Stick, and bowed guitar players. He helped popularize the NS/Stick and a technique of using a carabiner as a slide and tapping device.
The NS/Stick is an 8 string tapping instrument designed by Emmett Chapman and Ned Steinberger. It incorporates design ideas from both the original Stick and from Ned Steinberger's instruments such as the Stick's tapping fretboard and the Steinberger Bass' knee bar and headless design. The player can position the instrument upright for tapping or lower it to a horizontal position for picking, slapping, or strumming.
Cort Guitars is a South Korean guitar manufacturing company located in Seoul. The company is one of the largest guitar makers in the world, and produces instruments for many other companies. It also has factories in Indonesia and China.
Jolana was a Czechoslovakian guitar manufacturing company that produced electric guitars and basses from 1960 to near 1989. Especially during the 1960s, it gained popularity in the United Kingdom, with famous musicians such as George Harrison, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton using its guitar models.
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.
The company BassLab produces stringed instruments, mainly basses and guitars, and also some versions of the Chapman Stick and a viola model for Ned Steinberger. Each instrument is crafted of a mixed material, "Tunable Mixed Composite".
The Streamer bass is a bass guitar manufactured by the Warwick company and launched in 1982.
Experimental luthiers are luthiers who take part in alternative stringed instrument manufacturing or create original string instruments altogether.
