Electric Guitars from Today and Yesteryear.....How far have we come along?

Electric Guitars from Today and Yesteryear.....How far have we come along?

The very first patent for the electric guitar was issued in 1937.  The first electric guitars differed greatly both in appearance and overall engineering from the modern guitars we know of today.  Other than the concept of electrifying the signal and amplifying it, what was first known as an electric guitar and what is now known as an electric were pretty different instruments.  

The trend of electrifying an acoustic guitar with a piezoelectric transducer type of pickup is similar to the way the first electric guitars were amplified.  In essence, the vibrations from the strings would resonate to the wood of the bridge and these sounds were "picked up" by transducers and transferred to an amplifier to deliver the sound.  This techonology was used in some of the first hollow-body electric guitars.

The rise in popularity of the electrified hollow-bodied guitar brought on a desire to engineer an electric guitar that has a solid body.  The advent of the magnet/coil pickup would be introduced.  This would open up a new world of design and innovation in the engineering of the electric guitar.  By the late 1950's, an electric guitar pickup that helped to eliminate "ambient noise" was introduced.  This noise became known as the 60-cycle hum and the fix for that became known as the "humbucker." From these early roots, an industry almost as creative as its artists began to evolve in to the billion-dollar industry it is today.  

As the future has come to follow, luthiers and engineers have been experimenting with different combinations of electric guitar pickups, body styles, woods and more.  Innovative designs are now available to musicians. All of these instruments reach different price ranges and qualities, and most importantly, each have a tonal recipe of their own.  Modern techniques are now employed like using CNC machines to make intricate and precise cuts and carves, along with some basic old world craftsmanship principles, hand-detailed components, custom tone circuitry, and custom wound pickups, the musician today can enjoy a guitar that will look and sound like no other.