Guitar Modding
From Mod Mania
If you're anything like me you'll find this topic both absorbing and exhilarating! If not, picture yourself in your own calm kingdom...look at the beautiful flowers, the peacocks on the lawn... and pretend to enjoy it
The guitar is one of the oldest and most enduring instruments on Earth. Guitar-like instruments have been around for about 5,000 years. The "Romantic" (so named because it was concieved during the romantic period) classical guitar, (guitarra in Spanish) has an extensive history and the version played today is actually the most final and perfected product in a long line of modifications branching from the Lute, the Vihuela and the Renaissance five-stringed guitar. Yet these early European stringed instruments were themselves modifications of Asian stringed instruments like the Sitar. The history of guitar modding dates back to here, where guitarists modded their instrument, which in many cases was their livelihood, to improve its playability and ergonomics.
Early guitars of the Middle Ages had only a single string. Therefore, in an early attempt at modding, their owners fitted these instruments with more strings to greaten the sound output and variation. This successful mod created a standard and soon almost all stringed instruments had more than one string.
The Lute originated in Europe and was prominent during the Renaissance and Baroque periods. It had a short neck and a 3D semi-eclipse like body. This resulted firstly in a limitation of tone variation and secondly in an uncomfortable playing position.
Vihuelas originated from Spain and were typically arranged as twelve-stringed (six paired) instruments. Vihuelas were played in the same manner as a lute and in terms of appearance they were like a flat backed lute or a cello or violin played horizontally. Like the lute the vihuela was tuned chromatically but had ten frets as opposed to seven. These instruments varied greatly in design, with some having quite elongated necks while others had relatively short ones. Both were also strung using gut strings, meaning strings made from the guts of bulls and sheep. These strings were much more susceptible to changes in humidity and were therefore likely to go out of tune more often. It was also common for these strings to break on a more regular basis than nylon strings and modern day steel strings.
The vihuela was intended and was in some ways a modification of the lute. It had, for example, more fret access; resulting in slightly more tone variation, it was more ergonimically designed; being able to sit on the knee while playing in a seated position. Both instruments still used gut strings but the vihuela had a higher tensioned body and neck which prevented warping and periodic string loosening. However, there were needed improvements.
The problem, for the user, with these early instruments, in terms of function and availability was that there lacked a standard design and implementation of mass production. Meanwhile there was obviously the need and want to modify these instruments judging by the difference in appearance and function of surviving and documented examples. The issue was, that there were no large scale producers of these products to sell guitars and for modders to approach, and therefore no apparent way of modifying and or introducing new makes onto the market. In todays society, persistant advertising would be the immediate answer but without this musicians of the time had to wait for the gradual evolution of the guitar to occur through time, trial and error. These instruments were initially only made to a simple design by self employed craftsmen and subsequently varied from user to user. Any improvement was implemented via the users urge to improve the instrument for themselves and in general. But with no effective way to advertise their work, the modding process, in marketing terms, seemed useless. All this started to change in the 19th century when methods of transportation and communication began to improve. This is a great example of the modding of society. Popular guitarists travelled around the world and so favoured makes and concepts were able to spread and were given publicity.
Since the Middle Ages musicians have been modding guitars by adding or removing strings. The problem they found with stringing as many as twelve strings to a guitar was that after a period of time the neck would warp with the tension created by the strings.
It wasnt until 1779, in Italy, that a mass produced concept was concieved by Gaetano Vinaccia and accepted as a universally functional guitar. In Spain in the 19th century Antonio de Torres developed the classical guitar as the form it is known as today.
The final body shape of the classical giutar is moddled on that of the vihuela. It is a much improved version, being deceptively larger in volume which allows for a louder sound, and more curvacious in shape making it more ergonomic. This standard classical guitar that is still used today is the result of centuries of combined diversity and continuous modding.
With this popular mod(above) of previous guitars available for musicians around the world its no wonder that guitar virtuosos/composers like Fernando Sor(1778-1839) and Mauro Giuliani(1781-1829) began to emerge, and they too brought their own ideas for further modification such as having a cut away section in the upper bout below the neck to allow the player to reach higher notes on the finger board with greater ease.
Today there exist many different variations of the standard accoustic guitar. In the beginning these varitations, which are now mass produced, were mods of the guitar design. They were concieved by individuals or groups wanting to explore and or create new sounds or variate the playibility of the guitar. A good example of this would be blues musicians who, when pioneering a new genre of music in the 1890's in the Mississipi Delta, wanted their style of guitar music to have a brighter and louder sound than a normal accoustic guitar would allow. Therefore they fitted tightly strung steel strings and metal plating with cut-outs to the body of their guitars thus creating the 'bluesy' sound we recognise today. These musicians even modded musical theory by developing their own set of scales that derive from the flattening of the third and seventh notes. This mod has been so successful that today, when we hear this progression of notes we identify the music as having a 'blues' sound.
The most extreme example of guitar modding is the electric guitar. The basic concept remains the same as with an accoustic, both rely on string vibration to create sound but the method of doing so with an electric is different.
The need for a guitar that could produce a louder sound became apparent as the size of jazz bands and orchestras grew during the 1930's and 1940's. Early attempts at electronically modding accoustic guitars consisted of fitting electromagnetic transducers to the guitar. Other methods included attatching microphones to hollow bodied accoustics. Known guitarists, most noteably Les Paul, experimented in this area. Les Paul would later on be responsible for the hugely successful Gibson 'Les Paul' styled guitar. As with all marketable mods these early electric guitars and their manufacturers needed puplicity to kick-start their reputation and production.
Harry Watson, of the Electro String Company, was the first to build a hollow body guitar with tungsten pickups from its design in 1931. The company called this new guitar the "Richenbacker" after one of the directors, Adolf Richenbacker. From here and beyond most modding of the electric guitar was done by companies/brands or musicians in collaboration with these groups. This was because companies had the ability to advertise, mass produce and sell, as opposed to the limitations facing a solo modder. Meanwhile individual modders saw the opportunity to make money out of their mods through mass production and company marketing abilities. This was the act of modding on a commercial scale as opposed to individuals working on a personal project.
Companies who pioneered the field of electric guitar modding were Richenbacker, Fender and Vox, all of which still operate today.
Richenbacker's cast alluminium "frying pan" steel lap guitar of 1931 is now known to have produced a sound much like that of a modern electric guitar. As with early accoustic guitars, these electric guitars paid little attention to ergonomics and weren't very appealing instruments in terms of aesthetics and were also often susceptible to malfuntion, usually when bumped.
Solid body electric guitars began to appear around the mid 1930's to early 1940's. Les Paul(known for both his skill as a guitarist and inventor for the guitar) made one of the first solid body guitars while working for the guitar company, Epiphone. Up until then most electric guitars had been hollow body jazz guitars but in 1946 Leo Fender, through his company, performed a modification on one of these guitars and as a result produced the first commercially successful solid body guitar. It was called the Esquire and had a single pickup. The modded dual pickup version was named the Telecaster. From this point on, with a benchmark design on the market, guitar companys continued to improve on each others design. Some, during their modding process, developed models that would become trademarkes for their company, such as the Gibson Les Paul and the Fender Stratocaster.
Sound
In the 1960's some guitarists began experimenting with the type of sound emmitted from their guitar. This was done by increasing the gain of the preamplifier, which, in laymans terms, is the device that prepares the electronic sound signal for amplification.
These electric guitar mods were intended to be a marketable product, as their innovators had the means to do so at their disposal. There was the opportunity this time round for these products to be advertised, manufactured and sold at a profit.
When the purpose of modding becomes commercial you can argue that the creative element is lost. This argument can be related to companies in todays society like Fender, whos early products (the Stratocaster and Telecaster) were innovative mods of the early, primitve and unattractive electric guitars, yet have remained virtually the same for over 60 years
Another example is Apple who, in their case, use persuasive advertising to convince consumers that the latest ipod is a radically improved version of the previous model- this is the power over the market that advertising and recogniseable brands possess.
Its true that many would argue that these two companies are still actively modding their products. But to me each new model Fender is simply a relaunch of the last that results in more money for the stagnant company directors.
Personalised modding
Many guitarists develop a reputation or sound/effect by modding their instrument.
Nick Valensi is the lead guitarist for New York indie rock band The Strokes and is an example of a guitarist who, playing their chosen guitar, still wanted to modify the equipment on it. He plays a 1990's model Epiphone Riviera semi-hollow body but chose to replace the standard pickups(dual mini-humbuckers) with his favoured pickups, Gibson P-94's. The reason being that there is no Gibson semi-hollow body with P-90 model pickups. These pickups create a recogniseable clean yet fuzzy effect through his guitar.
Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page is one of the most influential and diverse guitarists of all time. During live performances he is noted for having played a customised double necked Gibson SG with one neck strung with twelve strings and the other with six.
Matt Bellamy(Muse frontman) plays a Hugh Manson Custom guitar, which he designed and had made for him, with a kaoss pad fitted behind the bridge that lights up when sound signals are registered through the pickups.
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Valensi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson_EDS_1275 http://home.earthlink.net/-guitarandlute/gtrhistory.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/history_of_the_classical_guitar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_guitar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre_amplifier http://en.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Classical_Guitar http:www.lakewoodconferences.com?direct/dbimage/50 http:www.musiclounge.tv/guitarblog/ http:www.museband.net/images/matthew_bellamy.jpg
