That pickup featured a soundboard transducer easily affixed to and removed from a guitar’s top. This problem was addressed by the original Barcus–Berry pickup in the mid–1970s. Some think these pickups sound artificial, as they don’t capture the vibrations from the soundboard - the guitar’s all–important source of tone. This is still very much the dominant design of active acoustic pickups today across all manufacturers.Īll of Takamine’s pickups were under–the–saddle designs, but this format has its detractors. The electronics were mounted conveniently on a guitar’s bass bout with an external battery compartment. Takamine pioneered the active acoustic pickup featuring an onboard preamp and sliding EQ controls. In the 1980s, Takamine would push their electronic designs further, creating both passive and active acoustic guitar pickups. And at a time when pickup options were slim, some guitarists went as far as buying Takamine guitars with the express purpose of gutting them for their electronics. With those guitars, Takamine ushered in a new era of plug–and–play performance. Today, this is the most common acoustic pickup design.Īt the time, palathetic pickups were only available on Takamine guitars like the PT-007S, and not as aftermarket items. Takamine’s R&D resulted in the Palathetic pickup, in which six individual piezo transducers are embedded under the bridge plate, maximizing clarity between strings. In the late ’70s, the Japanese company got busy designing pickups that would work well for more traditional acoustic guitars. Ovation made strides with its innovative acoustic–electric guitar, but Takamine wasn’t far behind with its own innovations. A pair of 5–inch magnets are attached to the pole piece inside of the guitar and are secured to the soundboard by three bolts. It’s made of a black plastic bobbin wrapped with copper wire, with a single pole piece in the center to pick up the string’s vibrations. The Charlie Christian pickup is a magnetic design that would ultimately influence Seth Lover’s famous PAF humbucker. Hence, this hexagonal pickup is affectionately known as the Charlie Christian pickup. The ES–150 was soon made famous by Charlie Christian, who used it to create horn–like lines that defined the role of the guitar soloist in jazz. That guitar is hexagonal pickup mounted near the neck, for a warm tone. In 1936, the company put one in what is generally considered an early electric guitar but is for all intents and purposes an electrified acoustic archtop: the ES–150.
Gibson, despite losing Loar, designed its own pickup. This odd-looking instrument has been popularly dubbed the Frying Pan on account of its long neck and circular body. The first example of a pickup on a commercially produced guitar was the aluminum–bodied Rickenbacker Electro A–22. It’s worth noting that DeArmond invented what is generally considered the first ever guitar effect, a tremolo called the Model 800. This is the story of how the pickup evolved from a basic way to make a guitar louder into a sophisticated sound–shaping tool. Nearly a century later, major companies and boutique makers continue to tweak the pickup’s design to coax increasingly more authentic amplified tones from the acoustic guitar. And while those resonators are known today as blues or bluegrass instruments, the first examples were designed with the general need for volume in mind.īut it was ultimately the pickup - a device that converts the strings’ vibrations into electrical impulses that can be fed to an amplifier - that became the ultimate answer to the loudness problem. During this time, metal–bodied resonator guitars were being built by George Beauchamp and John Dopyera in Los Angeles. Other early attempts at amplification didn’t even involve electricity. Some musicians experimented with available technology - like telephone mouthpieces - to amplify their instruments. In those early days, guitarists addressed the need for loudness in various ways, with varying degrees of success. That meant that once the guitar became accepted in ensembles, a quest for volume came soon after. It was more often seen and felt than it actually was heard.
It just wasn’t loud enough to compete with drums and horns.
Then, in the 1920s, it started to find its way to the bandstand, thanks in part to the influence of guitar virtuosos like groundbreaking jazz guitarist Eddie Lang.īut there was a problem with putting the guitar in a band. For centuries, the acoustic guitar was played as a solo instrument.
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