Michael Lester
From:
Illinois, USA
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Posted 2 Jul 2017 5:37 am |
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Adolph Rickenbacker and George Beauchamp
Swiss immigrant Adolph Rickenbacker (née Rickenbacher) was a tool–and–die maker who set up shop in Los Angeles in 1925. The National String Instrument Corporation was one of his customers, eventually engaging Adolph to make metal bodies for its resonator guitars.
At the time, there was drama afoot at National. Founding partner George Beauchamp (pronounced BEE–chum) had clashed with the company over its refusal to develop electric guitars — similar to Lloyd Loar’s troubles back at Gibson — despite the fact that he had been making serious progress on the technology.
Beauchamp played Hawaiian guitar and understood the problem that steel guitarists like him had to face when playing with a band: no one could ever hear them. It was the same volume issue he had tried to solve earlier when he co–invented the metal–bodied resonator with John Dopyera at National.
Toying with pickup designs, Beauchamp arrived at a over–the–strings pickup with two horseshoe–shaped magnets surrounding a coil of wire. That wire surrounded six smaller magnets — one for each string. This was a giant leap toward the modern pickup as we know it today.
Earlier pickups were microphonic, meaning they depended on string vibrations being transferred through the air or a wooden bridge. Beauchamp’s design instead transferred vibrations electromagnetically, with metal strings disturbing a magnetic field to produce electric signals.
The design sacrificed natural acoustic tone — a major sticking point for manufacturers like National, Gibson, and Dobro — but solved the need for greater volume. Acceptance among musicians and listeners would prove to be slow but sure.
Ro–Pat–In Corporation
Beauchamp, Rickenbacker, and others severed ties with National and joined forces in 1931 to form the Ro–Pat–In Corporation. While no one is left to explain the weird name, Ro–Pat–In is solidified in gear history for producing the first electric guitars to utilize a modern pickup.
Beauchamp’s pickup design was built into the cast aluminum body of a Hawaiian guitar, just as he had drawn it on his patent application in 1932 (revised for submission two years later as Patent US2089171 A). Working with fellow ex–National employees Paul Barth and Harry Watson, Beauchamp built a prototype of an electric steel guitar.
The guitar’s small, circular body earned it a nickname: the “Frying Pan."
Rickenbacker Ken Roberts Model
Coming out of production in 1932, the Frying Pan was available in two models with different scale lengths: the A22 and A25. Ro–Pat–In sold a grand total of 13 guitar–and–amp sets in the launch year of 1932.
Ro–Pat–In sold the first models under the brand name Electro. They changed the company name to Electro String Instrumental Corporation in 1934 and marketed the guitars as Rickenbacher Electro Instruments, and so (after a subtle spell change) the storied Rickenbacker brand was born.
In 1935, Electro String followed up the A22 and A25 with the Model B, which came in a square–neck lap steel version and a round–neck Spanish version.
Also in 1935, Beauchamp and Rickenbacker introduced a guitar dubbed the Ken Roberts model, which placed a horseshoe pickup and the first–ever tremolo arm (designed by Doc Kauffman) on an archtop body built by Harmony with a full 25–inch scale.
With less than 50 built, the Ken Roberts guitar was, in many ways, the first modern electric Spanish–style guitar ever produced. |
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Noah Miller
From:
Rocky Hill, CT
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Posted 2 Jul 2017 4:22 pm Re: Electric Steel Guitar Trivia (from the REVERB.com site)
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| Michael Lester wrote: |
| The design sacrificed natural acoustic tone — a major sticking point for manufacturers like National, Gibson, and Dobro |
I have heard that they didn't care so much about the sound, but National was having trouble meeting the existing demand for their resonators and saw no reason to introduce a whole new product at the time. While Dobro tentatively introduced an electric guitar in 1933, National didn't bother until 1935.
| Michael Lester wrote: |
| With less than 50 built, the Ken Roberts guitar was, in many ways, the first modern electric Spanish–style guitar ever produced. |
Not really: it wasn't even Rickenbacker's first electric Spanish-style guitar. Their first, named simply the Spanish Guitar, debuted three years earlier in 1932. In between, Dobro had the All-Electric, of which probably a dozen or two were built. |
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