So who invented the electric guitar?

It starts with the Pickup.
The "pickup" in which a current is passed through a coil of wire wrapped around a magnet, creates a field that amplifies the strings' vibrations, and
if you search the electric guitar's history Adolph Rickenbacker and George Beauchamp are credited with the invention of the first electric guitar, The Frying Pan, in 1931.
I feel that another man was responsible for it's ultimate creation, a decade earlier.

I CANT HEAR YOU!!
Wooden guitars, while acoustically pleasing were difficult to hear in a live performance setting. Adolph Rickenbacker and George Beauchamp created an aluminum body lap-steel guitar. The metal body lap-steel was indeed louder than it's wooden predecessor but still had some trouble being heard over the brass and drums. So in 1931 Adolph Rickenbacker attached a electromagnetic pickup to their aluminum lap-steel guitar, dubbed it "The Frying Pan", and viola the first electric guitar is born!
Right?
Well I say not so fast.

Some people have credited Stromberg-Voisinet (Kay Guitars of Chicago) as the first person to make an "electrified" instrument as he introduced an unsuccessful transducer-based system in 1928.
While a different type of pickup was used, it was still a guitar with a pickup attached--so the first electric guitar?
Right?
Perhaps, as another visionary was making electrified instruments even earlier.

If you search the electric guitar's history Adolph and Beauchamp are always credited with it's invention but another man, Lloyd Loar, was working with coil-wound pickups and "electrified" instruments as early as 1921--some ten years before the Frying Pan. Loar's coil-wound patent also depicts a pedal device with volume controls and an on-off switch!

As a musician he understood how difficult is was for some instruments to be heard in a live setting, so he installed a pickup on his own F-5 mandolin.
On a side note-- in 1922 the words "rock" and "roll", which were black slang for sexual intercourse, appear on record for the first time, Trixie Smith's "My Baby Rocks Me With One Steady Roll".

I'd never heard of Lloyd Loar but it turns out he was an music instructor at Northwestern University in his later years but he started out working in Kalamazoo Michigan at The Gibson company where he improved existing designs on their then in production instruments and even created new ones.

Lloyd Loar founded the Vivi-Tone company on November 1, 1933 in Kalamazoo for the purpose of "manufacture and sale of wholesale and retail musical instruments, acoustic and electric products, including research, consulting services and financing such business." His company produced mandolins, mandolas, mando-cellos, mando-basses, violins; violas, violin-cellos, double basses, Vivi-Tone Claviers and Spanish, Hawaiian, tenor, and plectrum guitars. Most of these instruments were amplified employing Loar's coil wound pickup design.

So perhaps he did not invent the first actual "electric guitar" but he did slap a coil-wound pickup on an acoustic instrument a decade before Adolph Rickenbacker! And who knows maybe Rickenbacker would not have come up with The Frying Pan without Lloyd Loar.

By the end of the 1930s, electronic amplification proved to be one of the most successful innovations for building a louder electric guitar, despite the misgivings of some traditionalists about doing this. Hey some people thought that acoustic instruments should be kept that way and not be "bastardized". I've heard this about The Polkaholics® take on polka music!

Beauchamp applied for a patent on his "frying pan” on June 8, 1923, and again on June 2, 1934, eventually receiving the patent on August 10, 1937.

Comments

[Jorge Lopez-Orozco]

THE TRUTH
The first patented electric guitar was in 1890 by George Breed.
In 1924, Lloyd Loar was a strong advocate of the electrostatic system and together with his college L.A. Williams supposedly produced several prototype electric guitars. They used the round holed Gibson acoustic L-4 as their test bed. The electrostatic pickup was glued to the underside of the guitars sound board. There were a number of problems inherent in the design of these pickups. Its high impedance proved problematic as did its sensitivity to humidity. Furthermore it would only work with a short connecting cable, which severally limited its use. The electrostatic pickup was not fully developed until the 1960’s. Which explains why the electrostatic device was unpatentable until 1935 and even then the design was impractical. The early electrostatic pickup was crude, and susceptible to interference, crackles and hum. Gibson dismissed Loar’s crazy ideas. Further Loar attempts to build a working electrostatic pickup model continued into the 1930’s. The underlying principle upon which the electrostatic pickup was originally based was discarded or at least shelved until the advent of “solid state” transistorized technology of the 1960’s. The future was not as Loar and Williams had assumed in transmitting the instruments vibrations via the body, but rather through the improved development of the 1930 electro-magnet which was placed directly above or below the steel guitar strings would further amplify their vibrations. The vibrations were picked up and converted into a strong electrical signal which was amplified. The term “Pickup” is used to describe all types of electro-magnetic attachments.
Reference: The Concise History of the Electric Guitar by Adrian Ingram, Mel Bay Publications 2001

It has been asserted that Loar developed an electrostatic pickup while working at Gibson in the early 1920s. However, no conclusive proof of such an invention, in either documents or surviving instruments can be positively shown to date their existence in Loar’s time at Gibson. In the 1930s Loar did market a range of electrostatic instruments under the brand name of “ViViTone”, but it is not known exactly what relationships, if any, the 1930s ViViTone designs have to work done by Lloyd Loar while at Gibson. The devices on Loar’s ViViTone instruments, worked on an electrostatic principle, using the vibrations of the instrument’s bridge as the signal source. The pickup was a capacitive device and thus its performance varied as the atmosphere changed. In addition, it was decidedly less efficient, requiring more amplification. Loar’s 1933 ViViTone instruments were not successful and it appears that the company never really made it to the mass production stage. These instruments were not a pick up and play ready design like the 1931 produced Rickenbacker A-22.
Reference: Born To Rock™ BigTime.TV Ltd, Grampian House, Meridian Gate 205 Marsh Wall London, England E14 9YT. Website www.bigtime.tv

Lloyd Loar simply ignored the early discoveries of the electromagnet as he attempted to build a practical electric guitar. The electromagnet was developed from a series of observations starting in 1820. This is the basic design of electric motors, generators and drag racer magnetos. The electro magnetic pickup design was proven by the US Space Shuttle. They were able to generate an extremely high voltage in space by simple extending one wire into the earth’s magnetic flux field.
In 1930 George Beauchamp produced an electromagnetic pickup in which a current passed through a coil of wire wrapped around a magnet, creating a field which amplified the strings' vibrations. Introduced on a lap-steel known as the A-22, the pickup made this guitar the first viable electric.

[Andre Neverson]

I found a 1929 Gibson experimental prototype guitar on the internet. It was built five years after Lloyd Loar left Gibson in 1924. Lloyd Loar had nothing to do with this unmarketed prototype experiment. Also keep in mind that this photo is not the first electric guitar.

http://invention.smithsonian.org/centerpieces/electricguitar/pop-ups/02-01.htm

In late 1923 Loar built a highly humidity sensitive, humming, static producing, extremely low volume and noisy electrostatic transducer device. He attempted to amplify the sound of his acoustic mandolin in 1924. This device produced only oscillating static. Loar did not invent the first electric stringed instrument or guitar. Loar did not work for Gibson in 1929 because Gibson fired him in 1924 and Gibson had to change their name. The first electric guitar patent was granted in 1890 by George Breed. It was a electric guitar that increased the natural tone of the acoustic guitar. It had steel strings and nearly infinite sustain. It did not use CatGut strings like Lloyd Loar’s stringed instruments did. Loar’s instruments NEVER used steel strings. I still drop my head in shame for Loar as one of many people on record to fail in their attempts to build a louder stringed instrument. The electric guitar was patented before Loar who did not improve on the existing 1890 patent so he could not apply for a patent in 1924. He did not resurface until 1933 when he became involved with ViViTone. The Perfect Electro Magnetic Pickup was invented in 1930 by George Beauchamp former president of the National Guitar Company. Lloyd Loar Died a Failure and his instruments are only museum pieces in South Dakota.

[Robert Fisher]

Lloyd Loar used CATGUT strings on his instruments:

As an ailurophile I understand the usage of a cat's innards for the use of acoustic guitar strings. I also prefer the use of sheep or horse intestines for acoustic guitar strings because they sound rich and sweet. According to my source, cats may have never been used for this consider catgut to be sheep gut.

After washing, cutting into ribbons, and scraping away muscle tissue, the ribbons of the lamb's intestines are soaked in an alkaline bath for several hours. Then they stretch them into frames and later remove them while still moist to be organized by size, and then twisted into cords.

These days, catgut usage is being usurped by the evil forces of nylon and steel when making most guitar strings, though some violin, cello, and guitar strings still use the butchered intestines of the great wooly mammals, and in particular these days the Pirazzi family have the ripest flock in Offenbach, Germany. They make strings for Pagani.

Repeat after me: About 50 percent of all suturing is done with catgut. Yes, folks, you are probably walking around stale sheep guts tying your broken bodies. It is slowly absorbed by the body. It is likely you have eaten catgut. It's a tasty treat for all ages. It is used as the casings of sausages, and that's all about catgut.

Catgut (definition) by Webster 1913
Cat"gut` , n. [Cat + gut.]
1. A cord of great toughness made from the intestines of animals, esp. of sheep, used for strings of musical instruments, etcetera.

[Stacy Peterson]

Dear Site Builder:

The site blogger’s below are correct in nearly every aspect.

It is obvious that this sites original commentary was made before any intensive research was performed regarding the originals of the electric guitar. The comments made are primarily an uneducated and closed minded opinion.

The statements made by the sites creator in the majority, are incorrect!

The issue here is don’t write about subjects that you know nothing about. It is obvious that the original comments were written after reading only one or two articles. The site introduction comments are totally Gibson and Lloyd Loar bias. My statement is fact based and is non bias.

Sincerely the Truth

[Mark Everett]

GIBSON BOOK OF BIAS

A Book Entitled: Gibson Electrics the Classic Years-An Illustrated History from the mid 1930’s to the mid 1960’s
Written by A.R.Duchossoir, The book has several incorrect statements right from the first pages.

The books introduction (page 9) states that when Lloyd Loar left Gibson in 1924 that he co-founded the Acousti-Lectric Company in January of 1934. The book goes on to state that Acousti- Lectric Company was renamed to the ViViTone Company in February of 1936.

Comment: The ViViTone Company was founded 11/01/1933 and reorganized as Acousti-Lectric on 01/23/1934 which moved to Detroit, Michigan in 1936. Guitars with the ViViTone logo were built in 1933. Visit the National Music Museum in South Dakota.

He goes on to state that 1924 Gibson electric instruments were reportedly perfected and then states that they were experimental devices in the same small paragraph which is an oxymoron much like writing “there was a deafening silence”.

Comment: There were no Gibson electric instruments in 1924. Lloyd Loar experimented on a Gibson mandolin in 1924, but it was his personal mandolin.

Then He writes that the Lloyd Loar experimental F-5 mandolin no longer exists.

However, the experimental F-5 is known to be on display at the National Music Museum in South Dakota, but it does not work. Loar’s electro-static unit had a very, very high impedance level and it was sensitive to humidity. It was noisy and that was the problem with Loar’s pickup.

On page 10, he points directly to a modified acoustic Gibson L-5 guitar S/N 88258. He goes on to write this L-5 has an electro-static pickup glued under the soundboard of the guitar.

Comment: The serial number suggests experimentation to an existing 1918 designed acoustic L-5 model guitar. The pickup unit was probably like the noisy Loar design since the L-4 or L-5 guitars were not sold. Gibson does not produce an electric instrument until January of 1936. The E-150 lap steel sold for $150.00 which is how it was named. The pickups for this lap steel was not designed by Gibson employees, but developed for Gibson by Musician Alvino Rey a music advisor, John Kutilek an electrical engineer of the Lyon and Healy Company. Gibson's lap steel was behind Rickenbacker's lap steel by six years and Gibson did not design their first magnetic pickup. By 1936 Rickenbacker had already patented the hollow body electric guitar. Musicians preferred Vega electric guitars which were considered better until the late 1940’s when they were sold to the C.F. Martin Co.

[Tuen]

The FIRST electric guitar pickup translated steel string vibrations directly into a current. Lloyd Loar’s design DID NOT do this.
George Beauchamp started research for the advanced and modern magnetic pickup beginning in 1920 which is prior to Lloyd Loar's experiments as is stated above. In fact they were 1,856 miles apart with George Beauchamp in Los Angeles, California and Lloyd Loar in Kalamazoo, Michigan. It is debatable they witnessed, discuss their ideas or exchange notes.

The first electric guitar pickup featuring two 3/8” thick tungsten steel horse shoe magnets and a wire coil with six pole pieces for each string was invented by former National guitar cofounder, general manager and lap steel guitarist George Beauchamp with assistant from Paul Barth.
The National Company produced loud metal acoustic resonator guitars. In 1929 George Beauchamp applied for the patent of a metal single-cone acoustic resonator guitar, patent # 1,808,756.

George worked on his families dinning room table where he finally finished the first electric noiseless pickup after ten years of electronics night classes, research and development in 1930. That same year his friend Harry Watson, a former National factory superintendent built a wooden body and neck for the Beauchamp pickup.

From pickups wound with the aid of the family washing and sewing machine motors, a hand made wooden circular body and a carved guitar neck the electric guitar was born. Beauchamp was not granted a patent (# 2,089,171) for his invention until 1937 which cost him a great deal of money. This was due to a slow and indecisive patent office; so many companies copied Beauchamp’s unprotected invention.

Adolf Rickenbacker’s tool and die shop manufactured aluminum/brass guitar bodies for the National Stringed Instrument Corporation’s highly successful (Tri-Cone) Acoustic Resonator Guitar line were he met Beauchamp General Manager of National.

The first production electric guitar was designed by Adolf Rickenbacker of Los Angeles, California in 1931. The A-22 guitar was nick named the “Frying Pan” because of the one piece cast aluminum circular body and neck design. The new invention was built and first sold by the Ro-Pat-In Corporation founded by Beauchamp and Rickenbacker on October 15th 1931 at 6071 South Western Ave, Los Angeles, California.

Despite the Great Depression 2,700 Rickenbacker A-22 guitars were produced and sold between 1931 and 1939. Several other Rickenbacker electric guitars were manufactured in the same time frame.

[Jason Derek Brown]

Gibson employee Lloyd Loar’s vibration unit was not an original idea. Loar’s experimental 1924 F-5 mandolin used a variation of the mechanical to electrical transducer telephone transmitter. There really was no Loar experimentation, simply adaptation. Especially since the 1924 Loar F-5 mandolin used cat gut strings. These types of strings mechanically induce a form of electrical signal since they are not metal.

In Loar’s era the telephone was still very crude and operated just barely enough to use with any degree of dependability. The telephone coil was still in experimentation due to the constant signal distortion, very low volume and “Dropped Calls” as we say today about our cell phones. Loar’s Mandolin was much the same and simply an experiment which is nothing similar to the electric guitar invention of 1930.

The early telephone carbon granular coils sensed the voice (mechanical) vibration of the carbon in a coil which induced an electrical signal. The carbon grains would often pack together and the telephone transmitter had to be rapped against the wall to function again. This means that the 1924 Lloyd Loar mandolin used a telephone microphone based unit. One end attached to the sound board and the other end to the finger rest of Loar’s F-5 mandolin. This defines an electro-mechanical unit not a purely electric pickup. Loar did not patent this idea or ever even apply for one. Your guess is as good as mine regarding why it was not patented if it worked. Lloyd Loar worked at Gibson from 1918 to 1924. He was hired to revive Gibsons failing acoustic instrument line by introducing the F-5 mandolin and L-5 guitar. It has been said that Loar was asked to leave Gibson since Loar failed and Gibson was near bankrupt. C.F Martin then obtained control of the acoustic guitar market and the mandolin basically became a relic of the past much like the banjo.

Five years after the departure of Lloyd Loar in 1929 Gibson experiments by modifying an acoustic L-5 guitar which is equipped with an electrostatic pickup mounted beneath the bridge (which would sense vibration only) with an output jack concealed in the tailpiece. In essence this is the first known attempt at a semi-acoustic guitar. This prototype guitar was not manufactured or patented and Lloyd Loar was not involved at all. This instrument also used cat gut strings. Cat gut guitar strings were preferred by many professional and novice musicians well into the 1950’s for all acoustic instruments. No documentation is known regarding this guitars performance or why no attempt to market the instrument was ever made, much is hearsay.

The noiseless magnetic pickup was not invented until 1930 by George Beauchamp.

On a side note: In 1929, Western Electric was a big player in early cinema sound systems. It created the Western Electric Universal Base, a device by which early silent cinema projectors could be adapted to screen sound films. It also designed a wide-audio-range horn speaker for cinemas. This was estimated to be nearly 50% efficient, thus allowing a cinema to be filled with sound from a 3-watt amplifier. This was an important breakthrough in 1929 because high-powered vacuum tubes were not generally available back then. Wow Three Whole Watts!

The big electronics entertainment movement appears to become wide spread around 1930.

[Ismale Hocmed]

The early innovators of electric guitars (prior to the 1930 George Beauchamp’s/Rickenbacker totally electric guitar) were to increase the signal of an acoustic instrument, but the actual signal produced was to week to be of any true significance. The Major Issue that is often over looked is the George Beauchamp’s 1930 Magnetic coiled steel strung guitar was a true electric guitar. All attempts prior to the Rickenbacker electric guitar were to increase the natural tone of an acoustic instrument. These instruments are not true electric guitars, but merely vibration sensory attempts to create a louder acoustic instrument (Which used strings made from actual dried and processed cat guts). This is not an electric guitar by true definition. Even by today’s standards there are electric guitars and acoustic (Steel String) guitars with pickups. These are two different instruments. An electric guitar can look like Sharks, Guns, Medieval Axes and a whole array of other shapes and sizes, but an acoustic guitar electric or not must still be acoustic which shape is limited. An acoustic guitar can be electrified by merely playing in front of a microphone. However the guitar is still acoustic and can be played with out the microphone at all and even out perform the microphoned acoustic guitar depending on the amplifier. An electric guitar is basically inaudible without an amplifier. This is why the electric guitar is distinguished by the invention in 1930 by George Beauchamp. It is solely an electric guitar and worthless without an amplifier just like my 1964 Gibson SG electric guitar. Read the other blogger’s to hear all the facts. It is very interesting.

[Tanosa Untiedt]

Man You People Nailed It Down!

The Electric guitar WAS invented by U.S. Navy officer George Breed in 1980. I just found the actual Patent Document.

It reads as follows:

G Breed 5 pages
METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR PRODUCTING MUSIC SOUNDS BY ELECTRICITY
NO. 435,679 Patented Sept. 2, 1890

Then follows a detailed drawing of the first electric guitar. The Document is signed by the inventor George Breed, Two witnesses and two attorneys.

THIS ISSUE IS NOW CLOSED

[Dr. Patricia Hollingsworth]

In 1937 Gibson still stuggles to manufacture an electric guitar eleven years after Lloyd Loar's resignation in 1924.
Another example that the 1929 Gibson coil bridged guitar did not work.

Gibson manufactures the 1937 Charlie Christian Model ES-150 electric semi-acoustic guitar (guitarist for Benny Goodman) Gibson renames the improved magnetic 1935 hexagon pickup the Charlie Christian. The instrument achieved some popularity, but was plagued by unequal volume across the six strings.

[Dr. Patricia Hollingsworth]

IF Gibsons L-5 1929 Cat Gut strung (so called) electric guitar was a Lloyd Loar design. Then how do we explain that Lloyd Loar only worked for Gibson from 1918 to 1924 on acoustic instruments. Five years prior to the 1929 Gibson L-5 experimental bridge vibration guitar. This proves that Lloyd Loar had nothing to do with the Gibson bridge coli 1929 L-5 guitar. If the L-5 guitar actually functioned then why does the following statement hold true. In fact Gibson archives do not mention an electric L-5 production model guitar

Gibson's first electric model, as everyone knows, was the EH-150 lap steel, but officially, it was just the E-150 at first. "EH" stood for Electric Hawaiian; the later Spanish-neck version (the famous "Charlie Christian" model) was designated "ES" for Electric Spanish. Since there was no need to differentiate between Hawaiian and Spanish, the lap steel was originally just E-150. I want to keep an eye out for the first appearance of the Spanish-neck 150 appears to see if the EH and ES prefixes appear immediately. I'm also wondering if this particular E-150 is one of the early metal body models or the wood body that went into production in January 1936. Maybe a later entry will differentiate between the two.

[Nime Rod]

Your way off dude. Blog about something else that you know about because it is not guitar history.

[Renee Avery]

As a science teacher I must agree with the findings below. Experimentation is simply the precursor to invention. Experimentation is not the definition of invention. Many experiments continue today and if the experiment is a success it is then categorized as an invention on the date of success, not the day experimentation began.
The 1890 Patent of the electric guitar is the first electric guitar primarily due to the fact that it was patented as an electric guitar. Also as explained by some one else earlier (and your music instructor agrees) that since the 1890 guitar functioned by electric oscillation that it is truly categorically an electric guitar. This issue is solved as another blogger states that every electric guitar know to precede the 1930 invention of the magnetic pickup and guitar has failed. A failure does not define invention nor does application of a dysfunctional deceive placed on anything make it something more then it is. It has to be an improvement to an existing idea to be patentable. People are initialed to their opinion and as psychologists say “We can not control what other people think, say or do”. It is unreasonable to argue this point even though all the facts are against Lloyd Loar is the inventor of the electric guitar. Many Items are placed in museums to represent the unfolding of history. However, the placement of an item in a museum often recognizes the course of evens that took place in the past on the road to the future. Many items in museums represent the pieces of a greater whole and literature directs us to the final conclusion.
The Rickenbacker fully functional electric guitar is truly a compact modern marvel and why it is highly publicized. All modern music begins with the nicknamed “Frying Pam Guitar” of 1930.

[Debra Price]

Guitar innovator Les Paul recently reported, in an interview with a French newspaper, that he started experimenting with the electric guitar as early as age 7-9, between 1922 and 1925.

[Debra Price]

The Blog Builder must read different books. Everything He/She states is incorrect. I suppose you also think that the Les Paul LOG is actually the fist solid body electric guitar, this is false. The Stratocasters head stock is an original design, this is false. The Les Paul cut away body style is a Gibson original design, this is false. The Gibson SG is an original design, this is false. Manufacturers copied Lloyd Loar’s pickup design, this is false. Gibson used the Loar resonator sensor coil again, this is false. Lloyd Loar applied for a patent of his resonator coil design in 1929, this is false. The Gibson 1929 L-5, L-4 electric guitars were nothing more then failed prototypes. They were never marketed since it was not a functional guitar. Lie to yourself all you want and rub a genies lantern. It still won’t make your false claims true, like so many other false guitar world claims. Also as some one previously stated the first electric guitar was first patented in 1890. That would be 39 years before the Loar's experimental electric guitar. Loar was just in tingle in daddy’s pants when the first electric guitar was patented, so Dream On. OH yeah the Gibson SG is a knock off of the Teisco manufactured Kingston bolt on neck A-2 solid body electric guitar which was first built in 1959 for their summer of 1960 catalog. The Gibson bolt on neck SG or Solid Guitar didn’t come out until 1961 as the new Les Paul, but cry baby Les Paul didn’t want his name on the “Breakable” guitar, so no Les Paul model guitars were built again until 1968. Seems to me Loar copied the 1890 guitar and the telephone (which also barely worked) Loar’s acoustic work was outstanding and is what he should be remembered for and not his electric experiment. The question is “Who Copied Who”?

Try looking up who invented the telephone. If you think Loar was first, then the telephone subject will make your head explode!

[Urge Piniarski]

The Electric Guitar Chronological Truth

In 1980 U.S. Navy officer George Breed builds the first electric steel strung acoustic guitar. US patent number 435679. Result Failure

In 1924 Lloyd Loar's F5 cat gut strung mandolin has a coil-wound resonation receiver attached at one end to the finger rest, and a small plastic foot at the other end that was screwed into the soundboard. A volume control knob was installed into the finger rest. Result Failure

In 1928 The Stromberg -Voisinet (Kay Guitars of Chicago) produces two Cat gut strung electric guitars using a piezo-electric crystal for pickup. Result Failure

January 1929 the Vega Banjo Company produces an electric Banjo the pickup device consisted of a unit attached to the head of a banjo which transmitted the tone to a Vega portable amplifier. Result Failure

1929 Gibson modifies an L-4 and L-5 acoustic with a Lloyd Loar designed bridge to soundboard resonation sensing reed coil capacitive device. The device sensed the cat gut string vibration between the bridge and (guitars top) sound board. Result Failure

1930 George Beauchamp designs the first electric pickup for steel strung guitars. The pickup consisted of two massive "U" shaped magnets and one coil and was given the name, the horseshoe pickup. The two horseshoe shaped magnets surrounded the strings that passed over a single core plate or blade in the center of the coil. Beauchamp then builds the first solid wooden body electric guitar for the pickup. Both the pickup and guitar were invented and built at Beauchamp’s home. Results Successful

1931 George Beauchamp and Adolf Rickenbacker found the Ro-Pat-In Company and manufacture the first steel strung cast aluminum solid body electric guitar with AC amplifier and sell it with two other guitar designs for $140.00. Results Successful

The earliest documented use of the electric guitar in performance was during October 1932 in Wichita, Kansas by guitarist and bandleader Gage Brewer who had obtained two instruments directly from George Beauchamp of Rickenbacker Electro in Los Angeles California. Brewer had an interview about the guitars with the Wichita Beacon on 10/02/1932. He performed with the electric guitar again at a Halloween performance later that month. Results Successful

The 1933 Volu Tone Company of Los Angeles California manufactured an amplifier and pickup set for any guitar. Volu Tone went about picking up the strings vibrations using a dangerous design. The pickup was mounted to the guitar and then charged up for one or two seconds with 300 plus voltage/current that energized the capacitive pickup. A four prong male connector was mounted to the amplifiers unfused chassis. The amplifier cord plug was female while the wall outlet connector was a metal incased plug. Production continued until around 1939. It is not known if anyone was killed using this amplifier and pickup set, but some were certainly shocked. Result Failure

In 1933 the first Vega electric guitar was introduced into the market. It had a hand carved top and a steel reinforced neck. Many musicians appreciated the Vega guitar. The guitar offered features like no other on the market. The guitar had volume and tone knobs and other futuristic features. “Owning a Vega guitar would definitely make a name for you.” Results Successful

Vega introduces the 09/1933 VoluTone amplifier and magnetic string driven pickup set that mounted to the top of any guitar. Results Successful

On 11/01/33 Lloyd Allayre Loar and six other partners form the ViViTone Company. The company did market a range of electric instruments under the brand name of “ViViTone”. The electric guitar pickups functioned by an electrostatic principle, using the vibrations of the instrument’s bridge and sound board as the signal source. The pickup was a capacitive device and thus its performance varied as the atmosphere changed. These systems were plagued with noise, hums, and static. In addition, it was decidedly less efficient, requiring more amplification then the magnetic principle pickup. Result Failure

A recent study was performed on an existing 1935 Loar ViViTone electric magneto-acoustic violin. The description is as follows. The bridge is fit into slot in top, resting (over a wooden and dark-red plastic platform) on a paramagnetic metal bar-armature, the vibration of which varies the intensity of the magnetic field between two pole pieces (each attached to opposite polar ends of a U-shaped permanent magnet), inducing an electric current in a wire coil-winding surrounding one of the pole pieces. The ends of the wire coil-winding are connected to a variable resistance volume-control unit (with an adjusting knob) from which wires extend to the tip-jacks. The bar-armature is divided into two sections with unfriendly resonances using either a notch or a dividing block to prevent its own natural frequency vibrations from overwhelming other frequencies. Result Failure

Dobro introduces a 1933 electric resonator guitar. Art Stimson stole the pickup design from former Seattle Washington partner Paul H. Tutmarc/Audiovox. Art Stimson claimed that the design was his and sold the rights to Dobro for $600.00. The Dobro pickup was a horse shoe magnet and a large transformer. A full page ad in the April Musical Merchandise Review Magazine showed the Dobro electric guitar and amplifier set. The amplifier featured two Lansing speakers and a five vacuum tube chassis. The set was priced at $135.00 and the amplifier alone for $75.00. In 1934 Dobro released a more acoustic, electric resonator guitar and amplifier equipped with an 80 rectifier and two 42 power vacuum tubes. However the amplifier output was less then ten watts which was about as loud as the guitar itself. Results Not So Successful

Paul H. Tutmarc, a man of incredible foresight, a Hawaiian guitar player and teacher in Seattle, Washington starts up a company called Audiovox to manufacture a variety of electric instruments. The Audiovox leaflet of 1936 shows the astonishing electric 736 bass guitar design which he invented in 1935. The first solid body four string electric bass. It had a walnut body and a single pickup and volume control knob on a Pearloid pickguard, a neck with sixteen frets and a cord emerging from a socket on the upper side of the body. Unfortunately musicians did not purchase the new design in lieu of the socially expectable upright acoustic bass. Paul Tutmarc was way ahead of his time. Results Successful

In 1935 Rickenbacker/Electro of California would sell more amplifiers and guitars then all other manufacturers from 1928 to 1934 combined. Rickenbacker’s pickup, quality, marketing and product line was excellent from the start. Results Successful

[Petra Visslava]

1929 is way before 1930? at last count that was one.

[Petra Visslava]

CHEW ON THIS

In 1953 Rickenbacker offered the first dual coil pickups arranged in a humbucking pattern, but dropped the design in 1954 due to their distorted sound. Which is more suitable for today’s modern rock music?

Gibson employee Seth Lover did not invent the humbucker pickup, but is credited for it. Seth Lover designs the PAF humbucker pickup in 1955 for Gibson who began installing them in guitars in 1957. The Gibson PU-490 humbucker pickup patent was issued on 07/28/1959. The pickups enjoyed some popularity, though they certainly were never as widespread as Fender's single-coil pickups. Double-coil pickups were used to reduce or counter the unwanted ambient hum sounds. Double-coil pickups have two coils of opposite magnetic polarity. This means that electromagnetic noise hitting both coils should, again in theory, simultaneously cancel itself out. However this type of pickup is known for distortion and a somewhat dark sound.

[Theresa Wyszenski]

The L-5 guitar that you misperceive as being the first electric guitar is in fact an acoustic cat gut strung Lloyd Loar design of 1918. All of Loar’s designs NEVER used steel strings ever! The L-5 design was designed to use cat gut strings only. The site that you refer to below does not mention the Gibson L-5 acoustic guitar as being modified with a dormant like Loar coil. The notion was dropped by Gibson due to lack of performance and a patented was not applied for by Gibson who felt that the experiment was a failure. Much like the 1941 Les Paul built “LOG” who was the first to use a fence post as a guitar body and people think it is fantastic because they are not educated in the matter.
You’re splitting hairs on this issue The Loar design barely produced a harsh hum distorted low signal. The Gibson Loar coiled L-5 was simply an experiment and not marketed. The Loar design is no more useful then holding a telephone up to a guitar. Loar’s coil was simply an experiment that failed. The Loar coil did not require the use of metal strings since it did not senses metallic material of any kind. The ViViTone instrument models with upgraded Loar vibration coil designs of 1935 still did not function properly and failed commercially. Mean while the 1930 unimprovable George Beauchamp magnetic pickup designed for steel strings is still in production today as perhaps the best pickup ever produced. The achievement is realized with the solid body guitar then built for the pickup after the success of the pickup. The first true fully functional electric guitar is born and successful despite the Great Depression. In fact Gibson builds a guitar especially for George Beauchamp in recognition for his contributions to the electric guitar. The Rickenbacker bass used by Paul McCartney of the Beetles used this same pickup. I have studied this issue for 30 years and I am not convinced that an experiment classifies as a success. It’s much like if I experiment with on a blood disease with injections and the patient dies does that define success? “Yeah, I still did it first”. The definition of success in (The American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition) is the achievement of something desired, planned or attempted.
Lloyd Loar did not succeed with his experiments as he attempted to make the coil functional his entire life. The Achievement was never realized for Loar with electric hand held instruments of any type. If I simply climb a set of steps, I have achieved my goal. Achievement is the act of accomplishing or finishing something. Anyone can say they are the first at anything only to die with your dream is not truly realized. Sure, we can classify Lloyd Loar’s Vibration Coil as the first unsuccessful attempt at an electric instrument. But personally I would not brag about being a failure.

[James]

After doing some more digging I did find this on the internet- http://invention.smithsonian.org/centerpieces/electricguitar/pop-ups/02-01.htm

As early as 1923 Loar developed an electrostatic pickup system for amplifying instruments. I still feel that Loar did actually invent the first electric guitar in 1929, it was not a commercial success, but it was a guitar that had pickups and steel strings- way before the Frying Pan.
While I have investigated all of the claims left here on my blog concerning the electric guitar's invention- and thank you to everyone that has written comments- I still tip my hat to Mr. Loar as the FIRST person on record to use a form of electric current with a guitar to amplify it's strings. While there have been other uses of electric current before Loar, none of these were used on a guitar.

[Theresa Wyszenski]

First of all every comment made by the site builder is incorrect, for example. The Beauchamp's pickup was invented before the Rickenbacker Guitar Company existed. Rickenbacker took advantage of the famous Eddie Rickenbacker World War I flying ace and Medal of Honor recipients name to draw attention to the new invention. Eddie Rickenbacker was Adolf Rickenbacker’s brother. A wooden guitar was built around the new modern electric magnified pickup in 1930 the invention is all George Beauchamp's, but the guitar was marketed in 1931 as an Rickenbacker ornate aluminum steel lap top, since Hawaiian music was extremely popular in that era.

Obviously your bias has clouded your ability to form an objective and factually based statement. The Rickenbacker guitars were a huge hit and people were purchasing them through out the depression leaving Loar’s semisuto electrics as museum pieces in the National Instrument Museum in South Dakota. Their collection is outstanding. There is no supporting data to back up your claims especially your 1921 reference. Loar was working heavily on the designs of the acoustic F-5 Mandolin and L-5 acoustic guitar (the first F slotted guitar) both for Gibson at that time incorporating additional internal sound boards. The Loar signature edition F-5 acoustic mandolins are possible the most sought after instruments of all time. Loar worked for Gibson from 1918 to 1924 and left since Gibson was near bankrupt.
The Loar coil did not use a magnet at all and was somewhat magneto based in design based on metal reeds pulsing inside the coil apparently and I do mean apparently inducing a low signal from the acoustic mandolins bridge vibration. Rickenbacker’s guitar was so fantastic that it did take several years for the patent office to accept a metal strung, totally electrically, metal solid body guitar that was not acoustic in any manner what so ever. The guitar functioned entirely by electricity and was not an acoustic cat gut morfidite.
Also there is no supporting data that the Lloyd Loar’s modified F-5 mandolin worked at all and beside that point he had no amplifier of record. Research is what makes a college 4.0 GPA.

[Ulanda Vencouski]

Francis William Galpin musical instrument ethnomusicologist’s 1937 book A Textbook of European Musical Instruments, he lists electrophones(such as the Denis d'or)with three second-level divisions for sound generation ("by oscillation," "electro-magnetic," and "electro-static"), as well as third-level and fourth-level categories based on the control method. The Denis d'or’s electrifying system is not listed in any musical instrument category since the listing is based on the primary source of initial sound production. The primary source of initial sound from the Denis d'or is based on the acoustic piano mechanical system, so the Denis d'or is not listed as an electrical instrument. Since it is not electrically actuated, amplified or oscillated like a synthesizer. Which were referred to as radio electric instruments?

[Jimmy Smolinski]

GEO wrote on April 29 2007 about this Herman Munster Contraption.

1753 is the earliest written mention of the acoustic mechanical Denis d'or keyboard stringed instrument. The instrument is sometimes referred to the first electric instrument, but in fact it is only device that used mild electricity. It functioned much like placing a light bulb with a switch inside a modern acoustic guitar to warm the strings intermittently which would cause the strings to quickly go out of tune and eventually sustain damage. It was created and built by Václav Prokop Diviš. The instrument no longer exists today. Surviving documents about the Denis d'or are short and very few creating much speculation and assumption.
The mechanically operated Denis d'or had 14 registers, most were twofold, the mechanism fit in a wooden cabinet with a keyboard and a pedal. It was about five feet long, three feet wide, and four feet high. Basically, it was a chordophone since the strings were struck like a piano. However, the suspension and the tightening of the 790 iron strings were more elaborate.
The Denis d'or imitated the sounds of a variety of instruments, such as harpsichords, harps and lutes, and even wind instruments. This was due to the response and combination of the stops, so the player could vary the sound in many ways.
The oddest feature was that Diviš could temporarily charge the iron strings with electricity so the tone might be altered in the most primitive way. This is an absolute novelty and is not used in any modern instrument. The Denis d'or predates the first modern Voltaic pile battery invented in 1800. The electrical source was much like the Baghdad Battery, 250 BC and 224 AD discovered in the village of Khuyut Rabbou'a, near Baghdad, Iraq. For any true voltage several jars had to be wired in series and would have a very short operation period. Additionally, Diviš installed a sadistic device so that, anytime it pleased him, the player could be mildly electrocuted. The electrified strings would merely heat up which put them out of their original tune. Depending on the amount of power, the heat would cause the iron strings to distort and expand, as all heated metals do. The heating of the iron strings would only create a flat tone. This instrument was electrified, not electric. The Denis d'or did not function nor was it amplified by electricity.

[Leslie Murtova]

THE LES PAUL ABORTION:

Lester William Polfuss or Les Paul, a cocky Gibson employee/musician cobbles together the 1941 “LOG” semi solid electric guitar from a pine 4” x 4” wooden FENCE POST for a body with a glued on acoustic neck. This thing shunned him from New York City night clubs because it looked threatening. He later glued on a sawed in half body of an Epiphone acoustic hollow F slotted guitar to make it appear like a guitar. "It was merely a fence post with a neck". He used telephone parts (1876 invention) on the “LOG” to form some sort of pickups. The finished guitar is incredibly ugly for a Gibson connected instrument.
Editorial comment from author: Sad, but true this so called electric pioneering guitar was patented (Rumor) and is actually on display in a museum today. For reasons unknown. It is highly admired and considered they many to be the first electric guitar for some uneducated reason? Further more, why does anyone care? This guitar is not the first example of a solid body electric guitar. That motion is only Gibson propaganda. Rickenbacker invented the first functional electric pickup solid body guitar with amplifier in 1930. SMILIN’ LES’S “LOG”
Around 1946, Lester William Polfuss or Les Paul presents his "LOG" guitar to Gibson for production. The Gibson Company did not use Les Pauls freakish "LOG" as a prototype. Gibson does not produce a real solid body guitar until 1952 when they copy the 1947 Paul Bigsby Merle Travis model electric guitar.

By the way regarding the comment below:

The 1921 $2,000.00 radio that is mentioned is merely a crystal radio. Factory built consumer batteryless vacuum tube radios were not available in the US until 1925.The volume of this radio is unknown or even if it had a built in speaker.
Loar's project was doomed from the start and his coil idea was not patented until 1933. It appears that his 1924 resonator bridge coiled mandolin did not really work since ten years later the idea was patented.

[sidney merteel]

Regarding Lloyd Loar's Gibson F-5 mandolin modified with a resonation bridge coil:

I have studied this issue and it does not appear that the technology had come together for him to develop a practical electric instrument of sufficient volume with a truly stand alone audible signal. He probably had to use a crude low wattage (perhaps only three watts) radio amplifier and some headphones to hear the instrument at all. No detailed records seem to exist regarding the development, design or performance. It appears that he primarily worked on this idea on the side since he was working for Gibson. Although rumor has it that he did not work on the idea alone and Gibson expressed some interest, but dropped the idea. Loar was an acoustical genius not an electrician. Still I’m sure he was fascinated by the idea, however his patents indicate that his true passion appears to be electrifying the piano.

What is puzzling is that the first publicly available radios of 1921 cost $2,000.00(figure adjusted for today's cost).

He must have been very wealthy for his time to afford to develop the device and possibly harm him prized mandolin in the process.

Study of historical data regarding invention and development of all the components required, shows that the means to build a practical electric amplified instrument were just starting to come together around 1927.This is when the modern electrical era seems to really begin, but any electric product built at that time would be to expensive for most consumers. Let’s look at the Rickenbacker guitar of 1931; it cost $70.00 for the guitar alone and $140.00 for guitar and amplifier.

That is a good chunk of change by even today’s standards. Just walk up to your wife or girl friend hold out your hand and say "Give me $140.00" and see what happens.

I believe Loar began what was yet to come, but was just a few years ahead of the technology for the bridge pickup in 1924 to be affordable and have adequate volume for a live performance.

Unfortunately Loar’s work at ViViTone of 1933 was destine to fail due to the Great Depression. We will never really know the true impact of Lloyd Loar’s contribution to the electric instrument.