内置技术的吉他历史

The first time someone tried fitting fancy gadgetry to a guitar, it unleashed terrifying satanic forces upon the world and turned a whole generation into gibbering delinquents. In other words, it was a wonderful success. So can you blame people for spending the best part of a century trying to match it?

• 阅读更多：Epiphone赌场的历史

That first gadget was, of course, the electro-magnetic pickup – a little innovation that, after a few decades of tweaks, was powerful enough to turn the gently strummy six-string into the driving force of that ungodly phenomenon known as rock ’n’ roll. Not a bad starting point for our history of guitars with built-in technological enhancements.

This, though, is a story with a lot more misses than hits. You might well look at the newBossEURUS GS-1 - 将先进的复合合成器发动机打包到否则看起来像是相当传统的两次攻击S型中 - 并推测它的Globe-Straddling成功几率可能在很长的一面。但是有一些证据表明，我们的木板夹具并不像我们有时认为的那样保守……

Are trends electric?

首先，我们应该确定对“技术”的定义。如果您对您来说还可以，我们将专注于电气和电子 - 否则此功能的一半将是whammy bars的清单。

所以我们不会居住Doc Kauffman的开创性颤音系统1929年, nor on单弦音高改变者，例如B型弯管，甚至看上去最可爱的Doohickey都曾经拧到乐器的脸上：里肯贝克‘comb’ of 1966, for switching between 12-string and six-string formats by physically pulling half of the strings out of the way.

If we narrow things down further to exclude gadgets that are essentially useless, that rules out another Rickenbacker idea: the 331 Light Show model of the early 70s, whose clear top covered an array of coloured lamps that glowed in sync with its output. Think that’s daft? Don’t tellMatt Bellamy- 他的一个Manson“ Mattocaster”吉他配备了激光器，以相同的方式对演奏动态做出反应。提醒您，据说自2007年以来他就一直没有演唱过它。

不过，灯不必纯粹是化妆品。当今的各种公司都在制作LED FRET标记，以帮助在黑暗阶段导航，而Fretlight教学系统涉及嵌入式LED，显示新手可以放在哪里。这不是改变世界的，但很聪明。

无论如何，除了鞭子，这都是外围的东西。现在该将我们的注意力转移到大多数吉他手真正感兴趣的东西上：淹没鼓手。

Amp pain supernova

制造吉他的最明显的技术是放大器。这样，您就不需要……好吧，一个放大器。这是几位制造商在1960年代最毫无恐惧的前瞻性思维中尝试的事情。

霍夫纳它似乎首先是在1960年的Musikmesse博览会上创建的Fledermausgitarre（“蝙蝠吉他”）：一只奇怪的野兽，其身体顶部内置有四瓦固态放大器。

It never went into full production – probably because the amp and its motorcycle battery made it too heavy to play – but another European pioneer, Antonio ‘Wandre’ Pioli, took the concept further with his Bikini model, made in Italy by the Davoli Krundaal company for at least two years in the early 60s. This had an 1×8” transistor combo in a separate pod bolted to the main body… and also included a jack output for plugging into a proper amp, just in case.

early tech-toting guitars didn’t so much blaze a trail as whack a few nettles with a walking stick

The Japanese weren’t far behind with theTeiscoTRG-1 of 1964, which improved on its predecessors by actually looking like a guitar, but what do all these amped-up creations have in common? To put it bluntly, they all died on their arses.Rory Gallagher在他的最后一些录音中使用了trg-1，还有吻在80年代初与比基尼合影（即使我们不确定他曾经玩过），但是体重和电源的实用性确保了这个想法从未真正引起过。

Vox的bid to revive the idea with its 2011 Apache range of travel guitars was not successful; but in the current age of mini-amps and super-efficient batteries, you do have some all-in-one options. These include the hi-tech Fusion Guitar, ElectroPhonic Innovations instruments with built-in stereo speakers and effects, the kid-friendly Loog Pro VI Electric and – from a brand with serious pedigree in portable amplification – the Pignose PGG-200.

But let’s be realistic. What we’re looking at here is a clutch of niche tools designed for fun, travel, maybe a bit of busking. Installing an amp in a serious guitar for gigging or recording just doesn’t make a lot of sense in the modern world.

Scale it down to just effects, however, and things suddenly get a lot more lively.

I wanna effects you up

是时候做另一个定义了。什么是效果？出于我们的目的，它们是声音操纵器，不仅仅是过滤，增强或切换。因此，1959年的vari-tone表盘GibsonES-345，1963年内的主动电路BurnsTR2，安装在1965年的器官弹簧体积控制FramusStrato, the middle and treble boosters hidden in the 1983FenderEliteStratocaster– they don’t count.

Besides, Doc Kauffman got there before all of them: he produced a motorised version of his vibrola for Rickenbacker in 1937. That must surely be the first ever onboard effect – only slightly undermined by the fact that it required mains power to operate.

Our next candidate is theEpiphoneProfessional from 1962… and it’s immediately disqualified for cheating. This elegant semi-acoustic had reverb and tremolo controls on its giant butterfly-shaped pickguard, but the effects themselves were actually found in the 35-watt amp it had to be plugged into (via a special cable) in order to work properly.

For true onboard effects, you’d have to wait until 1966-67, a period that saw the launch of another bold effort from Höfner along with a quartet of them from Vox. Hofner’s 459VTZ was a close relative ofPaul McCartney’sfamous violin bass, but this six-string had built-in fuzz and tremolo circuits – the same pairing found, along with a range of boosts, in Vox’s Mark VI Special, Phantom VI Special and 12-string Phantom XII Special, plus theMOSRITE-style V262 Invader.

Ian Curtis can be seen strumming on a white Phantom VI Special in the video forLove Will Tear Us Apart, but the Invader was surely the pick of this bunch – as well as being the prettiest, it also included a wah effect operated by pushing down on a lever behind the bridge.

So, what is the legacy of these tech-toting trailblazers? In truth, they didn’t so much blaze a trail as whack a few nettles out of the way with a walking stick. That is to say that others followed, but not in huge numbers.

Univox was one of the first with the Effector (also sold under the Kay brand), an LP-shaped solidbody with fuzz, two kinds of tremolo and two phasing effects, all powered by a single nine-volt battery. Then came theGretschChet Atkins7680 1977年的超级斧头，其膨胀的身体隐藏了一个移相器和一个压缩机。日本制造的Electra同一时代的MPC范围提供了模块化效果，这些效果夹在身体后部。甚至苏联人也加入了formanta（又名Borisov）Solo-2，它具有模糊赛道，看起来像Fisher-Price Jazzmaster。

Rickenbacker在1988年以配备压缩机的Roger McGuinn签名模型370/12RM跳入了我们的故事，而Fender则在80年代末以其配备了扭曲的Heartfield RR9击败。但是随后在90年代的骨头干燥时代进行了瘦弱的咒语……直到下次我们看到一把著名的吉他效果，2001年，这个想法已经复古。这是DanelectroInnuendo, with distortion, chorus, tremolo and echo circuits engaged via little push-buttons on the control panel. It was a fun instrument, but with a whiff of ‘novelty’.

Again, though, the principle lives on. Remember Matt Bellamy’s lasers? There’s nothing so frivolous about the tech built into some of his other Mansons, including a科格Kaoss Pad和版本ZvexWah Probe and Fuzz Factory. He’s also been known to use a kill-button – alright, we’ve already said a switch doesn’t count as an effect – and both the费尔南德斯可持续者和可持续系统通过内部反馈循环生成无限笔记。

然后是一些德国制造的旋转风格的莱斯利赛道Deimelguitars, while US boutique makerbiltoffers a Relevator + Effects model with fuzz and delay (the signature version it created for Sarah Lipstate in 2019 adds modulated reverb). And just this summer, British brand Fidelity unveiled a one-off dB Baritone with an innovative whammy-controlled fuzz feedback circuit.

Oh, and Bellamy’s not done yet. Here’s what he said after becoming the majority shareholder in Manson Guitar Works in 2019: “We’ll certainly be exploring enhanced electronic features to further evolve the guitar into the modern era.” There’s already been talk of a model with a built-inDigitechwhammy - 看这个空间。

Living in a Vox

Of course, those “enhanced electronic features” needn’t be limited to effects, and that brings us to the wildest projects in the history of Franken-luthiery: guitars that aren’t even guitars. Again we’re in the realm of things that seemed like a good idea in the 60s; but again it’s clear the wider concept never truly died.

在某个地方YouTube有一个Dick Denney片段，Vox AC15和AC30背后的人出现在60年代中期的美国面板表演中。但是他没有向名人客人展示新的放大器。迪克（Dick）配上了rakish的山羊胡子胡须和不协调的肯特（Kent）口音，可以演示Vox V251吉他风琴。

First presented toLennon和麦卡特尼（McCartney）在1964年，吉他风琴基于与后来效果的特殊模型相同的幻影体。但这确实是一个变相的Vox大陆器官：每个货物都是六部分的电气接触，然后按下绳子以触摸一个电路，完成了电路以生成音符。

丹尼（Denney）简要展示了其在该视频中令人印象深刻的混合模式，用左手弹奏器官旋律，同时用他的右手弹奏吉他和弦。猜猜是什么？吉他风琴太重且太复杂了（试想一下那里的脖子一定有多少电线！），），The Beatles不喜欢它，它在1967年发疯了。

有更多光荣的失败 - 尤其是70年代中期的意大利人制造的戈德温吉他风琴，它遵循了Vox模板，但增加了更多的开关。和1976年HagstromSwede Patch 2000，作为第一吉他合成器销售。与之合作安培，这再次将frets变成电触点，但需要外部合成器来产生声音。它没有生存到80年代。

Synthy irresistible

Pausing briefly to doff our cap at one more 70s oddity, the Guyatone LG-23R with its crude built-in drum machine, we now arrive at the heyday of keyboard-based pop… and various synth makers’ attempts to drag guitarists into this gleaming, shoulder-padded future.

罗兰从1977年开始使用GR-500开始了一系列模拟吉他合成器。像Hagstrom一样，这只是一个控制器，而不是独立的声音制造商。即便如此，当未来派G-707模型于1984年推出时，罗兰（RolandRobert Frippand Adrian Belew to include安迪·萨默斯乃至Jimmy Page。

Casio和Yamahawanted a piece of this action, spurred on by the arrival of MIDI in 1983, and their various offerings were joined in 1985 by a distinctly unconventional British effort: the SynthAxe. But the tech still wasn’t streamlined enough to make self-contained synth guitars viable… even if another maker from these islands, Stepp, gave it a go in 1986 with its DG-1 – a device now remembered mostly for being the ugliest musical instrument ever made.

ROLand’s roster of GUITAR SYNTH users included robert fripp, adrian belew, Andy Summers AND Jimmy Page

Casio终于在1988年提出了真正的混合动力，即PG-380。这是一把合适的吉他 - 策略风格的身体形状，两个单线圈和一个humbucker，弗洛伊德·玫瑰（Floyd Rose）有执照的桥 - 但内部有一个实际的合成器，由六角形拾音器触发，并由面板的按钮和两位数的显示器控制。众所周知，这相当不错。唯一的障碍是几乎没有人想要一个。

罗兰eventually scaled back its ambitions to designing hex pickups that could be fitted to just about any six-string, making the conversion from guitar to synth easy and, best of all, reversible. It’s still selling those GK pickups to this day, along with a GR-55 processor to plug them into.

这使我们整齐地回到了以吉他为中心的部门的那个新野兽，Boss。Eurus GS-1通过利用如今的合成器技术比80年代更强大，更小。像Casio PG-380一样，GS-1也可以作为常规吉他演奏。与Casio不同，它通过专用的智能手机应用程序深入剪辑其合成器声音。这是否意味着注定要接管世界尚不清楚，但是它的射门肯定比任何笨拙的前辈都更好。

爱未来

我们还没有涉及一个类别：吉他听起来不像器官，小提琴或突击队的闹钟，只是其他一些吉他。令人难以置信的是，现在已经将近二十年了第6行释放其第一个变异性，以数字化对不同的音调进行建模，以使您可以从Telecaster带有旋转开关的扭曲的无畏（或班卓琴）。

并不是每个人都立即被Variax赢得，但是它仍然保持强劲，目前具有七种不同的口味，包括几种硬摇动的Shuriken型号。这是成功的，因为尽管它的所有技术复杂性，但它仍然看起来和感觉像是一把电吉他，而这是一个相当低调的吉他。

不能这样说 - 对不起，我们不得不提及它 -GibsonFirebird X. Launched in 2011, this modelling monster was the culmination of a whole digital programme for Gibson, beginning with the string-splitting HD.6X-Pro in 2006. The reaction to the X was fiercely negative, sales were non-existent, and a now-infamous leaked video of unsold guitars being crushed by a bulldozer provided a fitting end to the company’s futuristic adventure. In fact, it had soon abandoned even the Firebird X’s least offensive techy feature: robot tuners, fitted to most electric models across the 2015 range but gone completely by 2019.

Then there wasMoog- 一个名称与合成的名称与综合有着千丝万缕的联系，该合成在1970年代后期与吉布森（Gibson）合作，配备了主动前置放大器以及压缩和扩展电路的RD系列。一只穆格品牌的吉他在2008年后几十年到达，甚至在夏季纳姆（Summer Namm）表现最好。但是它的持续和过滤技术的创新融合未能捕捉主流的想象力，而穆格吉他后来停产。

那么，对于数字琴弦的未来，这些标志是混合的。同样，肯定会有更多具有板载效果的产品，也许会有耳机放大器。但是，有一个很好的理由不希望很快在这个领域发生全面的革命。

While continuing improvements in battery tech mean the issue of powering these circuits is less problematic than it used to be, one other snag remains: turning them on and off. Until someone invents the three-handed guitarist, stompboxes will surely remain the most practical way for most players to enhance, mutate and pulverise the voice of the electric guitar – and that’s just fine by us.