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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with

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Speaker 1: how Stuff Works in love all Things tech, and several

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Speaker 1: months ago, I did a few episodes about the history

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Speaker 1: of Gibson guitars, which had to file for Chapter eleven

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Speaker 1: bankruptcy protection not too long ago, and tech Stuff listener

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Speaker 1: Greg asked if I could do a similar treatment for

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Speaker 1: another famous guitar company, Fender, And so today we're going

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Speaker 1: to look at the history of Fender guitars and what

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Speaker 1: differentiates Fenders from Gibson guitars. Specifically, we're gonna look at

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Speaker 1: the difference between the classic Guitar Showdown, and there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of different guitars that Gibson has made. There

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Speaker 1: are a lot of different guitars that Fender has made.

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Speaker 1: But generally speaking, when you were talking about Fender versus Gibson,

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Speaker 1: most to people, I think mean stratocaster from Fender versus

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Speaker 1: the less Paul from Gibson. So what the heck makes

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Speaker 1: us so different? I'm going to tell you, but not

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Speaker 1: right now, because you know how I do. I started

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Speaker 1: off with history, So let's talk about the history of Fender.

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Speaker 1: So the founder of Fender was Clarence Leonidas Leo Fender.

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Speaker 1: He was born on August tenth, nineteen o nine, which

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Speaker 1: was a little bit more than a decade after Orville

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Speaker 1: Gibson had produced his first musical instrument, which, as I recall,

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Speaker 1: was a mandolin. And it was also seven years after

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Speaker 1: Kalamazoo businessman form the Gibson Mandolin Guitar manufacturing company back

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Speaker 1: in nineteen o two. So by the time Fender was born,

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Speaker 1: Gibson was already on its way to becoming a thing,

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Speaker 1: although obviously the the era of the electric guitar battles

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Speaker 1: was decades away. Uh. Also, Leo was never a musician,

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Speaker 1: or at least not a guitarist or a luthier. Uh

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Speaker 1: from by trade. Like, he didn't come from a musical

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Speaker 1: instrument making background. He kind of fell into that. His parents,

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Speaker 1: Monty and Harriet, owned an orange grove in a ranch

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Speaker 1: in California, and he went to school in Fullerton, California. Fullerton,

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Speaker 1: by the way, is not too far away from Anaheim.

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Speaker 1: It's southeast of Los Angeles. When he was eight years old,

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Speaker 1: Leo lost his left eye. He got a glass eyes

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Speaker 1: a replacement. One biography I read said that he lost

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Speaker 1: his eye do to an injury that he suffered in childhood.

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Speaker 1: Another one said that he had actually developed a tumor

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Speaker 1: behind that. I uh, I don't know which was the

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Speaker 1: actual cause, but I do mention it because him losing

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Speaker 1: an eye actually plays an important part in his story,

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Speaker 1: beyond just coping with you know this this change, uh

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Speaker 1: it actually is. You could argue the fact that he

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Speaker 1: lost an eye when he was a kid might have

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Speaker 1: been what made it possible for him to get into

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Speaker 1: making electric guitars. He also attended Junior College in Fullerton.

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Speaker 1: He majored in accounting, and in fact, he had no

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Speaker 1: formal training and electrical engineering at all, but he did

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Speaker 1: have a very keen interest in the subject, and much

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Speaker 1: of that interest actually came from working with his uncle,

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Speaker 1: whose name is John West or was John West West

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Speaker 1: was an auto mechanic, and he also had built his

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Speaker 1: own radio, and he was interested in ham radio. So

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Speaker 1: Fender became fascinated with radios and began to learn how

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Speaker 1: they work, and how do you build a simple radio,

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Speaker 1: how are more complex radios built, how do you repair them?

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Speaker 1: And He got so good at putting radios together or

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Speaker 1: figuring out how to fix a broken radio that he

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Speaker 1: ended up opening out a small business in his home

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Speaker 1: while he was still in high school. He had a

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Speaker 1: little home shop he would work in and just kind

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Speaker 1: of take commissions from locals to build or fix radios.

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Speaker 1: He took piano lessons as a kid, uh, and later

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Speaker 1: he switched to the saxophone briefly, but music really wasn't

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Speaker 1: his passion, at least not not producing it himself, so

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Speaker 1: he never learned to play guitar, and legend hasn't that

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Speaker 1: he didn't even really know how to tune a guitar properly.

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Speaker 1: When he graduated in nineteen thirty the country was in

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Speaker 1: pretty bad shape. The Great Depression had begun the previous year,

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Speaker 1: and so it was a tough time for people to

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Speaker 1: get work and to keep work. Fender originally found work

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Speaker 1: with a company called the Consolidated Ice and Cold Storage

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Speaker 1: Company in Anaheim, California, which sounds like a pretty cool gig.

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Speaker 1: That's a pun. In nineteen thirty four, he married a

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Speaker 1: woman named Esther class Key. They would stay together until

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Speaker 1: she passed away. Uh. He also switched jobs to work

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Speaker 1: for the California Highway Department in California, obviously, but government

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Speaker 1: budgets would lead to layoffs and his job was one

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Speaker 1: of the ones affected. He was one of the people

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Speaker 1: who was let go during that that era. So he

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Speaker 1: went around looked for another job, and he got one

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Speaker 1: as an accountant for a tire company, but that job

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Speaker 1: only lasted six months before the tire company also had

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Speaker 1: to layoff employees, including Fenders. So while that was going on,

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Speaker 1: he was still pursuing his interest with electronics. You know,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't working in that field, but we're still interested

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Speaker 1: in it. A local band leader in Fullerton had asked

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Speaker 1: Fender to build out a p A system, a public

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Speaker 1: address system, so that it could be used for dances.

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Speaker 1: And these were dances that were taking place in clubs

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Speaker 1: and dance halls in Hollywood. So Fender took the job

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Speaker 1: and he built out the p A system, and the

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Speaker 1: guy was impressed and it ended up leading to some

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Speaker 1: other commission work. And once he lost his position at

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Speaker 1: the tire company, when he was no longer able to

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Speaker 1: be there accountant, he decided he was going to take

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Speaker 1: a risk and go into business for himself. I mean

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Speaker 1: after all, he had gone through three different jobs over

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Speaker 1: the past few years and felt that maybe it was

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Speaker 1: time for him to try and do this on his own. Also,

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Speaker 1: by this time it was nineteen thirty nine. It was

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Speaker 1: almost a decade after he had graduated, and nine nine

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Speaker 1: is sort of the end of the Great Depression. The

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Speaker 1: Great Depression, the major downturn was in the first few years,

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Speaker 1: like twenty nine to thirty three, and then thirty nine

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Speaker 1: was towards the very end of the recovery period where

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Speaker 1: the economy was finally getting to the point of pre

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Speaker 1: depression levels. So Fender took out a loan for six

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Speaker 1: hundred dollars and he set up a company, a little

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Speaker 1: store called the Fender Radio Service. It was a repair

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Speaker 1: shop in Fullerton, California. He specialized in repairing small electronic

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Speaker 1: products like radios, amplifiers, public address systems, but also like

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Speaker 1: phonograph some other stuff like that. He began to carry

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Speaker 1: records after a while, as in vinyl albums, because he

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Speaker 1: saw that there was a market for it and there

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Speaker 1: weren't really any record shops in Fullerton, so he said, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, I sell this equipment. I offered to repair

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Speaker 1: this equipment I should sell the media as well, so

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Speaker 1: he did, and that started bringing more customers in, and

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Speaker 1: then he began to carry other types of products like

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Speaker 1: phonographs and and actually sell a lot more radios. Originally

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Speaker 1: he was just repairing them, and over time he built

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Speaker 1: out public address systems and offered them for rental or

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Speaker 1: for sale. There were still a lot of local dances

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Speaker 1: and banned performances going on in the area, and so

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Speaker 1: that ended up being kind of a regular source of

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Speaker 1: income for him. Then he began to build amplifiers, and

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Speaker 1: again he had received no formal schooling in any of this.

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Speaker 1: He was learning by doing. He was learning by tinkering

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Speaker 1: in his shop, putting things together, seeing if they worked,

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Speaker 1: adjusting them. It was very interesting to see that this

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Speaker 1: guy was largely self taught, so he had developed his

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Speaker 1: expertise through experience and through studying what other people had

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Speaker 1: built and figuring out how it worked. At this point,

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Speaker 1: America was entering World War Two, in fact that it

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Speaker 1: did so after the bombing of Pearl Harbor that happened

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Speaker 1: in December. Fender, however, was ineligible to be conscripted for

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Speaker 1: military service because he had lost an eye. He had

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Speaker 1: a glass eye, and it was in this period when

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Speaker 1: he would first start working with developing electric guitars. So

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Speaker 1: you could argue that it's possible Fender was able to

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Speaker 1: pursue his interest in electronics and to start fiddling around

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Speaker 1: with working on electric guitars because he had lost his

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Speaker 1: eye as a kid, and if he hadn't, he would

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Speaker 1: have been conscripted for the United States military and sent

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Speaker 1: to fight in World War Two, and who knows what

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Speaker 1: would have happened. Then maybe he would have come out

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Speaker 1: of it fine, but he might not have taken on

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Speaker 1: a job that would have involved electronics after coming back

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Speaker 1: from the war, So it's an interesting thing to think about.

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Speaker 1: In the early nineteen forties, Finder began to work with

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Speaker 1: one of his regular customers, who is a guy who

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Speaker 1: also owned a radio repair shop. That guy was Clayton

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Speaker 1: Doc Kaufman. Kaufman had brought an amplifier for Finder to

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Speaker 1: fix at one point, and the two struck up a friendship.

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Speaker 1: Doc Kaufman had already made some important contributions to music himself.

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Speaker 1: In ninety eight, he applied for a patent. That patent

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Speaker 1: has the title Apparatus for producing Tremolo Effects or tremolo

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Speaker 1: effects if you prefer tremolo is a wavering effecting whoo

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Speaker 1: boo in a musical tone. And so this was a

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Speaker 1: patent for a type of tremolo bar sometimes called a

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Speaker 1: whammy bar. More appropriately we should call it a vibrato bridge.

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Speaker 1: That's the lever that some electric guitars and some other

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Speaker 1: instruments have that that the purpose of that lever is

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Speaker 1: to introduce this wavering effect. And Kaufman designed a movable

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Speaker 1: tail piece that would increase or decrease the tension on

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Speaker 1: a string. So when you'd string this musical instrument, and

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Speaker 1: it would go through to the bridge at the base

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Speaker 1: of the musical instrument, this bar had a little spring

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Speaker 1: loaded system connected to that bridge where if you press

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Speaker 1: down on the bar, it would increase tension on the strings,

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Speaker 1: which would increase the pitch of the string. When it

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Speaker 1: was vibrating, it would actually vibrate at a faster frequency.

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Speaker 1: If you pulled up on the lever, it would reduce

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Speaker 1: the amount of tension on the string and it would

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Speaker 1: vibrate more slowly and thus decrease the pitch of the

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Speaker 1: vibrating string. Uh So, moving the lever either closer to

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Speaker 1: or further from the face of the instrument. You can

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Speaker 1: slightly change the tension of the string without having to

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Speaker 1: change the tuning, and that's where you get that wavering sound.

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Speaker 1: And um, this is where I need to make that

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Speaker 1: pedantic clarification. Technically speaking, you create a tremolo effect by

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Speaker 1: changing the amplitude of a sound, by changing the volume

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Speaker 1: of a sound, by moving the volume up and down

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Speaker 1: over time, mike, so kind of like turning up and

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Speaker 1: turning down the volume rapidly as a note plays. That's

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Speaker 1: technically tremolo. Vibrato is changed by uh, is that wavering

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Speaker 1: effect by changing the pitch slightly of a sound, so

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Speaker 1: the frequency, not the amplitude. And that's what these these

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Speaker 1: apparatus would do. They change the pitch of the of

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Speaker 1: the string, and so they were That's why we should

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Speaker 1: call him vibrato, not tremolo. But everyone calls him tremolo

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Speaker 1: or wammy bars, so it doesn't really matter. I guess

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Speaker 1: it ultimately matters what people use as the term, but

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Speaker 1: technically speaking, it's not correct. Kaufman had also worked with

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Speaker 1: the company Rickenbacker, which was the company that had pioneered

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Speaker 1: electric guitars, though these were meant to be lap steel

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Speaker 1: electric guitars. Uh. And they were hollow body guitars. They

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Speaker 1: weren't solid body guitars, so they weren't the Spanish style

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Speaker 1: guitars we typically think of. Those are the ones that

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Speaker 1: you know, you would typically have a shoulder strap on

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Speaker 1: them and you play it standing up. Uh. The lap

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Speaker 1: steel guitars, obviously, as the name suggests, those you would

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Speaker 1: play you would sit down. You would have the guitar

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Speaker 1: sitting on your lab and you play it as a

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Speaker 1: steel guitar. Kaufman and Fender worked together to design a

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Speaker 1: phonograph record changer, and they were able to sell that

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Speaker 1: design for the Burnsley some of five thousand dollars, and

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Speaker 1: with that they decided to go into business together and

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Speaker 1: started a new company. They called it K and F Manufacturing.

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Speaker 1: Fender continued to operate his radio repair shop at the

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Speaker 1: same time, and then the moment of truth. At some point,

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Speaker 1: Kaufman and Fender began to discuss the systems that made

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Speaker 1: electric guitars work, and the too decide they were going

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Speaker 1: to give it a shot. What happened next, I'll tell

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Speaker 1: you right after we take this quick break to thank

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Speaker 1: our sponsor Now, the part of an electric guitar that

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Speaker 1: makes it electric ultimately is the pickup. There's some other

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Speaker 1: circuitry that's also technically connected to pickups for most electric guitars,

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Speaker 1: but the pickup is really the element at play. And

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Speaker 1: I talked a bit about these quite a bit actually

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Speaker 1: in the Gibson episodes, but I'm gonna go over it

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Speaker 1: again here because it is in fact the important element

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Speaker 1: of any electric uh stringed instrument. And besides, fenders, pickups

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Speaker 1: are different from the pickups that Gibson used. Now, the

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Speaker 1: pickup is the part of an electric guitar that creates

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Speaker 1: the electric signal that can ultimately be sent out to

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Speaker 1: an amplifier and then on two speakers. And there are

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Speaker 1: two prevailing theories about what is going on with pickups,

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Speaker 1: and they're very similar, but there is a slight distinction

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Speaker 1: between the two. Both of the theories say that basically

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Speaker 1: the electric guitar pickups work because of electromagnetism. That is

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Speaker 1: absolutely the case. It has to be. The pickup has

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Speaker 1: one or more permanent magnets with a coil of copper

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Speaker 1: wire wrapped around the magnets on a frame that we

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Speaker 1: call the bobbin. The purpose of the bobbin is to

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Speaker 1: keep the coil stationary with respect to the body of

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Speaker 1: the guitar, and a typical bobbin, if you're looking at

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Speaker 1: your average electric guitar, has a base plate that attaches

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Speaker 1: to the guitar body by some way, typically by screws.

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Speaker 1: You have a little plate that screws into the face

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Speaker 1: of the guitar and that sits as the base that

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Speaker 1: then holds the magnets in place. And then you have

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Speaker 1: a top plate that fits on top of those magnets,

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Speaker 1: and then this acts as the frame around which you

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Speaker 1: can wind the copper coil. Some pickups, like the ones

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Speaker 1: Fender would use in the Strato caster, have an individual

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Speaker 1: cylindrical magnet under each of the six strings, so each

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Speaker 1: string has its own little cylinder underneath it that is

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Speaker 1: a magnet um. They look like little poles when you

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Speaker 1: take them out of the pickup. Other pickups might have

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Speaker 1: a bar magnet. The Gibson P ninety pickup has is

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Speaker 1: a bar magnet pickup. Rick and Bocker had horseshoe magnets

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Speaker 1: for some of their pickups, but we often see these

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Speaker 1: individual cylindrical magnets in most electric guitar pickups, I would

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Speaker 1: say at least the ones that Fender made. Anyway, electric

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Speaker 1: guitars have metal strings as well, and those strings are

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Speaker 1: made out of nickel and steel. Those are feral magnetic materials.

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Speaker 1: That means those metals are attracted to magnets. If you

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Speaker 1: stick a magnet to a guitar string, you'll feel that

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Speaker 1: there's that connection, right, that they're attracted to each other.

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Speaker 1: The prevailing explanation about how pickups work says that strumming

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Speaker 1: a string causes it to disrupt the magnetic field around

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Speaker 1: the pickup, and that in turn induces current to flow

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Speaker 1: through the coil technically and induces a difference in voltage,

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Speaker 1: which then causes current to flow through the coil. That

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Speaker 1: current can be sent out to an amplifier and then

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Speaker 1: boosted to go to speakers which play this back. They

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Speaker 1: convert that electric signal back into an analog physical uh sound, right,

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Speaker 1: the the speakers convert that electric signal into physical movement.

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Speaker 1: That then we can hear that physical movement being the

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Speaker 1: movement of the drivers inside the speaker. But then there's

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Speaker 1: a secondary explanation. It gets a little more precise, and

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Speaker 1: this is one that's put forth by organizations like the

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Speaker 1: National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. It goes a little further.

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Speaker 1: That theory states the strings themselves become magnetized because they're

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Speaker 1: so close to a permanent magnet and they are ferro

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Speaker 1: magnetic material. So maybe you've done the little experiment where

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Speaker 1: you take something like a needle and um, it's made

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Speaker 1: of a ferro magnetic material, and you rub the needle

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Speaker 1: several times against a permanent magnet, and then you move

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Speaker 1: the needle over some other ferro magnetic material, maybe other

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Speaker 1: needles or pins, and it picks them up. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of like that. So according to this explanation, when you

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Speaker 1: strum a string, you're really moving a magnet quickly near

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Speaker 1: a coil of conductive wire, which is the basis of

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Speaker 1: electric motors and dynamos. Right like you you have conductive

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Speaker 1: wire and a permanent magnet, and when you move the

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Speaker 1: two in relation to each other, it's the same as

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Speaker 1: having a fluctuating magnetic field near a conductive wire, and

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Speaker 1: that again induces that change in voltage and current to flow.

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Speaker 1: Whether you subscribe to the first explanation or you say no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: this second one is much more correct. Because of that

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Speaker 1: magnetic strings explanation, the result is the same. The result

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Speaker 1: is that strumming a string causes this electrical signal to

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Speaker 1: pass through the pickup and then move on ultimately through

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Speaker 1: the output jack on an electric instrument. Now, I'll talk

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Speaker 1: more about pickups and how they play a part with

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Speaker 1: harmonics later on in these episodes, because that's a very

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Speaker 1: important element in what differentiates a stratocaster from say a

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Speaker 1: less Paul Gibson guitar. I was during that first year

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Speaker 1: of K and F manufacturing when the two founders produced

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Speaker 1: their first electric guitar. Typically it's referred to as the

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Speaker 1: Radio Shop guitar. It was a prototype is just meant

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Speaker 1: to prove be a proof of concept to make sure

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Speaker 1: that they could do this. They were working with a

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Speaker 1: very different pickup design. This one was one in which

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Speaker 1: the guitar strings would actually pass through the magnetic coil.

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Speaker 1: And this was very hard for me to visualize, but

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Speaker 1: fortunately there are are uh pictures. There's there's illustrations from

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Speaker 1: the patent application for this thing. So I pulled those

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Speaker 1: to take a look at them, and one of those

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Speaker 1: illustrations shows that the guitar has a kind of a

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Speaker 1: raised frame that is is attached to the face of

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Speaker 1: the guitar. Think of it's like a it's almost like

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Speaker 1: a little raised box that's on the face of the guitar,

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Speaker 1: and the strings can pass under the top of that

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Speaker 1: box and out the other side. Because the box itself

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Speaker 1: on the center, it looks kind of like it's hollow.

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Speaker 1: In reality, that boxes housing the pickup, so the strings

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Speaker 1: are just passing through the pickup, not overtop the pickup

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Speaker 1: as it would in a normal electric guitar. And the

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Speaker 1: reason that Fender and Kaufman did this was that they

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Speaker 1: said it would produce notes with greater fidelity. You would

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Speaker 1: have less interference, less less of a kind of crunchy sound.

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Speaker 1: You would be able to hear each note much more

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Speaker 1: clearly and distinctly, so you would get a clear, chiming

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Speaker 1: kind of note instead of more of, uh, a high

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Speaker 1: gain kind of sound. This is also where he gets

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Speaker 1: really complicated to try and explain the differences in sound,

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Speaker 1: because we don't necessarily have very quantitative ways of describing them,

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Speaker 1: but they are certainly you can when you hear it,

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Speaker 1: you can definitely tell the difference. Well, this radio shop

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Speaker 1: guitar was again improof of concept. They did not plan

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Speaker 1: to go forward and make more of these and sell them,

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Speaker 1: but they would use it as the basis for a

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Speaker 1: Hawaiian style lap steel guitar, and they started selling those.

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Speaker 1: They also started building and selling vacuum tube amplifiers and

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Speaker 1: they did that for three years. But by nine six,

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Speaker 1: World War two had come to an end, and Kaufman

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Speaker 1: was nervous. He thought this fledgling company wouldn't be able

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Speaker 1: to survive in a post war environment, and that there

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Speaker 1: was gonna be way too much competition, and that there

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Speaker 1: weren't weren't enough customers to go around, so he was

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Speaker 1: afraid he would lose his shirt, so he decided to

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Speaker 1: bow out. But he and Fender would remain friends for

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Speaker 1: the rest of their lives, so there were no hard feelings.

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Speaker 1: But he needed to He felt like he wasn't really

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Speaker 1: sure this was the right thing for him. Fender, however,

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Speaker 1: would stick with it, and he renamed the company the

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Speaker 1: Fender Manufacturing Company. And this tends to be when most

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Speaker 1: company histories for Fender guitars say this is the birth,

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Speaker 1: the nineteen forty six that's the real beginning for Fender.

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Speaker 1: Now there's no official documentation to verify the story I'm

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Speaker 1: about to say, but the general belief is that the

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Speaker 1: first guitar to ever have the Fender f logo on it,

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Speaker 1: which is a famous trademark now, it was a custom

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Speaker 1: lap steel guitar Fender UH and it was built for

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Speaker 1: Leo Fender's friend Noel Boggs in nineteen six. Boggs was

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Speaker 1: a steel guitarist lap lap guitar player. He he took

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Speaker 1: inspiration from a jazz guitarist named Charlie Christian. Charlie Christian

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Speaker 1: actually helped make Gibson guitars famous. He was using a

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Speaker 1: Gibson electric guitar and that was a hollow body Gibson

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Speaker 1: electric guitar that that Christian was using, and he was

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Speaker 1: popularizing this concept of electric guitars. Boggs like the sound

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Speaker 1: of the Fender guitars, so he started to take the

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Speaker 1: sound of the Fender guitars and the technique of Christian

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Speaker 1: and incorporate that. And it was interesting, you know. Charlie

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Speaker 1: Christian he worked in the jazz genre of music, whereas

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Speaker 1: Noel Boggs was more of a country and Western musician.

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Speaker 1: But he started to take some of those techniques from

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Speaker 1: jazz music and incorporated into western and that's sort of

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Speaker 1: helped really push a genre called Western swing. Boggs was

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Speaker 1: not the only person doing this, but he he really

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Speaker 1: was one of the pioneers of that genre. It was

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Speaker 1: around this time when an old friend Offenders named Don

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Speaker 1: Randall played a real important part. Randall had once worked

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Speaker 1: for a radio supply shop called Howard Taylor Wholesale Radio

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Speaker 1: and that I had often worked with Fenders Radio repair shop,

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Speaker 1: and then in Randall went and bought the store he

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Speaker 1: worked for, but he ended up selling off that business

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Speaker 1: once he got drafted for World War Two, and in

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Speaker 1: World War two he served in the Army UH For

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Speaker 1: a while he was part of the Army Corps of Engineers,

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Speaker 1: and then later on he was part of the Army

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Speaker 1: Air Corps, which would of course later evolve into the

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Speaker 1: Air Force. When Randall got out of military service in

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty six, he got back into the radio business

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Speaker 1: as a manager for a shop called Radiotel T E. L.

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Speaker 1: And Randall convinced the shop's owner F. C. Hall and

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Speaker 1: his friend Leo Fender that they should form a partnership

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Speaker 1: that Radio Hotel should become a distributor for the guitars

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Speaker 1: and amplifiers that Leo Finn There was building. Randall would

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Speaker 1: become a salesman in charge of this account, and much

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Speaker 1: of Fender's early success can be traced to Randall's management

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Speaker 1: of sales and distributions. So Leo was making good products,

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Speaker 1: but Randall was the one who was marketing and selling them,

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Speaker 1: so together that partnership really helped cement Fender in the

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Speaker 1: world of music UH. This would allow Randall to kind

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Speaker 1: of scale things up gradually. He first started concentrating on

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00:24:30,520 --> 00:24:34,520
Speaker 1: local sales, and later that moved into regional sales, and

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00:24:34,560 --> 00:24:38,439
Speaker 1: eventually it moved into national sales, so he was able

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Speaker 1: to help grow the business quite a bit. Fender would

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Speaker 1: relocate his manufacturing facility to a larger factory in Fullerton,

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Speaker 1: and he decided to officially make the design and manufacturing

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Speaker 1: of instruments his primary focus. He would hand off supervision

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Speaker 1: of the service shop the radio repair shop in ninety

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Speaker 1: seven to a guy named Dale Hyatt, and then the

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Speaker 1: shop at self would end up closing in nineteen fifty one,

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Speaker 1: and the music company would become the only UH focus

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Speaker 1: for Leo Fender. At that point, it still seems odd

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Speaker 1: to me that he never learned to play guitar, but

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Speaker 1: that fact did not stop him. He would create designs

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Speaker 1: and then he tested them by asking musicians in the

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Speaker 1: Fullerton area to try out his instruments and his amplifiers

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Speaker 1: and to give him notes um to give him feedback. Man,

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Speaker 1: it's hard to do this without puns. He asked them

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Speaker 1: for their opinions about the equipment he made, and then

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Speaker 1: he would go back and he would tweak those designs.

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Speaker 1: He formed a lot of friendships with people in the

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Speaker 1: music scene around Los Angeles and Anaheim, and there were

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Speaker 1: quite a few at that time. And then uh Fender

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00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:49,320
Speaker 1: guitars became known for their really clean tones. The patented

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00:25:49,359 --> 00:25:51,840
Speaker 1: pickup really made a big difference. By the end of

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty six or right around the beginning of nineteen

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Speaker 1: Fender decided to rename his company again and he called

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Speaker 1: it the Fender Electric instru Ments Company. Most of his

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Speaker 1: clients in the nineteen forties were creating Western swing music.

432
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:08,199
Speaker 1: That was music that Leo Finder himself really liked. But

433
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:10,280
Speaker 1: Finder was starting to get the desire to create a

434
00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:13,760
Speaker 1: Spanish style guitar. In addition to the lap steel guitars

435
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 1: he was known for. Gibson had made some arch top

436
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:21,040
Speaker 1: electric jazz guitars, but Gibson had not yet produced a

437
00:26:21,119 --> 00:26:24,199
Speaker 1: solid body electric guitar, and Finder thought he might be

438
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:27,640
Speaker 1: able to do that. Um So acoustic guitars, by the way,

439
00:26:27,680 --> 00:26:30,120
Speaker 1: they typically have a hollow body that acts as a

440
00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:33,560
Speaker 1: resonant chamber so that sound can resonate inside of it,

441
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:37,200
Speaker 1: and they have sound holes. The sound holes helped project

442
00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:40,960
Speaker 1: sound from acoustic instruments and allow that that sound that's

443
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:44,479
Speaker 1: resonating out to create the tone that you want from

444
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:48,679
Speaker 1: that acoustic guitar. But electric instruments don't need a resonant chamber.

445
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:50,919
Speaker 1: They can have one, but they don't need one. The

446
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:54,120
Speaker 1: vibration of the strings creates the frequencies that are converted

447
00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:56,880
Speaker 1: into electric signals, and that's all you need because then

448
00:26:56,920 --> 00:27:00,199
Speaker 1: you can amplify those and send them on speakers, so

449
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 1: you can create a solid body electric instrument with no

450
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:06,399
Speaker 1: hollow compartment at all. Les Paul is the guy we

451
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 1: typically point to as the inventor of the solid body

452
00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:12,719
Speaker 1: electric guitar. He experimented with some really wonky stuff early on,

453
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:15,840
Speaker 1: like a two foot section of rail from a discarded

454
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:19,400
Speaker 1: pile near railroad tracks. He paired that with a microphone

455
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:22,160
Speaker 1: from an old telephone and discovered that he could isolate

456
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:25,159
Speaker 1: the sound of hearing just the string vibrating if he

457
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:29,560
Speaker 1: plugged the string. The strings vibrations we're the only thing

458
00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 1: he could pick up. And that's exactly what he wanted.

459
00:27:31,760 --> 00:27:35,160
Speaker 1: He wanted this isolation of sound. And he also found

460
00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:37,919
Speaker 1: that the sustain on that note would go for a

461
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 1: ridiculously long time, so you could hear a note played

462
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:44,960
Speaker 1: for a really long time if it was played on

463
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 1: electric instrument. So in one he would go on to

464
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:53,120
Speaker 1: create an actual guitar from a four by four and

465
00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 1: made out of pine and he built in some homemade pickups.

466
00:27:56,520 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 1: He called it the log. He would later fit that

467
00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:03,720
Speaker 1: very odd looking guitar with some decorative wings designed to

468
00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:07,000
Speaker 1: look like an epiphone guitar so it would look more

469
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 1: like a regular guitar because as a log, people would

470
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:11,400
Speaker 1: just take a look at and they're like, oh, that's

471
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 1: a that's a toy or something. It's not real. And

472
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:16,960
Speaker 1: it was only after he made it look like a

473
00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:19,439
Speaker 1: quote unquote real guitar that people started to take notice.

474
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 1: He had tried to take that idea to Gibson, but

475
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:26,800
Speaker 1: the company was not totally eager to jump on board

476
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:30,119
Speaker 1: at that time, so Fender decided it was time for

477
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:32,679
Speaker 1: him to give it a shot. And I'll tell you

478
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:34,360
Speaker 1: how that turned out in just a second, but first

479
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 1: let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor. Fender's

480
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 1: first solid body guitar was a Spanish style guitar he

481
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:52,840
Speaker 1: called the Esquire. The Esquire had a single pickup. It

482
00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:55,320
Speaker 1: was located near the bridge of the guitar. The bridge,

483
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 1: of course, is the anchor point at the base of

484
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 1: the guitar's body, so it's the it's the part closest

485
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 1: to where you would strum, so that's where you put

486
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 1: the bridge. And Fender had made a prototype in the

487
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 1: prototype had pine wood for the body. He actually took

488
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:16,320
Speaker 1: two slabs of pine wood and essentially glued them together.

489
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 1: And in fact, the earliest Esquires aren't technically solid body guitars.

490
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:25,800
Speaker 1: They actually are slightly hollow. If you tap on one

491
00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 1: of those very very early Esquires, you're gonna hear that

492
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:32,720
Speaker 1: hollow sound. That was probably in order to help manage

493
00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:37,000
Speaker 1: how heavy the guitars were, but he would later change

494
00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:39,720
Speaker 1: the actual production models of the Esquire to be made

495
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:43,120
Speaker 1: out of swamp ash instead of pine, which was a

496
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:46,480
Speaker 1: much lighter wood, and that meant that he didn't have

497
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:49,160
Speaker 1: to have this hollow compartment at all, and they were

498
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:53,400
Speaker 1: true solid bodies. He also shaped the body with design

499
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 1: that we'd call it cutaway. That's these curved designs you

500
00:29:56,600 --> 00:30:01,720
Speaker 1: see on on guitars where they get these really kind

501
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:05,400
Speaker 1: of sleek, almost sort of pointed sections. The whole purpose

502
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 1: for that actually is to create enough room so that

503
00:30:08,600 --> 00:30:11,600
Speaker 1: a guitarist can have easier access to the upper frets.

504
00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 1: You know, when they're doing there their high notes, they

505
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:16,080
Speaker 1: want to be able to get their hands in there,

506
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 1: and the cutaways remove some of that barrier. Unlike the

507
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 1: elevated pickups Fender had used in those earlier lap steel guitars,

508
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:28,920
Speaker 1: the Esquire had its pickup under the strings, with an

509
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:32,200
Speaker 1: individual poll piece for each of the strings. So it

510
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:36,880
Speaker 1: wasn't that weird, I shouldn't say weird innovative design where

511
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:41,720
Speaker 1: the pickups were actually mounted to the face where the

512
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:45,719
Speaker 1: strings passed through. It was underneath the face of the guitar,

513
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 1: so um, it wasn't in the way. The kind of

514
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 1: pickup it was is a single coil pickup. That means

515
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:56,360
Speaker 1: all the poll pieces were surrounded by the same coil

516
00:30:56,400 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 1: of copper wire wrapped around the pubbin and the neck.

517
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:03,000
Speaker 1: The Esquire was made from maple, so you had a

518
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:06,320
Speaker 1: swamp ash body and a maple neck, and the neck

519
00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:08,760
Speaker 1: connected to the body of the guitar using an anchor

520
00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 1: plate held in place by four screws. And that type

521
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 1: of construction is called a bolton. It's a bolt on

522
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 1: neck guitar, and it's one of several ways that Fender

523
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 1: guitars differ from Gibson guitars. Gibson's have necks that are

524
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:27,000
Speaker 1: glued into the body of their guitars, so they don't

525
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 1: use the boltons. Fenders started to manufacture the Esquire in

526
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 1: the spring of nineteen fifty. It appeared in Fender's catalog

527
00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 1: and you could purchase it for just a hundred thirty

528
00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:41,800
Speaker 1: nine dollars and nine cents. However, we had just that

529
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:44,960
Speaker 1: for inflation, that would mean that it would cost about

530
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: a thousand, four hundred eighty eight dollars today, not ridiculous

531
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:53,040
Speaker 1: for a Fender guitar. Actually fift dollars right in line

532
00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 1: for a Fender guitar. If you're to and that's if

533
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 1: you're looking at a new one, not a Fender guitar,

534
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 1: that's a vintage classic guitar. Those can be in the

535
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:07,360
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of dollars, depending upon the make and model.

536
00:32:08,160 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 1: While the original Esquire only had one pickup, Thender began

537
00:32:12,280 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 1: offering versions that had two pickups, and the second one

538
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 1: was closer to the neck of the guitar, and so

539
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:21,640
Speaker 1: you had one pickup that was at the base right

540
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:23,520
Speaker 1: near the bridge, and one that was near the neck,

541
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:26,840
Speaker 1: so kind of spanning the space where you would strum.

542
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 1: He also created a variation of it. They used a

543
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:33,040
Speaker 1: trust rod to stabilize the neck of the guitar. Now,

544
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 1: trust rod is typically a steel rod that actually is

545
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:41,480
Speaker 1: nested inside the neck of a guitar, and the reason

546
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 1: that you would include a trust rod is to provide

547
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 1: that stability to counteract the tendency of a wooden neck

548
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 1: of a guitar to slowly start curving inward over time

549
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:56,960
Speaker 1: because it's constantly under tension from guitar strings, so it's

550
00:32:57,000 --> 00:32:59,760
Speaker 1: kind of like a brace in a way. The variation

551
00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 1: of the Esquire that had two pickups and a trust

552
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:05,440
Speaker 1: rod got a new name. It was called a new

553
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:10,480
Speaker 1: type of guitar, and that name originally was the Fender Broadcaster.

554
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 1: But there was another company called Gretch, an American music

555
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:18,200
Speaker 1: company that made a drum kit that already had the

556
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:24,400
Speaker 1: name Broadcaster. So Gretch reaches out the Fender and says, hey, um,

557
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:27,480
Speaker 1: not cool man, we already have a Broadcaster products were got.

558
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 1: We don't want to have confusion in the marketplace. This

559
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 1: is a ninette. So Leo Fenders like, you know what,

560
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:36,240
Speaker 1: You're right, you got a point. So they dropped the

561
00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:39,400
Speaker 1: name from the guitars, so they sold some that were

562
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 1: under the brand name Broadcaster. Then for the next run

563
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:45,800
Speaker 1: of those guitars, they didn't have a new name yet,

564
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:50,800
Speaker 1: so some Fender fans referred to the guitars that were made.

565
00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 1: There were two single coil pickup guitars with the trust rod.

566
00:33:55,480 --> 00:33:58,080
Speaker 1: They said, all right, well, since they weren't Broadcasters anymore,

567
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 1: we're calling them no Casters because there's no name to them.

568
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:05,240
Speaker 1: And then after that, Leo came up with a new

569
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:10,920
Speaker 1: name for the design, called the Telecaster. So Broadcasters, no Casters,

570
00:34:10,920 --> 00:34:15,120
Speaker 1: and telecasters are all essentially the same type of guitar.

571
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:18,880
Speaker 1: Keep in mind, Leo kept on making little tweaks to

572
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 1: the guitar design over time, so there are differences even

573
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 1: between a Teleca, an early Telecaster, and a later Telecaster. Now,

574
00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:31,760
Speaker 1: the Fender Telecaster became the first commercially successful solid body guitar.

575
00:34:32,160 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 1: The Esquire would continue to be available, mostly originally because

576
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:39,920
Speaker 1: Fender was hoping he would use that to target a

577
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 1: lower cost electric guitar musician market because it only had

578
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:47,919
Speaker 1: the one pickup, so it costs less than the Telecaster did.

579
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 1: But then other cheaper electric guitars would later fill that

580
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 1: niche There would be other single pickup electric guitars that

581
00:34:56,040 --> 00:34:58,320
Speaker 1: would come in that would be much cheaper than the Esquire.

582
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:02,080
Speaker 1: But there were still many musicians who actually favored the

583
00:35:02,239 --> 00:35:05,400
Speaker 1: Esquire itself because of the sounds it produced. They said, well,

584
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:08,839
Speaker 1: it's not because it's cheaper. It's uh, I know that

585
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 1: the Telecasters out there, but the Esquire makes the sound

586
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:16,480
Speaker 1: I want. So it would continue in production for several

587
00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: years even though uh. From from a technical perspective, if

588
00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:24,560
Speaker 1: you're looking at well, it has fewer features than future

589
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 1: models of guitars, you would say, well, now it's obsolete,

590
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:30,960
Speaker 1: you should discontinue it. Much earlier but musical instruments are different.

591
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:33,800
Speaker 1: Some musicians say, no, this is exactly the sound I need.

592
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:36,319
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about the sound of the

593
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 1: Esquire and the sound of the telecaster and some of

594
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 1: the ways that pick ups and switches and tone controls

595
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:47,920
Speaker 1: lead to that different sound. First, as I mentioned earlier,

596
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:51,440
Speaker 1: the pickup doesn't lead directly to the output jack. There

597
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:54,440
Speaker 1: were some more wiring between the pickup and the jack

598
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:57,680
Speaker 1: that allows a musician to get the tone that he

599
00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:01,040
Speaker 1: or she wants. So with the Esquire, that included a

600
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 1: three way switch, a volume knob, and a tone knob.

601
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 1: So what do those actually do? Well, if you had

602
00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 1: a guitar with multiple pickups, the switch would normally let

603
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:13,520
Speaker 1: you switch between which pickups you were using to generate

604
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:16,280
Speaker 1: that outgoing signal. Right, So if you have a guitar

605
00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:19,880
Speaker 1: that's got two pickups and you have a two position switch,

606
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 1: it makes sense, alright, one position is for one pickup,

607
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 1: the other positions for the other pickup. But this was

608
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:30,200
Speaker 1: a guitar that only had a single pickup. Why would

609
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 1: you need a three position switch? And while it was

610
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:35,560
Speaker 1: considered to be more of a tone shaper, if you

611
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:38,840
Speaker 1: put the switch into position one, it would route the

612
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 1: signal so that would only go to the volume control.

613
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:44,640
Speaker 1: The tone control knob wouldn't do anything if you had

614
00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 1: the esquare switch to position one, so this would control

615
00:36:48,040 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 1: the amplitude of the signal sent out to the amplifier.

616
00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 1: Position two for the esquire would route the signal to

617
00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:57,799
Speaker 1: both the tone and the volume controls, and that would

618
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 1: create a sound that most people describe as being warmer

619
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:02,719
Speaker 1: than what you got. If you were had the switch

620
00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:07,360
Speaker 1: in position one. Position three would again and the signal

621
00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:10,640
Speaker 1: only to the volume control. It would bypass tone control,

622
00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 1: but would also go through a circuit with a special

623
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 1: capacitor and a resistor network in it. That circuit was

624
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:21,400
Speaker 1: meant to suppress signals that represented frequencies and the trouble

625
00:37:21,560 --> 00:37:24,840
Speaker 1: range of the guitar, creating what some would call a

626
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 1: dark tone. So you wouldn't turn this knob and get

627
00:37:30,520 --> 00:37:33,640
Speaker 1: start generating trouble. What you do is you turn the

628
00:37:33,680 --> 00:37:35,279
Speaker 1: knob the other way, and what you're doing is you're

629
00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:38,960
Speaker 1: you're suppressing trouble. You're taking some of those higher frequencies

630
00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:41,960
Speaker 1: and you're suppressing them. And it's easy to do because

631
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:44,719
Speaker 1: you just suppress the parts of the electrical signal that

632
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:49,600
Speaker 1: represent those frequencies, So the switch would let the bass

633
00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:52,400
Speaker 1: sounds play through with more volume, and Finder may have

634
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:55,200
Speaker 1: meant for this to let guitar players use their guitars

635
00:37:55,480 --> 00:37:59,799
Speaker 1: kind of like a proto electric bass guitar. We'll talk

636
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:03,320
Speaker 1: more about bass guitars in our next episode. Tone knobs,

637
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 1: by the way, are essentially potentialometers. Tone knobs are a

638
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 1: bit more of a precise way to achieve what position

639
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:13,360
Speaker 1: three on the Esquire switch would do. You can do

640
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:17,279
Speaker 1: what's called rolling off the trouble on a guitar. So

641
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:21,239
Speaker 1: if you said a tone knob at ten, then your

642
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:24,840
Speaker 1: outgoing signal should represent all the frequencies your guitar strings

643
00:38:24,880 --> 00:38:29,080
Speaker 1: are producing and the pickup is detecting. But sometimes that

644
00:38:29,120 --> 00:38:31,480
Speaker 1: means you get a sound that has sort of a

645
00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:35,560
Speaker 1: harsh or shrill quality to it. So you can dial

646
00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:38,759
Speaker 1: that back, you can turn down that knob, and that

647
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:44,080
Speaker 1: increases resistance for those frequencies. Let's less of those frequencies

648
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:46,920
Speaker 1: through to the amplifier and thus to the speakers, and

649
00:38:46,960 --> 00:38:50,160
Speaker 1: it can mellow out sounds, it can make them lower

650
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:55,480
Speaker 1: and darker and suppress that higher, shriller sound, and it's uh,

651
00:38:56,719 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 1: kind of interesting. Like I've seen demonstrations of this, and

652
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:01,959
Speaker 1: you can when you know what's happening and you're really listening,

653
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:03,920
Speaker 1: you can you can definitely tell the difference. It's not

654
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:09,000
Speaker 1: like it's just you know, an illusion or it's wishful thinking.

655
00:39:09,040 --> 00:39:12,640
Speaker 1: It really does change the tone of music. Amplifiers, by

656
00:39:12,680 --> 00:39:16,480
Speaker 1: the way, also have controls like this, so you can

657
00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 1: actually really shape the way a guitar sounds by working

658
00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:22,320
Speaker 1: not just with the controls on the guitar, but also

659
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:26,480
Speaker 1: the controls on the amplifier you're using. So some musicians

660
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:32,120
Speaker 1: prefer to keep the tone on their guitar set and

661
00:39:32,200 --> 00:39:34,680
Speaker 1: never touch it again, and then they just deal with

662
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:39,600
Speaker 1: the tone controls on an amplifier and uh, they that's

663
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:40,960
Speaker 1: how they prefer to do it. In that way, they

664
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:43,920
Speaker 1: don't ever have to mess with their guitar controls. Others

665
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 1: like to be able to control the way a guitar

666
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:49,520
Speaker 1: sounds in mid performance, you know, switch from one kind

667
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:52,440
Speaker 1: of sound to another while still using the same instrument.

668
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 1: And it's easier to do that if you can just

669
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 1: quickly adjust to control that's on the guitar itself. So

670
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:01,520
Speaker 1: it all depends on what you wanted to sound. Now

671
00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:04,520
Speaker 1: I'm getting pretty far into this, so in our next episode,

672
00:40:04,520 --> 00:40:06,480
Speaker 1: I'm going to start off by talking about how the

673
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:10,919
Speaker 1: telecaster change things up and having to pickups and how

674
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:13,480
Speaker 1: that changes the sound. And we'll also talk about how

675
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:17,120
Speaker 1: the Fender guitar helped usher in a new genre of music.

676
00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 1: In the early nineteen fifties, Fender was making guitars mostly

677
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:23,760
Speaker 1: for Western swing bands and big bands. These were really

678
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:28,320
Speaker 1: large ensembles where electric guitars have become a necessity because

679
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:31,080
Speaker 1: if you had a guitar in your group, the only

680
00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:32,680
Speaker 1: way you're going to hear it is if you had

681
00:40:32,719 --> 00:40:35,600
Speaker 1: some form of amplification, because otherwise the instrument was just

682
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:38,160
Speaker 1: too soft to hear over the rest of the instruments,

683
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:41,759
Speaker 1: and putting a microphone in front of an acoustic guitar

684
00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:46,360
Speaker 1: sometimes would create a lot of feedback and other distortion

685
00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 1: issues that just made the sound not very pleasing to

686
00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:55,040
Speaker 1: the ear. So the electric guitar almost rose out of necessity.

687
00:40:55,080 --> 00:40:57,719
Speaker 1: But this innovation was also saying the stage for a

688
00:40:57,719 --> 00:41:00,359
Speaker 1: new type of band, one with fewer instruments that create

689
00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:05,520
Speaker 1: a louder sound, and the telecaster would help pave the way.

690
00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:08,160
Speaker 1: I'll tell you more about that in our next episode.

691
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:11,360
Speaker 1: For now, if you have any suggestions for future episodes

692
00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:13,640
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff, why don't you send me a message.

693
00:41:13,640 --> 00:41:16,640
Speaker 1: You can write me at the email address text stuff

694
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com, or drop me a

695
00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:22,440
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696
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Speaker 1: those is text stuff h s W. Don't forget. If

697
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Speaker 1: you want to have an awesome tech stuff T shirt

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Speaker 1: for that next rock concert you're going to, you should

699
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Speaker 1: go to t public dot com slash tech stuff, and

700
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:36,960
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701
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:41,720
Speaker 1: e public dot com slash tech Stuff. Tri is lips

702
00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:45,279
Speaker 1: sinking along with me right now. She's rocking out to

703
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:48,120
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704
00:41:49,160 --> 00:41:53,400
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705
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706
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:05,000
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707
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:15,840
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