The first time someone tried fitting fancy gadgetry to a , 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?
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 s with built-in technological enhancements.
This, though, is a story with a lot more misses than hits. You might well look at the new Boss Eurus GS-1 – packing an advanced polyphonic synth engine into what otherwise looks like a fairly traditional two-pickup S-type – and speculate that its odds of globe-straddling success are perhaps on the long side. But there is some evidence to suggest that us plank-janglers aren’t quite as conservative as we sometimes think we are…
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First up, we ought to nail down our definition of ‘tech’. If it’s alright with you, we’ll focus on the electrical and electronic – otherwise half of this feature would be a list of whammy bars.
So we won’t be dwelling on Doc Kauffman’s pioneering vibrato system of 1929, nor on single-string pitch-changers like the B-Bender, nor even the barmiest-looking doohickey ever screwed to the face of a musical instrument: the Rickenbacker ‘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 tell Matt Bellamy – one of his Manson ‘Mattocaster’ s is fitted with lasers that respond to playing dynamics in the same way. Mind you, it’s said to weigh a ton and he hasn’t gigged it since 2007.
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Lights don’t have to be purely cosmetic, though. Various companies today are making LED fret markers to aid navigation on dark stages, while the Fretlight teaching system involves embedded LEDs that show novices where to put their fingers. It’s not world-changing, but it’s clever.
Anyway, whammies aside, this is all peripheral stuff. It’s time to turn our attention to what most ists are really interested in: drowning out the drummer.
The most obvious piece of technology to build into a is an amplifier. That way you don’t need… well, an amplifier. And it’s something that several makers tried in that most fearlessly forward-thinking of decades, the 1960s.
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Höfner seems to have got there first with the Fledermausgitarre (‘bat ’) that it created for the 1960 Musikmesse expo: an odd-shaped beast with a four-watt solid-state amp built into the top part of its body.
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.
The Japanese weren’t far behind with the Teisco TRG-1 of 1964, which improved on its predecessors by actually looking like a , but what do all these amped-up creations have in common? To put it bluntly, they all died on their arses. Rory Gallagher used a TRG-1 on some of his last recordings, and Ace Frehley of Kiss was pictured with a Bikini in the early 80s (even if we’re not sure he ever played it), but the practicalities of weight and power supply ensured this idea never really caught on.
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Vox’s bid to revive the idea with its 2011 Apache range of travel s 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 , 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 for gigging or recording just doesn’t make a lot of sense in the modern world.
It’s time for another definition. What are effects? For our purposes, they’re sonic manipulators that do more than just filtering, boosting or switching. So the Vari-tone dial on the 1959 Gibson ES-345, the active circuitry inside the 1963 Burns TR2, the Orgeltone spring-loaded volume control fitted to the 1965 Framus Strato, the middle and treble boosters hidden in the 1983 Fender Elite Stratocaster – they don’t count.
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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 the Epiphone Professional 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 of Paul McCartney’s famous 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 the Mosrite-style V262 Invader.
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, 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 the Gretsch Chet Atkins 7680 Super Axe of 1977, whose expansive body hid a phaser and a compressor. The Japanese-made Electra MPC range of the same era offered modular effects that clipped into the back of the body; and even the Soviets joined in with the Formanta (aka Borisov) Solo-2, which had a fuzz circuit and looked like a Fisher-Price Jazzmaster.
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Rickenbacker jumps back into our story in 1988 with a compressor-equipped Roger McGuinn signature model, the 370/12RM, while Fender had a bash at the end of the 80s with its distortion-equipped Heartfield RR9. But there then followed a lean spell through the bone-dry grunge era of the 90s… and by the time we next saw a notable with effects, in 2001, the idea had become retro. This was the Danelectro Innuendo, 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 Korg Kaoss Pad and versions of the Zvex Wah 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 Fernandes Sustainer and Sustainiac systems for generating infinite notes through an internal feedback loop.
Then there’s the rotary-style LesLee circuit offered on some German-made Deimel s, while US boutique maker Bilt offers 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.
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Oh, and Bellamy’s not done yet. Here’s what he said after becoming the majority shareholder in Manson Works in 2019: “We’ll certainly be exploring enhanced electronic features to further evolve the into the modern era.” There’s already been talk of a model with a built-in DigiTech Whammy – watch this space.
Of course, those “enhanced electronic features” needn’t be limited to effects, and that brings us to the wildest projects in the history of
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