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Showing posts with label fender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fender. Show all posts

The Squier Story



Fender acquired U.S. guitar string manufacturer the V.C. Squier Company in 1965; by 1982 the Squier name had resurfaced as a low-cost “value brand” alternative initially manufactured and distributed in the Japanese domestic market and soon offered to Europe, North America and the rest of the world.

At the time, many other established brands offered affordable copies of classic Fender models including the Stratocaster®, Telecaster®, Precision Bass® and Jazz Bass® guitars. When Squier versions of these instruments appeared, demand for them as the “official” cost-conscious alternatives was immediate, and a brand name was reborn.

To maintain and control costs over the years, Squier instruments have been produced in several nations, including Japan, Korea, India, China, Indonesia and Mexico. While the brand has produced its share of innovative designs over the past 25 years, its main focus and most successful approach has always been to be the “value brand” alternative to its big brother, Fender. 
Retrieved from http://www.squierguitars.com/news/index.php?display_article=99 , 10/07/09


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Types of Guitars


Guitars are the most common instruments played by many music lovers of all ages. Even kids can easily learn to play the guitar. Choosing the right guitar is very easy. There are many types of guitars that can go along with any kind of music. All a guitar player needs to do is identify the kind of music he prefers to know which type of guitar is best for him.


The following are the most common types of guitars.
Classical Guitars


Classical guitars are the father of all guitars. They have been used for many genres and all kinds of music. Classical guitars come with nylon strings which give the guitar a unique and colorful sound. The sizes of classical guitars have been standard for many years. Classical guitars that are of the finest quality are made with spruce or cedar tops. The guitar is able to produce various sounds even with the use of fingernails.




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Popular Types of Guitars

The list for popular types of guitars can be endless. Guitars come in a variety of shapes, sizes, colors and types. There are acoustic guitars, electric acoustic guitars, semi hollow guitars, electric guitars, twelve string guitars, four string bass guitars, five string bass guitars; the catalog goes on and on.


Acoustic guitars

Acoustic guitar is independent of any external device to be heard. The acoustic guitar is more sober than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras. To play within such groups the sound is often externally amplified. Acoustic guitars, which are available today, feature a variety of pickups. This enables the player to increase and adjust the raw guitar sound.

Prominent subcategories feature within the acoustic guitar group

Classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, that comprise the folk or flat top guitar; arch top guitar and the twelve string guitars. There are unamplified guitars also in the acoustic guitar group.

Such types are designed to play in various registers such as the acoustic bass guitar. The tuning of the acoustic bass guitar is similar to that of the electric bass guitar.






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How is a guitar constructed?


One of the basic reasons to learn guitar basics is to know the different parts of a guitar. As you progress, you will meet different terms for the parts of a guitar and if you do not know those terms, you can find yourself struggling to learn the guitar. First of all, you should know what the body of the guitar is:

1. The guitar's body is the large wooden part of the guitar.

2. The thin part of the guitar that is connected to the body of the guitar is called the neck.

3. The bridge is located on the body of the guitar near the hole.

4. The strings of the guitar begin at the bridge and end at the pegs, which is located on the head of the guitar.

5. The head of the guitar is on the end of the neck not connected to the body.

6. There are small metal pieces located at various intervals along the neck of the guitar. These metal pieces are called the frets. When the player presses the strings into the frets at various intervals, the strings vibrate and produce different pitches.

The way you hold the guitar differs for nearly every type of song you play on a guitar. If you are right handed, your right hand is your strumming hand. Thus, you hold your guitar so that your right hand rests on the strings of the guitar above the hole. This means that your left hand is your picking hand, and your left hand should rest on the neck of the guitar. If you are left handed, then you should use these directions as well, only reversed.

Take time to learn the guitar basics and you will be richly rewarded not only with money, but also with a life long relationship with a wonderful instrument.


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Electric guitars


Electric guitars make use of electronic pick-ups to amplify the vibrations of the guitar strings. They are usually connected to electric amplifiers. Electric guitars have a solid or semi-solid body type and they don't use the body for sound resonance so usually make very little or no sound when played without an amplifier. The concept used by electric guitars is that the energy of the strings is diverted into electrical impulses and not directly into sound so that they are able to achieve an amplified sound.



Electric guitars usually have control knobs for changing the volume or the tone of the guitar. There are also pick-up selectors in electric guitars and many electric guitars use multiple pick-ups to achieve the best guitar sounds. These pick-ups gather and produce different tones from the guitar. The tone knobs are used to shift from a bass-intensive sound to a treble-intensive sound or vice versa.



Some electric guitars also have whammy bars. These bars are attached to the guitar to shift notes without changing the finger positions on the fret board. Whammy bars are used to produce "crying" guitar sounds and are a very useful tool when performing rock and roll songs or even ballads. The use of the whammy bar in less expensive guitars is not advised because it may cause the strings to go out of tune.


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Acoustic Bass


Acoustic bass guitars are bass guitars without electronic pick-ups. The body of the guitar is used to produce the sound. They are usually 4-stringed guitars but there are acoustic bass guitars which have 5 or 6 strings.



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Archtop


The archtop guitar was inspired by other instruments such as the violin and the cello. An archtop guitar usually has the f-hole design. Jazz players prefer archtop guitars. Some archtop guitars can command a price of about $25,000.


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12-String guitar


A normal guitar usually has 6 strings, but the 12-string guitar, as its name implies, has 12 strings. Each string is accompanied by another string with the same note but is usually tuned in a higher octave. This guitar produces a semi-chorus effect which is very pleasant to the ear.





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Steel-top guitars


Steel-top guitars are much similar than the classical guitar but are constructed to be more resilient. The parts of the steel-top guitar are reinforced and their bodies are significantly larger than the classical guitars. They also produce a warmer tone than the classical guitar.



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Resonator


This type of guitar is similar to the steel-top guitar, but the steel in the middle of the soundboard is used to amplify the sound from the vibration of the guitar strings to produce a very thin and distinct sound. These guitars are generally used when playing the blues. There are also variations of the resonator guitar: the square-neck resonator guitar is played on the lap like a piano or organ; and the round neck resonator guitar is played like a common guitar. Resonator guitars work very well with glass or metal slides.


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Many kinds of acoustic guitars


Classical



Classical guitars are very popular and are usually the choice guitar for beginners. The strings are usually made from nylon. They are usually played in a standard sitting position and used in playing classical music. Classical guitars produce whole sounds which are very pleasing to the ear.


Flamenco guitars are similar to classical guitars, however, they produce crisper and thinner sounds than the other classical guitars.



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An Introduction to the Types of Guitar


The guitar is one of the most popular musical instruments today. There are different kinds of guitars that are available out for different guitar players. Guitars are different in terms of playability, overall appearance and sound quality.
Here are some of the types of guitars that guitar players or aspiring guitar players can choose from:



Acoustic


If you want go get into the guitar world, you can start learning with an acoustic guitar. Acoustic guitars are dependent on their structures and body shapes for resonating sounds. Unlike the more modern electric guitars, they don't rely on other external devices to enhance sounds. The natural vibrations of the strings are resonated by the body of the guitar.
Acoustic guitars are generally made out of wood. The neck is usually made from mahogany and the fret board is made of maple or rosewood. 




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Steel Guitars


These are the farthest breed apart from traditional guitars so far. While any guitarist can pick up any guitar from the above list and play, a steel guitar requires special training to play. The guitar is played flat on its back, and the strings are elevated approximately half an inch above the fretboard. This allows the strings to be played using a "tone bar" that takes the place of the fingers on a fretboard and gives the steel guitar its classic "crying sound". This is the archetypal guitar sound.





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Jimmy Hendrix (Fender Tribute)




A tribute to a guitar legend. The who made Fender (reversed stratocaster) as his weapon in guitar wars. 
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is widely considered to be the greatest guitarist in the history of rock music by other musicians and commentators in the industry, and one of the most important and influential musicians of his era across a range of genres. After initial success in Europe, he achieved fame in the United States following his 1967 performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Later, Hendrix headlined the iconic 1969 Woodstock Festival and the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. Hendrix often favored raw overdriven amplifiers with high gain and treble and helped develop the previously undesirable technique of guitar amplifier feedback. Hendrix was one of the musicians who popularized the wah-wah pedal in mainstream rock which he often used to deliver an exaggerated pitch in his solos, particularly with high bends and use of legato based around the pentatonic scale. He was influenced by blues artists such as B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Albert King, and Elmore James, rhythm and blues and soul guitarists Curtis Mayfield, Steve Cropper, as well as by some modern jazz. In 1966, Hendrix, who played and recorded with Fender Stratocaster's band from 1964 to 1965, was quoted as saying, "I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice.

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Guitar hero Eric Johnson has done it again!

The guitar expert has poured his talents into the Eric Johnson signature electric guitar. Play one riff on the Fender Eric Johnson Stratocaster and you'll be hooked.




Eric Johnson (born August 17, 1954) is an American guitarist and recording artist from Austin, Texas. Best known for his success in the instrumental rock format, Johnson regularly incorporates jazz, fusion, New Age, and country and western music into his recordings.
Guitar Player magazine calls Johnson "One of the most respected guitarists on the planet." Johnson composes and plays not just instrumental songs but also vocal pieces, and plays piano as well as guitar.
Widely recognized for his guitar skills, Johnson's stylistic diversity and technical proficiency have drawn praise from Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, Allan Holdsworth, Larry Carlton, Steve Morse, Billy Gibbons, Johnny Winter, Jeff Baxter, Prince, B. B. King, Rusty Burns, Joe Satriani and the late Stevie Ray Vaughan. His critically-acclaimed, platinum selling 1990 recording Ah Via Musicom produced the single "Cliffs of Dover," for which Johnson won the 1991 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.


Eric Johnson is best known for playing stock Fender Stratocaster and Gibson ES-335 electric guitars through a triple amp setup that consists of Fender Amplifiers, Dumble Amplifiers, and Marshall amplification.


C. F. Martin & Company released a limited-edition signature Eric Johnson Signature MC-40 in 2003, built to his specifications. Johnson donated five percent of the profits from his signature Martin guitar to Jefferson Medical College as a tribute to his father who attended.


Fender Musical Instruments Corporation released an Eric Johnson Signature Fender Stratocaster in 2005 also built to his specifications. Johnson has also released other signature gear such as GHS Eric Johnson Nickel Rockers Electric Guitar Strings, DiMarzio DP211 Eric Johnson Signature Custom Pickups, and a Fullton-Webb amplifier. Jim Dunlop also has released an Eric Johnson signature Jazz III plectrum.


More Eric Johnson signature electric guitars...

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