The Fender Telecaster
is one example
of an instrument design
that has certainly withstood
the test of time.A while ago, I watched a polemical film
about the birth of accelerated consumerism
and the invention of planned obsolescence.
In The Light Bulb Conspiracy, filmmaker
Cosima Dannoritzer chronicles the creation
and implementation of reduced product-life
spans to fuel commerce. It’s an interesting
and compelling—albeit a bit heavy-handed—theorem on how we got to where we
are today, and the crash that will inevitably
come. Likewise, the oft-quoted warning by
retail analyst Victor Lebow in his paper “Price
Competition in 1955” gets to the meat of the
matter, describing the mechanisms of advertising
as a social experiment. He outlines
fashion as the final and necessary component
of the consumption machine. The American
consumer, Lebow writes, “convert[s] the
buying and use of goods into rituals … he
tends to express his aspirations and his individuality
in terms of what he wears, drives,
eats—his home, his car, his pattern of food
serving, his hobbies.” Lebow’s thesis sounds
like my own experiment in self-delusion that
I call a guitar collection. But wait a minute.
My half-century-old instruments still function
perfectly fine. What happened?
One of the things I love about the
musical-instrument business is how the market
itself constantly outwits and torments
manufacturers. Unlike the giant automotive
and computer industries—guitar, amp, and
effects trends seem resistant to most attempts
to change or move forward. A rock musician
from the 1960s awakening from a 45-year
sleep would instantly recognize many of the
products in any music store today. Can you
imagine General Motors turning out the 1957
Chevrolet Bel Air in 2013? Whatever small
changes do occur usually start at the grassroots
level and percolate on stages and studios long
before they are reflected in any sort of action
from larger companies. Their marketing folks
read these very pages to get a whiff of what’s
happening. But how many new ideas are
solutions to questions that nobody is asking?
I just recently tested several new self-tuning
bridge designs—all of which are aimed at
eliminating the constant twiddling with pitch
that stands like a tollgate troll at the entrance
to a secret society inhabited by (gasp) skilled
musicians. Power to the people! If only some
device could pitch-correct vocals.
When I wrote about the upstart breeding
ground for new ideas known as NAMM’s
Hall E in a previous column [“Brainstorms
from NAMM’s Budget Basement,” February
2011], I pointed out that from time to time,
real innovations are thrust upon us with
varying degrees of success. Take the Floyd
Rose locking system for example, which
flew below the radar for several years before
going mainstream. I recall meeting Floyd
and first checking out his invention as he sat
with it in the corner of an all-but-ignored,
shared trade-show booth. It wasn’t until a
number of small builders began offering his
device as an option that it made enough
noise to eventually get the attention of the
bigger companies. Now we just take its existence
for granted. The key to the Floyd’s taking
off is that it actually solved a problem.
Another area under constant attack by
designers is pickup switching. Once upon a
time, the Fender Stratocaster came equipped
with a lowly 3-way switch. But musicians
found that by balancing the lever between
positions, they could take advantage of an
additional two sounds that employed multiple
pickups. In turn, the manufacturer
eventually provided a legit 5-way to make the
balancing act a bit more precise. And once
the aftermarket made tappable and splittable
pickups available in the 1970s, guitars bristled
with mini switches or push-pull potentiometers
to control a new wealth of sonic
options. Many of these tones may have been
immortalized on recordings that have slipped
our minds and faded into oblivion. It’s no
wonder that with the powerful digital-switching
circuits available now, guitar companies
have returned to the idea of providing more
tonal flexibility. Who wouldn’t want 15,000
incremental stages of high-frequency roll off?
The perfect combination of midrange snarl
and low-end cancellation created by elaborate
combinations of split and reverse-phase pickups
might just be the hook that pushes your
song over the cliff into iconic status. Maybe
not exactly like the wah wah on “White
Room,” but you get the picture, right?
Of course, when all else fails, a new paint
job can relaunch the life cycle of any product.
I recall working with a vacuum-plating process
to develop a mirror-finish-chrome look
for a customer in the 1980s, and it wasn’t long
before I saw some examples on display at the
NAMM convention in Anaheim. (I think it’s
still sort of a trademark look for Joe Satriani.)
The idea of the guitar as a fashion statement
or as a color-keyed component of a stage set is
not new, but few of us can resist the allure of
a new hue in our wardrobe, er, I mean arsenal.
Can you just imagine an iPhone in red?
Again, it works well for the first to the party,
but staying power is another thing altogether.
Will we obediently comply with the siren
song of newer, better, and faster? Will any
of this year’s new products precipitate the
demise of my old-school gear’s relevance? I
seriously doubt it, but the idea of never tuning
my guitar again is tempting.
Jol Dantzig is a
noted designer, builder,
and player who co-founded
Hamer Guitars,
one of the first boutique
guitar brands, in 1973.
Today, as the director of
Dantzig Guitar Design, he continues to
help define the art of custom guitar. To
learn more, visit
guitardesigner.com.