Kitarat: kitarakamat ›

Ei ole totta. Nimenomaan lavassa Fender halusi poistaa paljon ongelmia, jotka johtuivat muun muassa kielten taipumisesta sivulle satulan jälkeen. Fender ei ollut soitinrakentaja, mutta se onkin juuri yksi innovaatioiden selitys: hänellä oli uskallusta ja näkemystä haastaa vanhat totuudet. Kitarat eivät olleet niin hyviä ennen Fenderiä kuin ne ovat tänä päivänä. Toinen hyvä ominaisuus Fenderissä oli se, että hän kuunteli tarkasti soittajia, ja teki soittimiinsa muutoksia heidän toivomustensa mukaan. Tele oli aluksi pelkkä kuriositeetti verrattuna Gibsonin elegantteihin akustisiin, mutta saavutti nopeasti huikean suosion muusikoiden parissa. Ja sen takia Gibsonkin päätti antaa Les Paulille tilaisuuden. Firmahan oli nauranut miehen suunnitelmineen pihalle muutamaa vuotta aikaisemmin.
 
Telecaster syntyi kylläkin aikalailla vahingossa... ainakin tämän mukaan.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecaster
 
Fender had an electronics repair shop called Fender's Radio Service where he first repaired, then designed, amplifiers and electromagnetic pickups for musicians -- chiefly players of electric semi-acoustic guitars, electric Hawaiian (lap steel) guitars, and mandolins. Players had been 'wiring up' their instruments in search of greater volume and projection since the late 1920s, and electric semi-acoustics (such as the Gibson ES-150) had long been widely available. Tone had never, until then, been the primary reason for a guitarist to go electric, but in 1943, when Fender and his partner, Doc Kauffman, built a crude wooden guitar as a pickup test rig, local country players started asking to borrow it for gigs. It sounded shiny and sustaining. Fender got curious, and in 1949, when it was long-understood that solid construction offered great advantages in electric instruments, but before any commercial solidbody Spanish guitars had caught on (the small Audiovox company apparently offered a modern, solidbody electric guitar as early as the mid-1930s), he built a better prototype.
 
That hand-built prototype, an anomalous white guitar, had most of the features of what would become the Telecaster. It was designed in the spirit of the solid-body Hawaiian guitars manufactured by Rickenbacker -- small, simple units made of Bakelite and aluminum with the parts bolted together -- but with honest wooden construction. (Rickenbacker, then called 'Rickenbacher,' had also offered a solid Bakelite-bodied electric Spanish guitar in 1935, many details of which seem echoed in Fender's design.)
 
The initial production model appeared in 1950, and was called the Esquire. (Fewer than fifty guitars were originally produced under that name, and most were replaced under warranty because of early manufacturing problems.) Later in 1950, this single-pickup model was discontinued, and a two-pickup model was renamed the Broadcaster. The Gretsch company, itself a manufacturer of hollowbody electric guitars, claimed that "Broadcaster" violated the trademark for its Broadkaster line of drums, and as a newcomer to the industry, Fender decided to bend and change the name to Telecaster, after the newly popular medium of television. (The guitars manufactured in the interim bore no name, and are now popularly called 'Nocasters.') The Esquire was reintroduced as a one-pickup Telecaster, at a lower price.
 
Leo Fender's simple and modular design was geared to mass production, and made servicing broken guitars easier. Guitars were not constructed individually, as in traditional luthiery. Rather, components were produced quickly and inexpensively in quantity, and these modular parts were assembled into a guitar in an assembly line. The bodies were band-sawed and routed from slabs, rather than being hand-carved individually, as with other guitars made at the time, such as Gibsons. Leo did not use the traditional glued-in neck, but a bolt-on neck. This not only made production easier, but allowed the neck to be quickly removed and serviced, or else replaced entirely. The electronics were easily accessed for repair or replacement through a removable scratch plate--a great advantage over typical construction, in which the electronics could only be accessed through the f-holes of carved tops.
 
Suurinpiirtein samanlaista tekstiä oli myös paksussa kitarakirjassa mitä tapailin tuossa joitakin kuukausia sitten... Telecaster siis oli ensimmäinen Fenderin kitara, Stratocaster tuli myöhemmin ja siitä oli jo tarkoitus tehdä "paras sähkökitara." Edelleen, suunnilleen samat tuotannolliset seikat sopivat kyllä stratoonkin - pulttikaulainen, suht yksinkertainen ja halpa valmistaa... Stratocasterin lapa tosin on nätimpi kuin Telecasterin.
 
Mitä tuohon "kielten pitää olla suorassa"-juttuun tulee niin en huomannut intonaatiossa tai muussakaan sellaisessa mitään oleellista eroa verrattuna USA Stratocasterin, Charvel 475:n, vanhan Jacksonini tai muidenkaan testaamieni kitaroiden kanssa. Suurin mieleen jäänyt ero oli oikeastaan soundi ja soitettavuus, mikä oli Stratocasterissa mielestäni hiukan tönkkö ja jäykkä. Charvelilla bendailee kyllä aika eri malliin kuin kyseisellä casterilla. Mutta sehän on pitkälti makuasia...