Switched On
It’s said we have more processing power in our smartphones today than NASA used to send a man to the moon. So, why do our humble electric guitars still use 40s-era radio technology for their electronics?
While the history of the electric guitar might well be peppered with numerous electronic fripperies, the fact remains that the vast majority of the instruments we play today follow either the Fender or Gibson protocols when it comes to their control and switching systems: the former, with a fiveor three-way lever pickup selector switch, one volume and a couple of tones if we’re lucky; or the latter, with a three-way toggle pickup selector switch and volume and tone for each pickup. There are plenty of hybrids of these styles, of course, but, again, the majority just use rotary variable resistors (potentiometers) for volume and tone controls paired with a couple of tone capacitors. Low tech is an understatement.
As world-class guitarist and inveterate guitar tinkerer Adrian Legg says in his highly recommended book, Customising Your Electric Guitar, all you need is “a soldering iron, a bit of common sense and a few simple tools”. He should know. But as our Guild and Hagstrom review guitars remind us, it wasn’t always this way.
The appearance of Fender’s Jazzmaster in 1958 was probably responsible for more than a few brands thinking it would be a jolly good idea to offer us guitarists more choice and potential versatility by creating two switchable circuits on the instrument. According to guitar historian Tony Bacon, the Jazzmaster was the first production guitar to offer this ‘rhythm’ and ‘lead’ switching concept, the idea apparently adapted from a layout Forrest White had devised back in the 40s when he built guitars as a hobby. He’d put a circuit into his steel guitar to flip between preset rhythm and lead modes, which he devised after seeing Alvino Rey. Later, says Tony, he said to Leo Fender, “What you need is a guitar where you can preset the rhythm and lead.”
The concept continued on the Fender Jaguar when that appeared in 1962. It retained the dual circuits, but replaced the three-way toggle used to select the pickups in the lead mode of the Jazzmaster (the rhythm mode uses just the neck pickup with its own roller-style
volume and tone) with two on/off slide switches for each pickup and a bass-cut ‘high-pass filter’ (achieved with a single capacitor). It’s this guitar that Guild directly references with its S-200 Thunderbird.
With its background in accordion production, Hagstrom didn’t enter the electric guitar market until the late 50s and its early models, including those made under the Goya brand, included accordion-like push buttons to select pickups. While the Stratocaster was clearly the inspiration behind our reviewed H-III, its choice of Jaguar-style slider switches to switch the three pickups on and off made it a more versatile beast than the Stratocaster. It’s hard to believe today, but the Strat featured a three-way pickup selector switch until 1977 when a five-way became standard and we didn’t have to jam the original selector between its three positions to produce those misnamed ‘out-of-phase’ sounds. Hagstrom was very much ahead of the game.
More bold efforts continued during the 60s such as Vox’s Phantom Organ Guitar and the stereo Phantom XII, which, unbelievably, had three split-coil pickups and a volume and tone for each of its 12 coils! Framus offered us the Strato Deluxe with its ‘Organtone’ effect, essentially a spring-loaded volume control. Bonkers.
Hofner, meanwhile, wins this writer’s award for the most confusing control layout ever. Its fabled rectangular tortoiseshell plastic panel, which appeared on numerous models from the mid-50s, had an on/off slide switch for each pickup – the control legend indicates ‘on’ when it means off. Then the neck volume control sits closest to the bridge pickup’s on/off and vice versa. To further add to the confusion, there’s a rhythm/ solo switch, too, which applied a couple of resistors to thin out the sound in the rhythm position (although on some contemporary models, this is a coil tap).
As the decades rolled on, pickup improvements paved the way for multi-switching humbuckers (with single coil or parallel wiring), proper coil taps and, on the other side of the fence, battery powered active circuits leaving some of these archaic – and often confusing – passive setups in the history books. But those of us who love our funky blasts from the past can still enjoy simple circuits: for example, technology giant Yamaha recently employed a simple passive high-pass filter ‘Dry Switch’ on its new Revstar range of guitars, again proving that a couple of cheap-as-chips components can still help us shape our sounds.
And if you fancy a go at a bit of DIY tweakery, then the aforementioned book by Adrian Legg is a wonderful resource for some underused and forgotten electrickery. Let us know how you get on.
It’s hard to believe, but the Strat featured a three-way pickup selector switch until 1977 when a five-way became standard