Guitar makers and players
have always searched for ways to increase the
instrument's volume. Electronic amplification was one of
the most successful innovations for building a louder
guitar. Some of the earliest electronic experiments from
the 1920s and 1930s involved simply attaching a pickup to
an acoustic guitar. An electric-acoustic guitar is also
called a hollow-body electric guitar
Pickups:
Electric guitar pioneers tried a variety of ways to pick
up the instrument's sound and amplify it. George
Beauchamp and Paul Barth developed the first successful
electromagnetic pickup system; it was applied to the
Rickenbacker Frying Pan guitar, marketed in 1932.
Today, pickups are electromagnets mounted under the
guitar strings. They sense the strings' vibrations and
convert them into electrical signals that travel through
a cable to the amplifier to increase the sound. There are
two kinds of pickups: single-coil and double-coil, or
humbucking. The latter give a fuller sound.
