The electric guitar is a guitar with one or more electromagnetic transducers, called pickups, which convert string vibrations into the electrical signals capable of being amplified and processed. There are guitars without a soundboard, solid electric guitar, or with a smaller box than usual, semi-solid, sometimes with holes to the outside with ‘f’ shapes similar to those of sound boxes of violins and other acoustic instruments.
It is an instrument very closely linked to heavy metal with all its variants such as Rock and Roll, and also in Jazz and Blues, it plays an important role, as well as new songs with fusion. From its birth in the mid-twentieth century to the present day, its importance has been increasing in popular music.
The first electric guitar was invented and manufactured by the Rickenbacker brand. The first jazz guitarists who saw that they did not have enough volume to compete with the other instruments of the band and they were the ones who initiated the electrical revolution amplifying their instruments.
Leo Fender designed the first detachable solid electric guitar with few pieces, so that the musicians would not have problems having to change parts of the instrument worn by the use. It was the birth of the Fender Telecaster and then came the other models and other brands like Gibson or the Japanese Ibanez and Yamaha.
In the 1990s, the Line 6 factory was created. This brand, famous for its effect modelers and amplifiers, created the line of Variax guitars. This guitar using a piezoelectric microphone located on the bridge which establishes the communication with a modeling system that contains the sounds of the most famous acoustic and electric guitars. In addition, you can edit tunings and sounds using a computer and a network cable. It is a guitar of normal appearance with the difference that it does not have microphones in sight.
The body is of usually wood i.e. maple, alder, mahogany, linden or ash and sometimes synthetic materials such as luthite is used. It houses the electronic components inside and can be semi-solid with a small resonance box. The density of the wood impinges on the lapse that a note remains sustained after pressing the string, which is more densely fixed to the bridge. There are different types of bridge, each with specific characteristics that affect the final sound of the instrument and even some bridges include piezoelectric pickups to pick up string vibrations or vibrato to vary string tension and cause a swinging effect on intonation.
