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Jazz Guitar Pickups – Putting The Swing On The String

admin2 — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 06:39:55 +0000

Traditional jazz guitar pickups are usually the P90 soap bar type or the humbucker pickup. If you look at the classic jazz guitar, it is a hollow body arch top type with the pickup on the neck.

Some Jazz Guitar Pickup Facts

The electric jazz guitar pickups are of the electromagnetic type. These transmit the vibration in the string to an amplifier. Electric guitars can have both single coil and humbucker pickups. While both work similarly, they sound quite different. Humbuckers use two single coil pickups that are wired together to produce a thick warm sound. Single coils tend to have a lot of electric interference and to avoid this a differential amplifier is used. Different Humbuckers produce different kinds of sounds. The jazz Humbuckers are rich with an even tone to produce the clean sound associated with jazz guitar pickups.

Selecting The Jazz Guitar Pickup

If you look at electric guitars, most of them have two pickups – one near the neck and the other near the bridge. By using the pickup selector switch, you can opt for the appropriate pickup to pick up the string’s vibration and send it to the amplifier. When the pickup selector switch is turned up, the neck or rhythm pickup picks up the string’s sound. When the switch is turned down, the bridge pickup picks up the string’s sound. If the switch is in the middle position, both the pickups pick up the string’s sounds. Usually, the pickup whose proximity is more to the next has a warmer and sweeter sound. The one near the bridge can sound brighter. It is easy to see from this which one jazz players will use – obviously the neck pick up. The bridge pickup is ignored.

To avoid the possibility of notes getting mixed when the player plays fast, today’s jazz guitar pickups are usually the floating type. Some jazz guitars don’t use any pickups. This helps them achieve a clean sound.

Instead of the parallel bracing commonly used, Cross bracing is used to tone down the sound and increase sustain. This results in the jazz guitar’s tone sounding like the traditional steel string acoustic guitar.

Some jazz guitar pickups are embedded in the instrument so that sustain is increased. These show limited acoustic response. Many jazz guitars have the pickup installed on the underside of the ebony finger rest. The finger rest fixes to the side of the guitar’s neck via an aluminum bracket and a couple of screws. The pickup is fixed with epoxy. The large contact surface strengthens the instrument. Large finger rests are not preferred basically because they block the F hole on the right side, and this completely changes the quality of the sound projection.

A common jazz guitar pickup used is the Benedetto S-6 mini humbucker, especially for the arch top design. A highly durable “ebonova” housing protects it. You also get jazz guitar pickups that can be fixed so as to not affect or change the acoustic characteristics of the guitar. Some fix with the help of screws at the neck.

Positioning the jazz guitar pickup in relation to the finger rest is very crucial because the sound is likely to be unclear if the pickup is too close to the strings. Being too far from the strings, on the other hand, can lower the output level drastically.

Jazz guitar pickups are a tricky issue in terms of the effect they can have on the sound output. This results in many jazz guitar players preferring to have theirs custom made. As mentioned earlier, many players even prefer to have no pickups at all.

By: Logan Young

Jazz Guitars – An Introduction

admin2 — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 03:34:18 +0000

Music can prove to be the healer for many of us. In today’s fast life, many of us suffer from worries and tensions, which can be relieved by music through its soothing action. As a result, music has become a way of life for many of us. There are many types of musical instruments in the market today. We can go for playing guitar, piano, drums and violin. But if you want to do something different, then a jazz guitar is the musical instrument for you. A jazz guitar is cool and classic at the same time. The number of jazz freaks is growing all over the world, and Jazz guitarists are earning much fame and adulation. So, if you have decided to buy a guitar, you should have some basic knowledge about the music instrument.

There are many types of guitars and the playing styles, which can be called jazz. In the beginning, Jazz guitars were mostly played through the normal acoustic ones, but in today’s techno modern age, they have been replaced by electric guitars. Through a guitar, a guitarist can produce umpteen sounds and tones, which can then be arranged and practiced to be turned into harmonies and melodies. But this ability and talent to control the strings come after many weeks of practice. If we are experienced enough, we can use different combinations of the pedals to give out different types of sounds.

There are two types of guitarists, one who are learning to play guitar just as a hobby and to impress their friends and family. But there are others who are much more serious and want to learn guitar to take it professionally. For such people, there should be special focus on their instrument. They should have a guitar which is made by experienced hands. Only if the guitar is finely made, it will be able to give out clear and harmonious tones. There are many shops which will sell you good quality jazz guitars, at not very expensive rates. But you can opt for having a guitar custom made for you, by the hands of experienced guitar makers. It could cost you a little more, but you can afford the high price, if you want real quality.

There are various types of jazz guitars and one of the most famous types is the Archtop guitars. This guitar is known for its adjustable bridge and its ‘F’ cut body. The sound and quality of a guitar depends on many factors. A very important thing is the kind of wood used to make the guitar. Guitars can be made of ordinary wood, but real music lovers would like to go for guitars made from the exquisite mahogany and ebony. Another factor which affects the quality of the sound is the shape of the guitar and its sandbox. A very important aspect to look is whether you guitar has the right pickups.

If you look at these basic things, you can get for yourself a jazz guitar, and begin to impress everybody with your new found skills.

By: Salil Kothari

The Wonderful World Of Jazz Guitar

admin — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 08:26:52 +0000

In many places in the world the jazz guitar is not normally heard of and even more rarely seen however that is not an indication that there are no resources available to learn jazz guitar. Jazz music and guitarists are becoming less and less known because of new music influences as well as the grasp of young people wanting to play electric guitars and drums. The people are not standing in line to learn jazz guitar but if they knew some and heard some of what a jazz guitar can do, surely there would be more people learning to play it.

The media plays a huge role in the declination of jazz guitarists because it is rarely portrayed. In fact, it is almost too easy to go out to the streets and ask a few young adults if they know what a jazz guitar is because the proof is right there on the streets. Jazz guitar is unique and wonderful and if you are reading this article because you wish to learn the guitar then that is fabulous because the world needs a whole bunch more like you! We don’t want to go forward without the history and roots in which jazz guitarists bring to the musical world as well as the fabulous sounds.

Jazz Guitar History

The jazz style of guitar is likely one of the oldest types of guitar and in fact, it was through jazz music that electric guitars were invented. In order to make jazz guitars louder back in the day, they used to modify the guitar in order to amplify it’s sound without the use of power. If you wanted to learn jazz guitar in those days there was no plugging anything in to any outlets and no television or computer to instruct you on it.

Another amazing technique that is generally only used in blues and jazz is a technique called “bottle necking” and this was done with the old jazz guitarists breaking off the tops of wine bottles, places them on their ring fingers and proceeding to make fabulous sounds. If this kind of guitar playing sounds exciting to you, please go out and try to find a way to learn the jazz style of guitar as it is both rewarding and very pleasing to the ears. Similar to any near-extinct animal, jazz guitarists are a rare and everything should be done to protect this fine musical ability before there are no great jazz players left on earth to learn the jazz style of guitar from.

By: Roland Jefferson III

Jazz Guitars – 5 Guitars for a great Jazz Tone

admin — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:17:22 +0000

As a musical genre traditional Jazz requires a fairly specific Guitar sound – generally this has involved a very clean dry tone – with little to no effects (perhaps only a hint of reverb) – usually the neck pickup is used with the resultant sound required to be clear enough to pickup the subtle nuances and articulation of the playing.

Jazz Guitarists therefore need to carefully consider their Guitar when setting out – luckily Jazz has been around for many years and there is a wide selection of instruments available. Traditionally Jazz Guitars are hollow body semi acoustics (though not always) and these have tended to favor P90 or Humbucker style pickups to produce the required sound – as stated there are many guitars on the market today – but here we list 5 classic Jazz guitars that helped shape the scene.

1 Gibson ES150

Made famous to the jazz community by Charlie Christian the ES 150 became his guitar. The ES150 became one of the world’s first commercially available electric guitars. With its single coil pickup fitted at the neck and its acoustic shaped body with f holes – the 150 has that sweet warm jazz tone that became a world favorite.

2 Gibson L5

Another of Gibson’s Jazz power trio (the others are the ES150 and the ES175) – the L5 features a large resonant body. With a history that goes back nearly 90 years the L5 has changed a little over this time and has featured different pickups (from P90’s to Humbuckers). As the prestige rhythm guitar it has been played by a variety of greats including Wes Montgomery.

3 Gibson ES-175

With it’s stylish Florentine single cutaway – the ES175 represented a departure for Gibson from their usual design – Debuting in 1949 – the 175 has been associated with a variety of Jazz greats from Herb Ellis to Pat Metheny.

4 Gretsch Country Gentleman/Nashville

While Gretsch are not considered jazz guitars per se – both the Country Gent and the Nashville are able to produce both versatile and authentic jazz tones. Both guitars offer a range of controls for adapting the tone of the guitar and can produce some versatile jazzy results – whilst the FiterTron pickups produce something that’s unlike it’s Gibson counterparts.

5 Fender Telecaster

With it’s sweet and mellow neck pickup tone the telecaster offers something a little different that the usual Jazz fare – Traditionally a country guitar the telecaster has been featured with Jazz artists including Ed Bickert and Mike Stern.

By: Adrian Martin

Jazz – Unlikely Inventor of Electric Guitar

admin — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 17:40:07 +0000

When you think of electric guitars, you envision rock and roll, heavy metal, and screaming punk bands. These genres depend heavily on the amplification and special effects that this sort of guitar provides. It is natural to assume that the inventor of electric guitar would be a rock and roller or a metal head, but an unlikely player in the game, jazz, actually contributed heavily to the development of the modern day electric guitar.

Early Concepts

The 1930’s and 1940’s, the big band era was in full swing. Jazz orchestras were increasing in size, and the powerful bass sections were simply drowning out guitarists, who were an integral part of the ensemble. Inventors and guitar makers experimented with attaching microphones to guitars, but the excess noise created by the player’s hands and the rest of the body were distracting and not pleasing to the ears. Bandleaders and guitarists saw a pressing need to amplify the sounds of the guitar in order to make it a more obvious presence on the bandstand.

Early Hollow Electrics

Just one person cannot be credited as the inventor of electric guitar, and the credit is therefore generally bestowed upon the entire genre of jazz, which created a need and practical use for it. The first electric guitars were basically designed from hollow acoustic guitar bodies and featured an electromagnetic transducer attachment. A documented performance using an electric guitar took place in 1932, the earliest appearance of anything of its kind. A recording would be made just six years later in 1938 featuring guitarist George Barnes, and 15 days after Barnes’ recording was made, young Eddie Durham made another that went on to become famous.

Early Solid Body Electrics

The more commonly known solid body electric guitar started to appear in 1931. It is rumored that a version of it may have been available in stores in the early 1930’s, but the instrument did not take off with great success. Guitar giant Fender became the first company to commercially manufacture an electric guitar and sell it with a great deal of success.

Early Electric Guitarists

Charlie Christian is often heralded as the very first true electric guitarist. He developed many techniques and best practices for the instrument, and he applied them in his career as a jazz guitarist. His work contributed to the transition of jazz from the big band era into cool jazz, bebop, and modern styles. The foundation he laid made it possible for people like Les Paul, B.B. King, and Jimi Hendrix to transform musical styles and create new avenues for the electric guitar.

Since its early concepts, the electric guitar has gone on to penetrate all genres of music. Elements from the electric guitar are now applied to amplify acoustic electric instruments as well, such as violins, classical guitars, and mandolins. A great number of special effects and distortions can add to the diverse offerings that electronics can give musicians, and it is all thanks to jazz – the unlikely inventor of electric guitars.

By: David Smithe