This document provides an overview of electric guitar design basics, amplification basics, and signal modification basics. It discusses key elements of guitar design like pickups, bridges, and amplification methods. It also covers different types of signal modifications like distortions, modulation effects, filters, dynamics processors, time effects, and pitch effects. The purpose is to explain the technology behind electric guitars and how musicians have advanced designs to create different tones and sounds.

1. Dr. Brian Kirkmeyer
Karen Buchwald Wright Assistant Dean for Student Success
& Instructor of CEC266 “Metal on Metal: Engineering & Globalization
in Heavy Metal Music”
Whitney Riley
Director, Corporate and Foundation Relations
How My Guitar Loudly Shrieks:
The Technology of Electric Guitar

2. Agenda
• Guitar design basics
• Guitar amplification basics
• Guitar signal modification basics

3. • Early electric guitars were either “electrified”
acoustics or chop-shop specials
• Over time, the designs were modified,
customized, mass-produced, and otherwise
advanced to allow every possible option that the
musician could decide that he/she needed
Guitar Design

4. Design Basics
www.gibson.com; www.fender.com; www.warmoth.com

5. What design elements will we discuss?
• Pickups
• Bridges
• Amplification
• Signal modifications

6. Pickups
• Single coil
– Brighter sound, subject to hum/noise
• Humbuckers
– Beefier sound, eliminates hum/noise
• P90
– In between sound, subject to hum/noise
• Passive (no pre-powering)
• Active (pre-powered via battery)

7. Bridges
• Hardtail
– Telecaster-style
– Tune-o-matic
• Vibrato (aka tremolo)
– Vintage six-point
– Modern two-point
– Floating

8. • Vacuum tubes
– Older style
– Warmer, more natural sound
• Transistors
– Newer style
– Colder, relatively artificial sound
• Hybrids
– Tube-driven pre-amplifier, transistor-driven amplifier
– Allows integration of amplification and signal modification
Amplification

9. Signal Modification
• Irreversible damage to the amplifier
– Dave Davies of The Kinks, Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats
– Permanently damage the speaker (slicing it, dropping the amp)
• Overpowering the circuitry to cause distortion and feedback
– Turn it up too loud, e.g. The Who, Blue Cheer, Led Zep, Hendrix
– Impart signal interference due to magnetic field interactions
• Overlay modified copies of the original signal
– Studio effects, e.g. press on the flange of the recording reels
– Apply signal filters to add/subtract parts of it, or induce phase delay

10. What kinds of modifications?
• Distortions
– Overdrive, distortion, fuzz
– Pushing the signal amplitude past its capabilities
• Signal modulation
– Flanger, chorus, phaser, tremolo, ring modulation, vibrato
– Mixing or splitting signals to vary it over time
• Filters
– Wah, talk box, equalizer
– Frequency-specific alterations of the sounds to boost or suppress

11. What kinds of modifications?
• Dynamics
– Boost, compression, noise gate
– Volume-specific alteration of the sound signal
• Time modulators
– Delay, reverb, looper
– Replications of the original signal to create time effects
• Pitch modulators
– Harmonizer, octaver, pitch shifter
– Shifting pitch up or down, either just the original signal or as a mixed signal

12. Thanks for listening, and ROCK ON!!!