A semi-acoustic guitar , also known as a hollow-body electric guitar , is a type of electric guitar designed to be played with a guitar amplifier featuring a fully or partly hollow body and at least one electromagnetic pickup . First created in the 1930s, they became popular in jazz and blues , where they remain widely used, and the early period of rock & roll , though they were later largely supplanted by solid-body electric guitars in rock.
26-542: The Epiphone Casino is a thinline hollow body electric guitar manufactured by Epiphone , a branch of Gibson . The guitar debuted in 1961 and has been associated with such guitarists as Howlin' Wolf , Phil Upchurch , George Harrison , John Lennon , Paul McCartney , Noel Gallagher , Keith Richards , Dave Davies , Brad Whitford , Shirley Manson , Paul Weller , The Edge , Josh Homme , Daniel Kessler , Brendon Urie , Gary Clark, Jr. , Glenn Frey , John Illsley , and Peter Green . Casinos have been manufactured in
52-500: A chambered body guitar , they start from a solid body blank that has been routed out to include a sound hole in an otherwise solid body. Examples include the Fender Telecaster Thinline . In the 1930s, guitar manufacturers aimed at increasing the sound level produced by the instrument, to compete with louder instruments such as the drums. Companies such as Gibson , Rickenbacker , and Gretsch focused on amplifying
78-413: A preamplifier incorporated into the guitar body to amplify the signal before it travels to the main guitar amplifier . These preamps may also come with an integrated tuner and tone controls of varying types; equalizers with up to six frequency bands may be used. In the 1920s, guitarists like Eddie Lang transitioned the acoustic guitar from a primarily solo instrument to use in big bands . However, in
104-453: A big band, the guitar was outplayed by the horn section and drums, and the need for amplification became apparent quickly. Various experiments at electrically amplifying the vibrations of a string instrument date back to the early part of the twentieth century; patents from the 1910s show telephone transmitters adapted and placed inside violins and banjos to amplify the sound. Hobbyists in the 1920s used carbon button microphones attached to
130-569: A center block to promote sustain and reduce feedback , the Casino and its cousin, the Gibson ES-330 are true hollow-bodied guitars. This makes it lighter, and louder when played without an amplifier, but much more prone to feedback than semi-hollow or solid-body electrics. The Casino neck joins the body at the 16th fret instead of the 19th like on the Gibson ES models. Through 1970, the Casino headstock
156-458: A guitar through a loudspeaker. In 1936, Gibson introduced their first manufactured semi-acoustic guitar, the ES-150s (Electric Spanish Series). Gibson based them on a standard production archtop , with F-holes on the face of the guitar's soundbox . This model resembled traditional jazz guitars that were popular at the time. The soundbox on the guitar let limited sound emit from the hollow body of
182-428: A removable drawer that slid out of the bass rim of the guitar. The signal was then transferred from a wooden bridge to a metal plate which allowed for an electric output and thus amplification. The first commercially available electric pickup however were Harry DeArmond 's FHC pickups, released in the 1930s. They were widely adopted because they did not require any modification of the guitar. In 1954, Gibson released
208-482: Is an acoustic guitar fitted with a microphone , or a magnetic or piezoelectric pickup . They are used in a variety of music genres where the sound of an acoustic guitar is desired but more volume is required, especially during live performances. The design is distinct from a semi-acoustic guitar , which is an electric guitar with the addition of sound chambers within the guitar body. Usually, acoustic-electric guitars are fitted with piezoelectric pickups, requiring
234-574: The Gibson ES-175 . Some models feature bodies the full width of acoustics, allowing them to be played fully acoustically, while others, such as the Epiphone Casino , have "thinline" bodies where the hollow body serves purely to alter the tone, not increase the acoustic volume. Other semi-acoustic guitars have a solid center block running the length and depth of the body, called a semi-hollow body . Examples include models that feature sound holes, like
260-602: The Gibson ES-335 , and ones with no sound holes but hollow interior chambers, like the Gretsch Duo-Jet . In these, the bridge is fixed to a solid block of wood rather than to a sound board , and the belly vibration is minimized much as in a solid body instrument. The addition of the central block helps to manage feedback and allows the guitar to be played normally at higher gain and higher volume. Other guitars are borderline between semi-acoustic and solid body. Known as
286-411: The bridge , but these detected vibrations from the bridge on top of the instrument, so the resulting signal was weak. The first person to create the modern electric pickup for the acoustic guitar was Lloyd Loar , with his company Vivi-tone . In the early 1930s, Loar split from Gibson and founded Vivitone, where he created an early electric pickup for the acoustic guitar. Electronics were mounted in
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#1732869058973312-477: The Beatles , and B.B. King , and rock musician Ted Nugent . Semi-acoustic guitars have also been valued as practice guitars because, when played "unplugged," they are quieter than full acoustic guitars, but more audible than solid-body electric guitars because of their open cavity. They are also popular because the cavities reduce the weight of the guitar. Acoustic-electric guitar An acoustic-electric guitar
338-425: The Casino. These include: Semi-acoustic guitar They differ from an acoustic-electric guitar , which is an acoustic guitar that has been fitted with some means of amplification to increase volume without changing the instrument's tone. Semi-acoustic guitars may have a fully hollow body, making them essentially archtop acoustics with the pickups permanently mounted into the sound board , such as
364-579: The Epiphone Casino as his main electric instrument during the remainder of his time with the Beatles, replacing the Rickenbacker 325 . In 1967 Lennon and Harrison had the pickguard removed during the making of Magical Mystery Tour album. In 1968 when the band were traveling in India , Donovan told Lennon and Harrison that sanding the finish off their Casinos would improve the tone. They did so before making
390-479: The United States, Japan, Korea and China. The Casino, also designated by Epiphone as model E230TD, is a thinline hollow-bodied guitar with two Gibson P-90 pick-ups. Although generally fitted with a trapeze-type tailpiece, often a Bigsby vibrato tailpiece is used in its place (either as a factory direct feature or as an aftermarket upgrade). Unlike semi-hollow body guitars such as the Gibson ES-335 , which have
416-411: The double album The Beatles . In the early seventies, Lennon replaced the original nickel Kluson tuners on his Casino with a set of gold Grover machine heads . McCartney's 1962 Casino, kept in the original sunburst finish, is still owned by him and occasionally used live. Like Harrison's Casino, McCartney's came with a factory-installed Bigsby vibrato. Epiphone currently builds several versions of
442-419: The f holes. Rickenbacker also began making semi-acoustic guitars in 1958. German guitar crafter, Roger Rossmiesl developed the 300 series for Rickenbacker. The series was a wide semi-acoustic that used a sleeker dash hole on one side of the guitar, with a pick guard on the other side, rather than a traditional F-hole. In addition to the main model variants of the guitar, Gibson made several small changes to
468-488: The first commercially successful flattop acoustic-electric guitars, the J–160E and CF-100E. Notable 1970s companies include Ovation and Takamine . During their MTV Unplugged performance , Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain notably used an acoustic-electric guitar in order to calm his nerves on being on a show known for its use of acoustic instruments, allowing for him to run his guitar through his pedal board and amp for
494-512: The first fully electric semi-acoustic guitars. Several models, including the ES-350T by Gibson, were made in the 1950s to accommodate a demand for a comfortable and modern version of the original archtop model. In 1958, Gibson first manufactured a 'semi-hollow body guitar' that featured a block of solid wood between the front and back sections of the guitars' cutaway . The guitar had a smaller resonant cavity inside, which makes less sound emit from
520-511: The guitar, including a laminated top for the ES-175 model and mounted top pickups for general use on all their models. While Gibson provided many of the innovations in semi-acoustic guitars from the 1930s to the 1950s, there were also various makes by other companies including a hollow archtop by Gretsch. The 6120 model by Gretsch became very popular as a rockabilly model despite having almost no technical differences from Gibson models. Rickenbacker
546-487: The guitar. The ES-150s could be electrically amplified via a Charlie Christian pickup , a magnetic single-coil pickup that converted the energy of the vibrating strings into an electrical signal. The clear sound of the pickups made the ES series popular with jazz musicians. The ES-150 was made several years after Rickenbacker made the first solid-body electric guitar. The ES series was designed as an experiment for Gibson to test
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#1732869058973572-715: The late 60s and 70s, the guitar became more popular because players learned to use its feedback issues creatively. Semi-hollow guitars share some of the tonal characteristics of hollow guitars, such as their praised warmth and clean tone, but with less risk of undesirable feedback. Their sound is particularly popular with jazz , blues , rockabilly and psychobilly guitarists. Today, semi-acoustic and semi-hollow body guitars are still popular among many artists across various genres. Examples include Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys , renowned jazz guitarist George Benson , John Scofield , multi-instrumentalist Paul McCartney , former Guns N' Roses member Izzy Stradlin , John Lennon of
598-549: The potential success of electric guitars. Due to its financial success, the ES series is often referred to as the first successful electric guitar. The ES-150 was followed by the ES-250 a year later, in what became a long line of semi acoustics for the Gibson company. In 1949 Gibson released two new models: the ES-175 and ES-5 . The ES-175 and ES-5 models were the first to come with built-in electric pickups and are widely considered
624-528: Was also a prominent maker of the semi-hollow body guitar. Gibson, Gretsch, Rickenbacker, and other companies still make semi-acoustic and semi-hollow body guitars. The semi-acoustic and semi-hollow body guitars were used widely by jazz musicians in the 1930s. The guitar became used in pop, folk, and blues. The guitars sometimes produced feedback when played through an amplifier at a loud level so they were unpopular for bands that had to play loud enough to perform in large venues. As rock became more experimental in
650-673: Was set at a 17-degree angle and the top was made of five laminated layers of maple, birch, maple, birch, and maple. With the exception of the John Lennon models, subsequent Casinos have been made with 14-degree headstock angle with five layer all maple laminated tops. Current versions have a laminated maple top, sides, and back, and a mahogany neck. Per the Epiphone String Gauge Guide, the Casino comes with string gauges (from high to low): 0.010" 0.013" 0.017" 0.026" 0.036" 0.046". In 1964, Paul McCartney , The Beatles ' bass player,
676-403: Was the first Beatle to acquire a Casino (a 1962 model), using it for his studio forays into guitar work, including his guitar solos on " Ticket to Ride " (1965), " Drive My Car " (1965) and " Taxman " (1966); he also played it on “ Helter Skelter ” (1968). In 1965 John Lennon and George Harrison bought 1965 Casinos. Harrison's came from the factory fitted with a Bigsby vibrato . Lennon used
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