Steinberger

Steinberger is an American manufacturer of electric bass guitars and electric guitars. The company was founded in 1979 known for the novel design of the Steinberger L, an electric bass guitar model, which had no head plate for the first time (English: Headless ) and for the most part made ​​of a composite material ( a carbon fiber resin laminate ) was constructed.

Company History

Founder of the company is Ned Steinberger ( b. 1948 ), son of the American Physics Nobel Laureate Jack Steinberger. After his training as a sculptor at the Maryland Institute College of Art Steinberger started in 1975 at the renowned furniture manufacturer Thonet, before he already the following year with the Spector NS model designed his first electric bass. During his time at the U.S. musical instrument manufacturer Spector Steinberger began experimenting with carbon fiber reinforced plastic, the result is the so-called Steinberger blend material.

With the L2 bass he succeeded in 1979, the first big hit. Meanwhile, with attached to the carcase end tuners ensured reduced to a minimum square body and the neck of the instrument without a head plate with the U.S. Musikmesse NAMM Show in California first for amusement. Quote Ned Steinberger: "We went to the Summer NAMM 1980 part and were pretty much the laughing stock of the fair. " Ridicule turned into enthusiasm, as the present bassist Andy West vorführte the Steinberger bass: "The next day there was a rush to our booth, and so it remained so in the following years. "The first three prototypes of L2 were John Entwistle ( the bassist for the English rock band The Who), Tony Levin ( bass player from King Crimson ) and Andy West ( Dixie Dregs ) sold. In 1980, the company Steinberger Sound was founded. The following year, the L2 bass was chosen as the first musical instrument among the five best designs of the Industrial Designers Excellence Award from the Industrial Designers Society of America (ISDA). A year later Steinberger won the Reinforced Plastics / Composite Award of the Society of The Plastics Industry, Inc. and brought to the GL model his first guitar model out.

One of Steinberger's developments is the TransTrem: This vibrato system allows not only the string tension ( and thus the pitch) to increase or decrease, but contrary to other systems also allows you to transpose the entire mood of the guitar. This not only facilitates playing in different tunings, but also entails the ability to perform so-called Chord bends.

Steinberger instruments are characterized by a particularly clear, height- rich "Hi- Fi" sound off, the epoxy / graphite results from the hardness of the material used in combination with the active electronics, and not only gave their assent: designated Some critics the sound as " characterless ". On the initiative of Mike Rutherford, guitarist of Genesis, the electric guitar model GM was developed. In this minimalist composite body was replaced by a traditional shaped wooden body with side wings. This particular guitar should be addressed, where the radical design of the GL model had not promised.

To also mid-priced to offer instruments that P- series was developed. Equipped with a wooden body and a neck bolted from the composite material, but with the same hardware as the L- instruments, it was possible to keep the Produktionskonsten and hence the price for the end consumer low. The body shape was a mixture of the L- design and the Flying V design of Gibson. As electromagnetic devices of the brand EMG pickups in turn were used. These are offered on Steinberger instruments in two versions: The pickups are equipped with an integrated preamplifier ( active electronics ) if the company logo is printed or stamped on the bottom of the cartridge, they convert the string vibrations passive ( no preamp ) when the EMG logo is printed in the center of the housing cap. The P-Series enjoys a good reputation among fans, because it is authentic Steinberger instruments, but differ with its wooden body from the concept of hi-fi sound. However, it was the P- series - there were also Basses - not very successful, which is why these instruments were not produced long and now at significantly lower prices than their predecessors of the L- series are available on the second hand market.

End of the 1980s the company Steinberger by Gibson was bought what was included not only positively by enthusiasts of the Steinberger instruments. Mid -1990s, production was stopped completely.

The revival of the brand Steinberger began in 1999 with the cheap Steinberger Spirit models, which are made entirely of wood and therefore the in the 1980s quite popular copies of the musical instrument manufacturer Hohner are very similar. As of 2002, the Steinberger USA Series was reintroduced with a new edition of the GM and GL models, which are sold by the internet platform MusicYo, a subsidiary Gibsons. In the aforementioned U.S. models come as the originals, instrument necks of composite material used. However, these instruments are not to be compared with the instruments made ​​by the end of the 1980s, as the body is made with all current models of wood and not synthetic composite material. The new editions of the GM and GL models are now no longer available. The current series consist of electric guitars and basses from the Spirit Collection and the Synapse Collection, as well as the electric guitars addition of the Z- vector with a new edition of the Trans - Trem ( TT3 ), which is now sold not only MusicYo be, but above the normal musical instrument trading.

Ned Steinberger, who is also responsible for the design of the Spector NS bass, now dedicated to the design and production of Electric Upright Bass ( Electric Upright Bass ), cellos and violins.