Steinberger guitars part one
| Posted in Guitar
When Ned Steinberger launched the L2 headless bass on an unsuspecting world in 1979, it was clear that if he did own any books about guitar construction, he hadn’t bothered to read them. The body and neck of the instrument were made as one piece in a mould from resin, there was no headstock, the tuning gears were at the wrong end and it used special strings. If the history of the electric guitar has shown us one thing, it’s that any guitar or bass design that strays too far off the path of tradition is usually summarily dismissed and consigned to the ‘what on earth were they thinking?’ category in one of Tony Bacon’s books.
History however was cast aside, and the subsequent global success of Steinberger instruments – basses and guitars - is a testament to Ned Steinberger’s vision and his belief at the time that instruments didn’t have to be made of rare and expensive woods to play well and sound good.
Ned Steinberger patented the design of the L2 headless bass in 1980 and founded the Steinberger Sound Corporation to manufacture them. The following year the L2 won an Industrial Designers Excellence Award from the Industrial Designers Society of America and it appeared in Time magazine’s top five best designs of the year. At trade shows like the Frankfurt Musikmesse, visitors were stunned by the L2 and it went on to win further awards including a Reinforced Plastics Composite Award.
After relocating to Newburgh, NY in 1983, Steinberger introduced its first headless guitar design, the GL-2, as well as the TransTrem, a revolutionary bridge system which allowed chords to alter in pitch while remaining in tune. The company also patented the S-Trem, which enabled both tremolo and fixed bridge operation. At the same the L series basses were available with Roland Controller circuitry, which offered a pitch to signal processing, and yet more design awards followed.
In 1986 more guitar models were introduced , including the GL3T and GL4T, both featuring EMG pickups and the TransTrem. The following year, with some input from Mike Rutherford from Genesis, The GM Series was launched. The GM model had a more conventional double cutaway body constructed of maple. At the same time, the Bass TransTrem was introduced, the first bass bridge to offer tremelo operation. In 1987 the company was sold to Gibson, who still owns it.
Yet more innovation followed toward the end of the decade including the DB bridge, which allowed the bottom E string to be detuned, and the XQ Bass which had a much more conventional looking maple body. Although the headless guitar design remained as the principle feature, the demand from the playing public was for the bodies on Steinberger models to look more like regular instruments, like the XM2 bass. Double-necks, 12-strings and left-handers were also produced by the company throughout the eighties and nineties and after a relocation to Nashville, TN, Steinberger introduced the ‘Spirit by Steinberger’ line. The Spirits revisited the original graphite construction including the double-ball tuning system and R-Trem locking trem system. They also featured a three-piece hard rock maple neck which made them much more affordable.
After a short suspension in production, Steinberger reintroduced the USA made graphite models including the GM and GR Series, and in 2006 the Synapse series was launched. Synapse guitars and basses had a wood/composite construction and included the TransScale model which featured a built-in ‘rolling capo’, which allowed virtually instant and stable clamping.
In the last couple of years, Steinberger has continued to advance its designs and innovations even further and its current catalogue includes the flagship ZT-3 series, featuring a new version of the TransTrem which is capable of transposing keys and bending chords in pitch, as well as the Spirit and Synapse collections.
There can’t be too many other guitar manufacturers who can match Steinberger’s dedication to innovation and design excellence, and the original L2 headless remains a design classic – it’s now a sought after collecter’s item. In part two of this feature, we will look at the current Steinberger models in more detail.
Tags: steinberger basses, steinberger guitars, steinberger l2, steinberger spirit, steinberger synapse, steinberger zt3