Gittler

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original Gittler guitar (approx. 1970–1985), in the "Musical Instrument Museum, Phoenix"
Peter Autschbach 2019, with Gittler reprint (Armed Forces Special Edition)

The Gittler (also Gittler guitar ) is an experimental electric guitar model , designed and built by Allan Gittler (1928–2003). The minimalist musical instrument with six strings is mainly made of stainless steel . It differs from conventionally designed guitars in that the usual components such as body , neck , fingerboard and headstock have either been omitted or modified and reduced to such an extent that they do not resemble any other known guitar model. The construction is essentially composed of steel rods that form a thin instrument neck with frets as well as a central holder with a bridge and electrics. Because of its distant resemblance to a fish skeleton, the instrument is often referred to as the "Fishbone Gittler Guitar" ; another name is simply "The Gittler" . Even with the early Gittler guitars, six signals could be issued for each individual string (hexaphony), which also made the instrument unique in terms of electronics.

Gittler manufactured 60 instruments of this type in New York City from the mid-1970s to the early 80s . A copy of the Gittler guitar was sold to guitarist Andy Summers , with whom he can be seen in the music video for the song Synchronicity II by the band The Police .

Gittler later moved to Hebron in Israel and changed his name to Avraham Bar Rashi. He licensed the instrument design to Astron Engineering Enterprises Ltd. in Kiryat Bialik , which from 1985 onwards manufactured around 300 Gittler guitars using computer-controlled technology. Astron added a small body made of plastic to the original Gittler design, as well as a movable spar that serves as a knee support and for attaching a guitar strap. Bar Rashi later commented on these products as "plywood guitars" because of their built-in electronics, which corrupted its original design. Astron offered the instruments, however, as carefully made copies of the original according to Gittler's templates, the components of which were integrated in a plastic body and were intended to be easier to use by musicians. Although this certainly falsified the original minimalist idea of ​​the Gittler guitar, the products cannot be distinguished from the originals in terms of sound and playability.

There are also three Gittler -style electric basses that were manufactured in the New York phase and that bear the serial numbers 1, 2, and 3. Bar Rashi's widow does not recognize these instruments as “Gittler basses”, but simply describes them as basses in the style of the Gittler guitar.

The Gittler guitar carries six single piezo pickups. In the New York versions, the signals from the pickups are brought out with individual cables, in the Astron-Gittlers they are pre-amplified within a plastic body and brought out via a sum jack connection or individually via a D-Sub socket. The Gittler re-edition relies on a 13-pin socket with which the guitar is compatible with common devices that are able to process hexaphonic signals (for example guitar synthesizers or devices from the Roland VG series).

The Museum of Modern Art has added one of the New York models of the Gittler guitar to its collection.

Gittler Instruments LLC has been producing a new edition of the Gittler guitar in series production since 2014 . Yonatan Bar Rashi, Gittler's eldest son, has a stake in the company. In contrast to Allan Gittler's stainless steel originals, the guitars and basses from Gittler Instruments are made of titanium. That makes the new guitars very light (only about 1.5 kg). The titanium is either delivered blank, which means that the look resembles the original (Gittler Classic), or coated with Teflon (Armed Forces Special Edition). Further features such as colored LED lights to mark the position of the fret ("fretlights") and improved electronics with treble and bass controls have also been added. In addition, you can preset the sound of the guitar globally within the electronics compartment with a special center control. In addition to the Gittler guitar, the company also produces an electric bass , and the production of an electric double bass and an electric violin in a modified Gittler design is being planned.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Tony Bacon: Guitar classics - all models and manufacturers , p. 115. Premio Verlag 2007. ISBN 978-3-86706-050-9
  2. ↑ Products on the Gittler Instruments website
  3. ↑ http://gittlerinstruments.com/about-gittler
  4. ↑ https://gittlerinstruments.com/gittler-electric-bass

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