coolcat said:

Beauchamp wired a Hawaiian lap-steel guitar for sound - later known as the Electric Frying Pan. A Hawaiian guitar is a distant cousin to the acoustic 6-string that we're all familiar with. It's sorta like comparing a banjo to that same acoustic guitar.

Adolph Rickenbacker electrified an actual 6-string (semi)acoustic guitar with rudimentary pickups - no doubt inspired by, but different than the Beauchamp pickups. So Rickenbacker's instrument would have the correct DNA to be considered the beginning of the modern electric guitar.

squirrelgrease said:

Thanks.

squirrelgrease said:

He had a golden custom les paul in the Dinner With Delores video

Lester Paulfus (Les Paul) was one of the guitar inventors like we have them today.

To answer your question regarding what sound he uses. He seems to be using an Acoustic 12 string guitar and just a normal acoustic for the little licks and rhythm in the background

TheKing662 said:

Thats not a Les Paul my friend thats a IBANEZ GB-10 (George Benson Signature Model) He uses it for his jazz songs/tone.
[Edited 5/31/09 1:46am]

Wasn't he playing a Les Paul when he joined Q-Tip on stage in Vegas last year?

DoctorMambo said:

Yes but this was the Les Paul of the guitarist in Q-Tips band who handed it over to him quickly

I have a question.....is the habibi or the symbol guitar also a hohner telecaster mutant? what make of guitar is the symbol guitar and technically how does the sound differ from the standard hohners prince uses?

Btw, has the symbol guitar gone out of fashion with prince? why is that so?

it sounds to me that he either used a 12-string electric played with an acoustic simulator, with a little bit of echo and reverb, or he took a regular 6-string electric with the simulator, played, then overdubbed the same part to sound like there are 2 guitars. just a guess.

12-string and 6-string acoustic guitars, by my ear.

Funkyalien said:

The Hohner is an off-the-shelf guitar that anyone could have bought. Prince has changed the electronic hardware over the years, though.

The Symbol and Cloud guitars are fully custom made to Prince's specifications. They feature EMG active pick-ups and a one piece neck/body construction. The Hohner has a bolt-on neck. With the one piece neck-through design of the Clouds and Symbol guitars, he is able to prolong the sustain of a note much longer than with the bolt-on necked Hohner. That's why Prince pulls out the Symbol and Cloud for songs with soaring solos.

The Habibi Symbol has a locking tremolo(whammy bar) that the others don't.

Prince generally uses the Hohner as his workhorse rhythm and lead axe. He also seems to have dropped the Clouds and Symbols in favor of his Fender Stratocasters. The pick-ups are the same as his Clouds and Symbols, but they also have Floyd Rose tremolos, which he seems to have grown more comfortable with in a live setting.

Interesting stuff squirrelgrease

Tame said:

As a guitarist, it can be easy sometimes 2 identify what he's using guitar-wise but at times it's tough!

Would it be safe to guess that the longer the neck of the guitar the more notes or range the guitar has?

Is the same true for numbers of strings 6 vs. 12?

And, because the electric guitar's body is more solid, is the sound quality in the strings versus the acoustic where the sound is likely in the body of the guitar?

If that doesn't make sense -- what's the major difference between the two guitars in terms of note quality?

Thanks, this is quite interesting and that acoustic guitar is gorgeous.

jill4life said:

Ahhhh... That would be Leo Fender. Les Paul invented multitracking, and played guitar. Gibson named the "Les Paul" after him.

Teles RULE!
[Edited 6/2/09 8:01am]

jill4life said:

The neck of the guitar doesn't really change in length with more or less fret access. Usually, the body of the guitar is what dictates higher fret usage. This is why on 24-fret guitars, the guitar shape has a lower body cut-away or other design to allow for reaching these higher frets with ease. Yes. More frets, more notes higher up the neck.




A 12-string guitar can have the same design as the body of a 6-string, so those same notes can be accessed. 12-string guitars have 6 pairs of strings, not 12 separately finger-able strings. The pairs of strings are placed close together to allow holding the two down with one finger. Think of it as a six-string with it's own harmonizing section. The 12-string is known for it's full, "chorus" sound. The Byrds used an electric Rickenbacker 12-string semi-hollow body on classics like Hey Mr. Tambourine Man and Eight Miles High. This might help in understanding the unique sound.

There are a couple of standard ways to tune a 12-string, depending on your preference, but this is key to it's sound character.




An acoustic is all about the construction, type of wood used, size and inner bracing placement. An electric does rely on wood type and density for it's initial tone. Pickups, their placement and electronics are the next most important part of the equation for a solid body's sound. If you use a lot of processing and/or distortion, the body of the guitar becomes less important to the final output. Hollow body and semi-hollow body guitars (these usually have what is known as f-holes cut out of the body) add their own special sound to the mix. You can also add different types of electric pick-ups to an existing acoustic guitar and plug it into an amp.




See above.

From the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame website:

Les Paul
Induction Year: 1988
Induction Category: Early Influence


Les Paul (guitar; born June 9, 1915)

The name Les Paul is synonymous with the electric guitar. As a player, inventor and recording artist, Paul has been an innovator his entire life. Born Lester William Polfus in 1915 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Paul built his first crystal radio at age nine - which was about the time he first picked up a guitar. By age 13 he was performing semi-professionally as a country-music guitarist and working diligently on sound-related inventions. In 1941, Paul built his first solid-body electric guitar, and he continued to make refinements to his prototype throughout the decade. It’s safe to say that rock and roll as we know it would not exist without his invention.

But Les Paul didn’t stop there. He also refined the technology of sound recording, developing revolutionary engineering techniques such as close miking, echo delay, overdubbing and multitracking. He also busied himself as a versatile bandleader and performer who could play jazz, country and pop.

The guitar that bears his name – the Gibson Les Paul – is his crowning achievement. It grew out of his desire, as a musician and inventor, to create a stringed instrument that could make electronic sound without distorting. What he came up with, after almost a decade of work, was a solid bodied instrument – that is, one that didn’t have the deep, resonant chamber of an acoustic guitar.

As he told writer Jim O’Donnell, “What I wanted to do is not have two things vibrating. I wanted the string to vibrate and nothing else. I wanted the guitar to sustain longer than an acoustical box and have different sounds than an acoustical box.” The fact that the guitar’s body was solid allowed for the sound of a plucked string to sustain, as its vibrating energy was not dissipated in a reverberant acoustic chamber.

He experimented with different designs until he had his non-vibrating guitar body, which he called “The Log.” Gibson Guitars initially turned him down, calling his invention “a broomstick with pickups” and pointing out that this meant guitarists would now have to carry around two instruments – one electric and one acoustic – which they viewed as prohibitively inconvenient. As a result, Paul was beaten to the marketplace by Leo Fender, whose Fender Broadcaster – the first mass-produced solidbody electric guitar – was introduced in 1948. That same year, however, Paul unveiled overdubbing, a breakthrough recording technique that would forever change music. Capitol Records released the Paul’s experimental eight-track recordings of “Lover (When You’re Near Me)” and “Brazil,” which he’d made in his garage workshop.

Paul’s career as a musician nearly came to an end in 1948, when he suffered near-fatal car accident in Oklahoma, skidding off a bridge into a river during a snowstorm. The guitarist shattered his right arm and elbow, and he also broke his back, ribs, nose and collarbone. He managed to salvage his career as a musician by instructing surgeons to set his arm at an angle that would allow him to cradle and pick the guitar. It took him a year and a half to recover.

Paul subsequently made his mark as a jazz-pop musician extraordinaire, recording as a duo with his wife, singer Mary Ford (who was born Colleen Summers). Their biggest hits included “How High the Moon” (1951) and “Vaya Con Dios” (1953), both reaching #1. The recordings of Les Paul and Mary Ford are noteworthy for Paul’s pioneering use of overdubbing - i.e., layering guitar parts one atop another, a technique also referred to as multitracking or “sound on sound” recording. He also speeded up the sound of his guitar. The results were bright, bubbly and a little otherworldly - just the sort of music you might expect from an inventor with an ear for the future.

In 1952, Les Paul introduced the first eight-track tape recorder (designed by Paul and marketed by Ampex) and, more significantly for the future of rock and roll, finally saw the release of the the gold-top solid body electric guitar that bears his name. Gibson’s Les Paul Standard went on to become one of the most popular of all models of electric guitar. Built and marketed by Gibson, with continuous advances and refinements from Paul in such areas as low-impedance pickup technology, the Les Paul is a staple instrument among many of rock’s greatest guitarists. He introduced the latest model in 2008. According to Gibson U.S.A., its design amendments include “a new asymmetrical neck profile that makes it one of the most comfortable and playable necks ever offered on any guitar.”

The list of musicians associated with the Gibson Les Paul include Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton,, Duane Allman, Mike Bloomfield, Eddie Van Halen and Jimmy Page. Paul is guitarist Steve Miller’s godfather. Jimi Hendrix consulted him about the construction of Electric Lady Studios. In a British periodical, Led Zeppelin’s Page once wrote of Paul, “He’s the man who started everything. He’s just a genius.” While sharing a stage with Paul, Eddie Van Halen once told him, “Without the things you’ve done, I wouldn’t be able to do half the things I do.”

Over the ensuing decades Les Paul has remained active on all fronts. He recorded a Grammy-winning album of instrumental duets with Chet Atkins, Chester and Lester, in 1977. From the mid-Eighties through the mid-Nineties, he performed weekly at Fat Tuesday’s, a New York City jazz club. In 2005, at the age of 90, he released American Made/World Played, which featured guest spots from several of his most illustrious rock and roll disciples and won him a pair of Grammys.

Paul still performs weekly – at New York’s Iridium Jazz Club – and continues to indulge his inventor’s curiosity in a basement workshop at home in Mahwah, New Jersey.

djdaffy1227 said:

Thanks.