Sunday, October 28, 2012

The New Gittler Guitar

The New Gittler Guitar
A few weeks ago, I received this nice message from Eric Slone: "We're bringing the Gittler Guitar back to market from the 1980's. The guitar has been featured in the New York Museum of Modern Art and Boston Museum of Fine Arts."

This is great news and I hope this venture is successful. The Gittler Guitar is one of the most unique instruments ever invented.


My November 8th, 2009 featured information on the original Gittler Guitar.






Allan Gittler and Son NYC





This instrument was designed by Allan Gittler as an experiment in the mid 1970's. The guitar was actually more of a minimalistic art piece than a guitar, however it caught on as guitarists began to hear about this strange new instrument.

The fact that Andy Summers of the Police played a Gittler in the Synchronicity II video helped spread the word.

Gittler's goal was to reduce the electric guitar to the most minimal form possible by eliminating such things as the body, the headstock and traditional tuners. His result was an instrument that some folks think looks like a metalic fish skeleton. Between the mid 1970's to the early 1980's Gittler made 60 guitars and 3 bass guitars in this fashion.

Allan Gittler introduced his guitar at a 1970's NAMM show. He stated the guitar was shown on a piece of black velvet with a single spot light on it. It caught everyones attention. One fellow asked him, "What is different about this?" Gittler replied, "You can play it underwater."


Aston/Gittler



In 1982, Gittler emigrated to Hebron, in Israel and became a practicing and religious Jew and changed his name to Avraham Bar Rashi. There was still a demand for Gittler Guitars, so Bar Rashi licensed his design to an Israeli company in the town of Kiryat Bialik. This was Astron Engineer Enterprises LTD.

They were able to utilize computer design and machined aproximately 300 guitars. Their design differed somewhat from the originals, as they added a plastic body to house the electronics. Aside from that, the Astron built Gittlers are precise copies of the original.

While residing in Israel, Bar Rashi built a few wooden models of an electric guitar, that look nothing like the original. He also built a left-handed version for a friend.

Eric Slone, Marketing Director of Gittler Instruments, tells me the current owners of the Gittler brand, will be releasing an upgraded model of this famous instrument during the 2013 Winter NAMM Show.

The new company is run by CEO Russ Rubman, who had a very diverse background. He worked as a musician (bass and guitar), as an artist doing backgrounds for Disney features, and as a metallurgist, subcontracting for a defense contractor. He specializes in working with Titanium.


Yotanan Bar Rashi, son of Avraham, is the managing partner and is continuing to promote his fathers business.

Dr. Colin Joye is the Engineer/Innovator. He brings his electrical engineering degree from MIT and an extensive jazz background to the company.

And of course, Mr. Slone is the Business Marketing director. He has authored several books on guitar instruction.

The Original Gittler Guitar

The original Gittler instruments were made using stainless steel bars. The neck consisted of a long bar with short stainless steel bars (frets) pressure fitted on top of it. The "body" was made of six stainless steel tubes.

At the distal end of these tubes, the stings attached to a knurled adjustment knob for tuning. Like a Steinberger guitar, the strings ends attach at the top of the neck. The six tubes also housed individual pickups and preamps for each string.

The wiring for the pickups was routed to a 9-pin connector, which mixed to a 1/4" TS connector. The original models did not have the preamp section, so the individual pickups signals were led to single cables which could be plugged into a preamp.

The newer models have quite a few improvements.

In place of the plastic box housed on the rear of the Astron made Gittler guitars, the new guitars are equipped with an ebox (electronic box) that is housed in a metal casing on the rear of the guitar, just below the transducer tubes. The new guitar maintains the 6 individual pickups, but enhances their output capability, allowing the signal to go straight to a guitar amplifier through a1/4" output or using a 13 pin output that would allow the signal to go to a guitar synthesizer.

The new instrument is made of airforce grade titanium which is virtually indestructible as well as resisting corrosion. The bridge is adjustible. The guitar has active electronics and a tone shaping circuit housed in the Ebox. The strings have a locking mechanism, keeping the guitar in tune.

The new Gittler has strap anchor points. The Loxx strap lock system can be added as an option. And get this...it comes with LED fret position markers on the neck.

Gittler Headstock
The player of the Gittler guitar has features that are unavailable on a conventional guitar. For one, you can bend a string down by pushing it through the frets, much like a scalloped neck guitar. And the Gittler comes with 31 frets! That allows the player almost a 3 octave range. The pickups or transducers are designed to provide excellent synth tracking, if that is your thing. The Gittler is only 28" long and weighs a mere 3 pounds.

Gittler Pickups
After I did my initial blog entry about the Gittler Guitar and Avraham Bar Rashi, I received a very sweet email from Bar Rashi's wife. She told me that in death, he was given a place of honor on Mount Herzl cemetery.

Please check out the link to the new Gittler Instruments. Notice I said instruments. There are plans to manufacturer for sale a Deluxe model Gittler guitar, a Gittler bass guitar, a Gittler upright bass and a Gittler violin.

Gittler Instruments LLC

I also encourage checking out a link to Willie Moseley's interview with Gittler/Bar Rashi that was published in Vintage Guitar Magazine's April 2003 issue for more information on the inventor.

Gittler Guitars - Interview with Avraham Bar Rashi - April 2003


Her are some examples of the Old Gittler Guitar.



14 comments:

  1. Thank you for taking the time to make sure your content is properly written, formatted and easy to understand. I’m impressed with your writing quality.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great article, thanks. I've always wanted a Gittler guitar since seeing a photo of Andy Summers' Gittler in a guitar magazine(well before the Synchronicity II video). I got to try out the Ashton-made Gittlers at a guitar show and loved them (well, not so much the version with the plastic "back" to the neck).

    Gavin
    http://guitarz.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. Very nice blog, thanks for your generous info. More power to you!

    ReplyDelete
  4. wow, this is the instrument I have dreamed of making! I should have known it had already been done.I guess I'll keep trying to come up wit something original.Thanks for posting this very enjoyable blog.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The New York Pass is a 'smart card' - like a credit card - which gives you fully cash free entry to over 80 New York tourist attractions.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Loaris Trojan Remover Crack
    Loaris Trojan Remover Crack is the best software. You can use this software to remove Trojans or malware from your PC or laptop. Even if you are already using an extremely reliable antivirus, you can usually find a Trojan that sticks to your computer.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Loaris Trojan Remover Crack
    Loaris Trojan Remover Serial Key Full Version searches for all framework documents, Windows registry, projects, and logs accumulated at boot time. Most malicious projects (once activated) are loaded according to these principles. Loaris Trojan Remover Serial Code Download all documents stacked at startup time for adware, spyware, remote access Trojans, webworms, and other malware.

    ReplyDelete
  8. SmartFTP Enterprise Crack
    SmartFTP Enterprise Crack is one of the best and most powerful FTP management programs. Software is very fast when connecting to the server and also provides you with a stable connection between the client and the server. With the help of SmartFTP, you can easily upload files to your website very quickly.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Freemake Video Converter Crack
    Freemake Video Converter Crack as its name sounds, program is used to convert videos for free to AVI, DVD, WKV, MP4, 3GP and FLV, SWF iPod, iPhone, and Android. In addition, Freemake Video Converter Download can rip and burn DVD-like formats, and it also supports downloading online video content from 40+ giant platforms, online uploading, and converting directly from 40+ sites to burn to Blu-ray to upload them to the server. Freemake Video Converter Crack It puts full control over the output at your fingertips as users customize their output result by putting desired values.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I like your all post. You have done really good work. Thank you for the information you provide, it helped me a lot. I hope to have many more entries or so from you.
    Very interesting blog.
    maintype-professional Crack

    uplayer-video-player-all-format Crack

    screenhunter-pro Crack

    ibeesoft-data-recovery Crack

    amazing-slow-downer Crack

    tenorshare-icarefone Crack

    ReplyDelete
  11. Astron guitars are not precise copies of Gittlers.
    From a distance they look the same, (excluding the Astron's added body parts) but the quality of the machining, and the fitment of the parts on Astron guitars are inferior to the Gittlers.
    Astron parts are not compatible with Gittlers due to dimensional differences and the locations of the machined holes are substantially different.

    ReplyDelete
  12. You have shared very informative content. "Old Yeller" has been on display at the Museum of Design in Atlanta recently as part of a guitar exhibit. Keep sharing more guitar styles to display with us. Now it's time to get iphone screen repair baltimore/ for more information.

    ReplyDelete
  13. The New Gittler Guitar looks like an incredible innovation in the world of music! Can't wait to try it out with my headphones for an even better experience. Last year, I upgraded my audio gear with headphones from Status.co using their Status Audio Coupon Code, and it's been a game-changer for my music sessions.

    ReplyDelete