History Of The Ovation Guitar
May 19th, 2008 by guitarnews
The first ever Ovation Guitar was made in 1966 and introduced to the world as the “Balladeer” in February of 1967. Charles Kaman, an aeronautical engineer and avid guitar player, took his Martin guitar to the C.F. Martin Company to have the warped neck of his guitar fixed. While there, president of the company, Fred Martin invited Charles on a tour of the Martin factory.
While on the tour, Charles was shocked that their guitars were being made with hammers and animal glue. Since he was familiar with working with advanced woodworking equipment while he was working as a helicopter engineer, he knew right away that he could drastically improve their guitars.
Charles went to Fred Martin and offered to buy his company from him but Martin refused. Charles Kaman went back to Martin at a later date and asked him to sell his company one last time. But this time Charles Kaman told him of his plans of bringing in a superior technology to guitar making. When Mr. Martin refused once more, Charles Kaman decided to start his own guitar manufacturing company, Ovation Guitars.
Being an aeronautical engineer, Mr. Kaman was used to trying to find the best ways of taking out vibrations from their helicopters. On the other hand, being a guitar player himself, Mr. Kaman understood the importance of trying to find the best ways to put vibration in.
He then proceeded to put together a team of top aerospace engineers and technicians and put them to work on designing the best possible acoustic guitar.
Through their extensive research, they discovered that the flat back style of the acoustic guitars that were produced at the time ended up having a negative affect on the flow of the sound. This led to the controversial “round back” design of the Ovation guitar. This improved design gave the sound of the Ovation better bass, treble and also made the guitar stronger.
Another thing that was unheard of at that time was the use of synthetic materials to build the back of their guitars. When Mr. Kaman worked designing rotor blades for helicopters, he saw what negative effects that vibration had on wooden rotors. This on the other hand would be a positive for acoustic guitars but would need a controlled resonance to create the perfect sound for his guitars.
In the end he discovered the perfect combination of synthetic materials and natural woods such as the sika spruce to create a truly amazing sounding acoustic guitar.
A few years later in 1971 preamps, eq’s and pickups were added to catch the attention of musicians who had problems with feedback during their live shows.
Other Ovation guitar innovations were the their first solid body electric guitar in 1971 and offset sound holes on their guitar tops in 1977.
The 1980’s turned out to be the most popular time for Ovation Guitars. Because of their low feedback and strong sound, many musicians used Ovation as their acoustic guitar of choice during their live performances.
The Ovation guitar is still around today and extremely popular with musicians such as Al Dimeola, Sully Erna and Tony Rombola (Godsmack), Melissa Etheridge, Steve Lukather, Yngwie Malmsteen, Ziggy Marley, Dave Mustaine (Megadeth), Vince Neil and Nikki Sixx (Motley Crue), Shakira, Shania Twain, Steven Tyler (Aerosmith) and Rick Nielson (Cheap Trick) to name a few.
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i have a 1967 12 strings ovation guitar that i want to sell… interested?