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Originally Posted by max cooper  I believe metal wound strings came way before electric guitars. Since elec. guitars were mostly invented in small workshops (Orville Rickenbacker, Paul Bigsby, etc.) metal strings would have had to already be around.
So I bet most stringed instruments were strung with gut strings.
I'd bet metal wound strings have been around for a long long time. Otherwise, what did they string pianos and harpsichords with? |
Are you talking about popcorn or guitars? The Rickenbacker line was begun by Adolph Rickenbacker and George Beauchamps to market steel guitars in 1931 (some say the first electric was built by them, but other individuals were experimenting). Les Paul soon built the first hollow body electric, but the first successful solid body was Fender's in 1950. Steel strings have been used for quite a while. The sailors who introduced guitars to the South Pacific (whose inhabitants invented "slack string" or Hawaiian guitars) mostly used metal strung guitars because of the humidity...the metal strings worked well for slide stopping the strings for the Pacific islanders.
The manner in which a string is made allows certain functions such as easy bending which may make it more desirable for a particular instrument. The inability to control tonal coloring on an acoustic electronically makes material and production techniques important to the none-electric performer.