An Illustrated Guide to Prog Rock Instruments (new

Some more detailed historical comments about String Machines added in the caption for the ARP-Solina String Ensemble.

A couple of updates:

Gerinski wrote: Hi Sonia, nice of you to post these! Cool that you arranged for a B3 for Ken in order to play in South Africa!!!

Gerinski! huge hug thank you very much
It was great fun that show, Ken Hensley performed and sang July Morning on that Hammond and it was so touching really, More hugs

Ken Hensley perform using a Hammond B3 here in South Africa :)

^ Thanks for posting those Dale!

Gerinski wrote: HackettFan wrote: That's interesting. I wonder if there's a back story for why it took so long to go to market. I have to wonder now what I was hearing on the Zeppelin song. There's a place if you go to far over the pickup where you get a brief little tremolo blip or glitch with the e-bow. It sounds like one of the odd effects you hear in Whole Lotta Love, but now I have to wonder what it was really. Scratching my head. I'm looking forward to 2020. Well, as you see the first working concept from 1969 was something integrated in the guitar, so I don't think we can call that what we now mean by E-Bow, it must have been more something like what some Roland synth-controller guitars had in the 80's, they could generate an electromagnetic field to the strings in order to achieve infinite sustain. The first handheld prototype came in 1974 so a commercial introduction in 1976 is not that long. Perhaps Page used a real violin bow in Whole Lotta Love? He loved them you know.

I see. That makes sense. I knew the sustainer pickups were closely related to the E-Bow, but I've known about E-Bows for a lot longer and just presumed that the sustainer pickups were derivative. It's the other way around, apparently. Of course there is a patent out there read. I wasn't ever interested doing so, but now maybe I am. Dean has a thread in Tech Talk on him building a sustainer pickup.

That's interesting. I wonder if there's a back story for why it took so long to go to market. I have to wonder now what I was hearing on the Zeppelin song. There's a place if you go to far over the pickup where you get a brief little tremolo blip or glitch with the e-bow. It sounds like one of the odd effects you hear in Whole Lotta Love, but now I have to wonder what it was really. Scratching my head.

I'm looking forward to 2020.

Edited by HackettFan - September 15 2014 at 17:47

Fabulous. This is a resource for the ages. I of course always knew Tony Banks used an electric piano, but knew nothing of the model, type, and characteristics until now. I liked how the ambiguity between organs and synths was discussed. This always interests me. One detail that I think is incorrect is the 1977 date for the first E-Bow. My information, which is simply from Wikipedia, is that it was invented in 1969. I believe it's heard fairly distinctly in the instrumental interlude on Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love. Again, though, this is a magnificent piece of work that I'm privileged to have access to.

Edited by HackettFan - September 14 2014 at 09:28

A great thread. I wish I had a good technical knowledge of instruments, but this thread will certainly help.

I thought the title was spot on and I had to have a little chuckle at 'Keith Emerson playing his customised ribbon controller which released fireworks'!

I particularly liked your choice of illustrations and photos.

^ Hi Dale, well of course it's not possible to list every instrument ever used by Prog musicians, I concentrated on instruments which were widely used in the classic period or which have been for some reason particularly special. Framus guitars were not prominent in classic Prog as far as I know, Devin Townsend uses them but he belongs to the modern era and Slade are not included in PA meaning most people consider them as Glam and not as Prog (including myself).