The Stagg brand was introduced by distributor EMD Music, as their first house brand in 1995. Global sales of Stagg products expanded to the point that Stagg now provides most of EMD's revenue.

Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug founded Taylor Guitars in 1974 and by 2017 it was a leading global builder of premium acoustic guitars with over 900 people producing hundreds of guitars per day in its state-of-the-art factory complexes in both El Cajon and in Tecate, Baja California, Mexico.

Taylor is renowned for using modern, innovative manufacturing techniques. The company was a pioneer in the use of CNC mills, lasers and other high-tech tools and proprietary machinery for acoustic guitar manufacture. Among the company’s many innovations are its patented Taylor Neck; the Expression System® 2 (ES2) pickup; and the T5 a hybrid acoustic and electric guitar.

In addition to its forward-thinking approach to guitar design and manufacturing, Taylor is dedicated to the pursuit of best practices in forest management, new models of reforestation, and using only ethically harvested tonewoods.

Paul Reed Smith Guitars (PRS Guitars) was founded in 1985 in Annapolis, Maryland by Paul Reed Smith. Smith started building guitars while still in college and soon decided to make it his career. In the early days he was making around 1 guitar a month. He would hanging out at the local concert venues and talk his way backstage to to show his guitars to the touring musicians. He would occasionally make a sale this way: Carlos Santana, Al Di Meola, Howard Leese, and other well known players agreed to try out his guitars. After getting some success with orders for more than 50 guitars, he made two prototypes and took them on the road to demo to East Coast guitar dealers. This generated enough orders for him to start his company.

The company was founded by Leo Fender as Fender's Radio Service in late 1938 in Fullerton, California, USA. While repairing musical instrument amplifiers in his electronics workshop he noticed their design flaws. He began making a few amplifiers using his own designs or modifications to designs. By the early 1940s, he had teamed up with another local electronics enthusiast named Clayton Orr (Doc) Kauffman, and they formed a company named K & F Manufacturing Corp. to design, manufacture, and sell electric instruments and amplifiers. Production began in 1945 with Hawaiian lap steel guitars (incorporating a patented pickup) and amplifiers, which were sold as sets. Leo Fender decided to concentrate on manufacturing rather than repair. Kauffman remained unconvinced, however, and they had amicably parted ways by early 1946. At that point Leo renamed the company the Fender Electric Instrument Company.