bridges

product rdf: 

Bridge_(instrument)

TonePros

TonePros Sound Labs was established in 1998 and they began by making an improved more stable tailpiece assembly that you could retrofit to your guitar. Circa 2024 they had 27 models of bridges and tailpieces with at least 5 finish options, They also now offer tuners.

Source: TonePros website (16 February 2024)

Grainger

Grainger Guitars was founded by brothers Darren and Gavin Grainger. Both had a background in precision engineering background, with skills including hydraulics, CNC machining,  3D CAD design and motor-sport fabrication. They make meticulously built, hand finished electric guitars their workshop in Oakham, UK. Grainger also make bridges and other guitar hardware.
Source: Grainger Guitars website (31 July 2022)

Hipshot

Dave Borisoff founded Hipshot in 1982 in a small industrial unit in California. Borisoff was a pedal steel player - and his first invention was the Hipshot String Bender, which allowed guitarists to bend their B string with a lever actuated at the hip (hence, Hipshot). Next, Dave came up with a D-tuning mechanism for bass players (known as the Xtender). Since then Hipshot has grown into a company with over 40 employees which makes a range of bridges, tuners and other hardware for guitarists and bass players.

Source: Hipshot website (14 February 2022)

RTO

RTO guitars was founded by Raymond Olsen in 2006. Olsen worked in the motorcycle industry for many years before and used his machining skills to design a new type of surfacing mounting tremolo (patented in 2010). RTO sell tremolos as well as electric guitars.

Source: RTO Guitar and Tremolo website (11 May 2020)

Göldo

Göldo has its origins in 1978 when German guitar designer Dieter Gölsdorf created Rockinger Guitars as a parts sales company. He then launched the guitar brand Duesenberg in 1986 and Formentera Guitars in 1987.  In 1991 internal differences led to a sale of Formentera shares and change of ownership at Rockinger. The Göldo was launched in 1991 as company focused on wholesale, production, import, distribution and export of its own and outsourced components to dealers and guitar manufacturers. Göldo is a wholesaler only and does not sell directly to customers.

Source: Göldo website (28 June 2019)

Shadow

Joe Marinic founded Shadow Electronics in 1971 in Erlangen, Germany as an electric guitar and pickup maker, but initially Joe decided to focus solely on pickups. Soon Shadow invented a ground breaking undersaddle piezo pickup (called the “Shadow 1”) for acoustic and classical guitars. The 1970s saw further innovations from Shadow including the first endpin output jack for acoustic guitar and the first dual magnetic and piezo pickup system. During the late 1970s and early 1980s Shadow invented the first piezo bridge for electric guitars and the first active humbucker with a built-in equalizer. In 1987 Shadow began making electric guitars in Germany and released several guitar-to-midi converters and guitar synths. More recently, Shadow developed the NanoFlex transducer and NanoMAG magnetic pickup systems.

Mighty Mite

Mighty Mite was founded in 1974 by Randy Zacuto in Camarillo, California as a supplier of replacement pickups and bridges for guitars and basses. The Mighty Mite brand was bought by Jack Westheimer in 1982 and it was reintroduced by Westheimer Corporation in 1991 as a supplier of replacement guitar necks, bodies and other parts. 

Source: Mighty Mite catalogs

Source: Mighty Mite website (21 May 2018)

Badass

The Leo Quan "Badass" bridge was developed in 1972 by Glen Quan, musician, collector of fine instruments, guitar repairman and stringed instrument restorer. Glen saw a need for a tunable bridge for his personal stage guitars and began building bridges for his own use. Other performers asked him to build these bridges for their instruments, and by the end of the 1970s Fender were using Badass bridges on many of their basses.

Source: Leo Quan website (archived 2006)

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