Ovation Guitar Company

Leaf sound hole in an Adamas model

The Ovation Guitar Company, a holding of Kaman Music Corporation, is a guitar manufacturing company based in New Hartford, Connecticut, USA. Ovation primarily manufactures steel-stringed acoustic guitars.

Ovation guitars have a history of innovative design. Ovation guitars have composite synthetic bowls; earlier acoustic guitars have had wooden back and sides since the 1700s. Their parabolic bowls dramatically reduced feed-back, allowing greater amplification of acoustic guitars. Later, on-board electronics allowed guitarists to move about the stage, rather than stay immediately in front of a microphone. On-board electronic tuning, availability, uniformity, and frugal costs facilitated performances by guitar ensembles like Robert Fripp's Guitar Craft students. Ovation has also produced solid body electric guitars and active basses.

The founder, Charles Kaman, and his background in helicopter engineering

The first Ovation guitar was developed during 1965–1966 by Charles Kaman(1919–2011). Kaman, an amateur guitarist from an early age, received his bachelors degree in aeronautical engineering from the Catholic University of America in Washington DC, and then worked on helicopter design as an aerodynamacist at United. Eventually he founded his own helicopter design company, Kaman Aircraft, in 1945.

A mid-1970s Kaman Ovation 1612-4 Acoustic Electric Guitar, next to a lute.

The Kaman Corporation soon diversified, branching off into nuclear weapons testing, commercial helicopter flight, the development and testing of chemicals, and helicopter bearings production. But in the early 1960s, financial problems due to the failure of their commercial flight division forced them to consider expanding into new markets, such as entertainment and leisure. Charles Kaman, still an avid guitar player, became interested in the making of guitars.

Research and development of first models

Charles Kaman put a team of employees to work on inventing a new guitar in 1964. For the project, Charlie chose a small team of aerospace engineers and technicians (several of whom were woodworking hobbyists as well). Kaman founded Ovation Instruments, and in 1965 its engineers and luthiers (guitar makers) worked to improve acoustic guitars by changing their conventional materials. The R&D team spent months building and testing prototype instruments. Their first prototype had a conventional "dreadnought" body, with parallel front and back perpendicular to the sides. The innovation was the use of a thinner, synthetic back, because of its foreseen acoustic properties. Unfortunately, the seam joining the sides to the thin back did break. To avoid the problem of a structurally unstable seam, the engineers proposed for their synthetic back a parabolic shape. By mid-1966, they realized that the parabolic shape produced desirable sounds with greater loudness than did the conventional dreadnought.

Once the engineers had settled on parabolic shape, they turned their attention to developing a substance that could be molded into this bowl-like shape. Using their knowledge of high-tech aerospace composites, they developed Lyrachord, a patented material comprising interwoven layers of glass filament and bonding resin. The lab team also discovered how to tune Lyrachord at the molecular level so it would resonate musically.

The first successful design, built by luthier Gerry Gardner, went into production soon after the company was established.

The first Ovation guitar made its debut in November, 1966. Its Lyrachord body gave the instrument unprecedented projection and ringing sustain.

Initial marketing

The introduction and promotion of the first Ovation was closely associated with two performing artists, the blues-performer Josh White and the country-music singer Glen Campbell.

Josh White

In 1965-1967, the Ovation Guitar Company produced a signature guitar for Josh White, which was the first signature guitar made for an African American. White was the first official Ovation endorser.

Upon completion, the first Ovation Guitar was called the "Josh White Model", which White played at the Hotel America (Hartford, Connecticut), 14  November 1966; at the same show, the Balladeers played Balladeer models. The show was witnessed by "300 representatives of the press and the music industry"

Glen Campbell 1968

Glen Campbell (pictured) gave national publicity to Ovation's round-back guitars.

The Ovation Roundback Balladeer first caught national attention in 1968 when Glen Campbell was the host of a show called the the Goodtime Hour on CBS, and a year later became one of Ovation's first endorsers.

Design innovations

The Celebrity CC44 (pictured) has an electronic tuner that uses a 9-volt battery. The on-board electronics unit, which includes three pre-amplifier controls, is standard on entry-level Ovation guitars like Celebrities and Applauses (in 2011–2012).

Heart's Nancy Wilson (pictured) plays an Adamas model.

Other Ovation innovations include composite tops and multiple offset sound holes on guitar tops, pioneered in the Adamas model in 1977. Kaman Music has also sold budget guitars—and even mandolins and ukuleles—based on similar design principles to the Ovation such as the Korean-built Celebrity series and the Korean or Chinese-built Applause brand.

Ovations reached the height of their popularity in the 1980s, where they were often seen during live performances by touring artists. Ovation guitars' synthetic bowl and early use (1971) of pre-amplifiers, onboard equalization and piezo pickups were particularly attractive to live acoustic musicians who constantly battled feedback problems from the high volumes needed in live venues.

Ergonomics

Glen Campbell suggested reducing the weight of the guitar, which caused back strain. Since then, Ovation has reduced the weight of several models and pioneered "super-shallow" guitar bodies.

While it was produced, Ovation's super-shallow 1867 Legend was the recommended guitar in Robert Fripp's Guitar Craft. Tamm (1990) wrote that the acoustic 1867 Legend has "a gently rounded super-shallow body design that may be about as close to the shape and depth of an electric guitar as is possible without an intolerable loss of tone quality. Fripp liked the way the Ovation 1867 fitted against his body, which made it possible for him to assume the right-arm picking position he had developed using electric guitars over the years; on deeper-bodied guitars, the Frippian arm position is impossible without uncomfortable contortions".

Entry-level guitars: Applause and Celebrity

Ovation introduced two lines for entry-level guitars. The lowest cost Applause line is manufactured in China. The low-cost Celebrity line is manufactured in South Korea and in China.

Electric guitars: Semi-hollow and solid bodies

In 1967–1968, Ovation introduced and produced its Electronic Storm guitars with semi-hollow bodies; production stopped in 1969.

In 1972, Ovation introduced one of the first production solid-body electric-guitars with active electronics, the Ovation Breadwinner. The model failed to gain widespread popularity, however, and production of the Breadwinner and the Ovation Deacon ceased in 1980. Ovation made several other solid-body models up until the mid 1980s. Since that time the company's main focus has been acoustic and acoustic-electric guitars.

Performers using or endorsing Ovations

Ovation has produced the Custom Legend 1769 ADII for Al Di Meola (pictured).

Ovation developed another signature guitar, an Adamas-model twelve-string guitar for Melissa Ethridge (pictured).

Ovation guitars have been used and endorsed by many professional musicians, including the following:

• Glen Campbell; DJ Ashba, Melissa Etheridge, Nikki Sixx, Mick Thomson; Kaki King, Steve Lukather; Marcel Dadi, Ray Davies, James Hetfield, Josh Homme, Cyndi Lauper, John Lennon, Country Joe McDonald, Yngwie Malmsteen, Bob Marley, Ziggy Marley, Stephen Marley, Roman Miroshnichenko, Maury Muehleisen, Dave Mustaine, Vince Neil, Jimmy Page, Richard Daniel Roman, Shania Twain, Boz Scaggs, Luis Alberto Spinetta, Statler Brothers, Cat Stevens, and Aaron Tippin;
• Joan Armatrading, Roy Clark, Jim Croce, Kevin Cronin, Neil Diamond, Al Di Meola, Robert Fripp, Mick Jagger, Greg Lake, Adrian Legg, Paul McCartney, Brian May, Freddie Mercury, Jim Messina, Steve Morse, Eddie Rabbitt, Kenny Rogers, Richie Sambora , Tom Scholz, Seal, Bob Seger, Paul Simon, Rick Springfield, Eddie Van Halen, Josh White, and Nancy Wilson;
• Roger Waters and David Gilmour.

See also

• Harley Benton
• Stagg Music

References

• Carter, Walter (1996). Eiche, Jon. ed. The history of the Ovation guitar. Musical Instruments Series (first ed.). Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Hal Leonard Corporation. pp. 1–128. ISBN 978-0793558766, ISBN 0-7935-5876-X (softcover), ISBN 0-7935-5948-0 (hardcover). HL00330187. 
• Cruice, Valerie (December 8 1996). "From the ratcheting of helicopters to a guitar's hum". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60D15FA3A580C7B8CDDAB0994DE494D81. 
• Tamm, Eric (1990) [1990]. "Ten Guitar Craft". Robert Fripp: From Crimson King to crafty master (Progressive Ears ed.). Faber & Faber (1990). http://www.progressiveears.com/frippbook/ch10.htm. 

External links

• Ovation Guitars
• OvationUK

• Ovation Fan Club
• Ovation Guitars Resources