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Electra MPC Guitars-Cool, Well-Made and Getting Scarce-A Collectable Guitar That I REALLY LIKE! Electra guitars were imported from Japan by the Saint Louis Music Source Firm (SLM) of Saint Louis, Missouri from 1971 to 1984 (most MPC models were made by Matsumoku of Matsumoku , Japan) . Matsumoku has made many well-known guitar brands through the years including; Aria, Westbury, Westone, Epiphone, Vantage & Vox to mention but a few. For click through the up coming page , Electra imported mostly clones of popular American designed guitars such as the Les Paul and the Stratocaster. In 1974 Tom Presley was employed by SLM to head the MPC product advancement. MPC may be the abbreviation for "Modular Driven Circuits". In 1976 the 1st MPC guitars debut. Originally in the '76-77 era, the first of the Electra MPC guitars had been virtually Gibson Les Paul clones with the headstock that was extremely close to what arrived on the Les Paul.

This resulted in a Lawsuit filed by Gibson claiming copyright infringement. Following the lawsuit was settled, Electra Changed the headstock style from the Gibson style to what is called the "Wave" Headstock. I have an early on version ("lawsuit edition") pictured here. In the 70's many well-known musicians were endorsers of the Electra MPC series including Leslie West of Mountain ("Mississippi Queen"), Peter Frampton, and Jeff Lynne of ELO. There were many advertisements in guitar periodicals with images of popular guitarists playing Electras. Elvin Bishop ( "Fooled around and Fell in Love") in fact had an extremely cool and collectible edition known as the "Tree of Existence", which was nearly the same as a hollow body Gibson Sera 335. The coolest feature of this guitar is usually that it had the Tree of Live inlayed into the fretboard! This is a very collectible and attractive Electra to own, and the finest good examples have skyrocketed in price recently. The picture shows an Electra MPC semi-acoustic similar to the Elvin Bishop model (Elvin's wasn't an MPC, but experienced the Tree-of-Life inlay). The various other 2 correct of the MPC version are non-module semi-acoustics by Electra.

These are extremely collectible guitars, and one in mint to near-mint condition will fetch well over $1400 now. There is a Re-Issue Electra Guitar! Check out this link-it is method amazing! Demo of the brand new Electra Guitars! This is what the aftermath of the lawsuit settlement looked like-the infamous "wave" headstock. OK here's where guitar wiring diagram were different from the fray. You must understand in the past due 70's the classic American guitars were at risk of disappearing, with Gibson and Fender searching elsewhere to build guitars aside from the US. JAPAN were a threatening drive to be reckoned with, and that included your guitar picture. Yamaha, Ibanez, Aria and many more had been building competitive guitars at a cheaper cost than what the iconic American producers could build. Add to the mix a lack of innovation and not so good quality control and we had been in danger of losing our guitar companies.

The big issue, besides the fact that the Electra's were perfectly made, was the unique effects modules incorporated into the design. In effect a guitarist could possess all of his needed effects included into the body of the guitar, making the roadie's work a much simpler one. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately depending on the method you see it, the 80's brought us MTV, pointy guitars and big locks bands. So not merely was there economic suffering among the American guitar builders, Electra, even though they tried to adopt to the trends, could not contend with theglam-brands of the moment such as Kramer (many thanks Eddie Van Halen), Dean, and Charvel/Jackson. All the MTV big locks glam rock bands seemed to make use of these guitars and it was the final nail in the coffin for the Electra make of guitar. Through the years there is a token work at a resurrection, like the Westone and Cage names, but all of the attempts wereby all accounts unsuccessful. As a side be aware, the Alvarez and Cage amplifier brands were SLM titles.