Bouzouki in the soundhole. There are also numerous photographs between 1953 and 1959 showing bands in which both vocalists and bouzouki players are using microphones for amplification. By 1960 special bouzouki pickups (such as the German "Ideal") were being produced and permanently mounted in the instruments. Similar pickups are widely used by several Greek artists today and come in active and passive versions. The Greek baglamas () or baglamadaki () is very different from the Turkish bağlama. The treble baglamas is pitched an octave higher (nominally D–A–D), with unison pairs on the four highest strings and an octave pair on the
Bouzouki better suited to the kind of virtuoso playing he was famous for. Today, the tetrachordo is the most common bouzouki used in Greek music, though a few traditionalists still prefer the trichordo, particularly for the older "rebetika" style of playing. In addition to developing the modern tetrachordo bouzouki, Manolis Hiotis was a pioneer the use of amplification for the instrument, which he may have been using as early as 1945. However, the earliest documented use of amplification for the bouzouki comes from a 1952 photograph, showing Vasilis Tsitsanis and Yiannis Papaioannou playing bouzoukis, each with an electric guitar-style pick-up attached