Electric guitar design name. In 1954, Fender introduced the Fender Stratocaster, or "Strat". It was positioned as a deluxe model and offered various product improvements and innovations over the Telecaster. These innovations included an ash or alder double-cutaway body design for badge assembly with an integrated vibrato mechanism (called a "synchronized tremolo" by Fender, thus beginning a confusion of the terms that still continues), three single-coil pickups, and body comfort contours. Leo Fender is also credited with developing the first commercially successful electric bass called the Fender Precision Bass, introduced in 1951. Gibson, like many guitar manufacturers, had long offered semi-acoustic guitars with
Electric guitar is summarized by Guitar World magazine, and the earliest electric guitar on their top 10 list is the Ro-Pat-In Electro A-25 "Frying Pan" (1932) described as 'The first-fully functioning solid-body electric guitar to be manufactured and sold'. The most recent electric guitar on this list is the Ibanez Jem (1987) which featured '24 frets', 'an impossibly thin neck' and was 'designed to be the ultimate shredder machine'. Numerous other important electric guitars are on the list including Gibson ES-150 (1936), Fender Telecaster (1951), Gibson Les Paul (1952), Gretsch 6128 Duo Jet (1953), Fender Stratocaster (1954), Rickenbacker 360/12 (1964), Van Halen