The Story of G&L

[Sprinter 92]

I acquired an interesting pamphlet yesterday. It contains some interesting G&L and even a little bit of Fender history. It was printed before Leo passed away so it must be from late 1990 or early 1991. I think it was written by Dale Hyatt.

[Elwood]

Do Scan please .
Has this been published elsewhere?
It's cool when things like that 'just show up'


elwood

[HLG]

I acquired an interesting pamphlet yesterday. It contains some interesting G&L and even a little bit of Fender history. It was printed before Leo passed away so it must be from late 1990 or early 1991. I think it was written by Dale Hyatt.

This was written by Dale Hyatt with help from his brother Harold which was a G&l employee at the time. I wasn't aware that Dale had made any copies available to the public though.

[jeffmarshall67]

I have a copy somewhere, I need to dig it up. I remember getting it on the G&LDP back when Brad was running it. Same thing with the Blue covered G&L softcover "book". Anyone remember the G&LDP bumper sticker also?

[Craig]

I have a copy somewhere, I need to dig it up. I remember getting it on the G&LDP back when Brad was running it. Same thing with the Blue covered G&L softcover "book". Anyone remember the G&LDP bumper sticker also?

I'm surprised that Brad did not put a copy of it in the Gallery. This is the first time I've seen it and sure would like to get a copy to add to the Gallery.
I, too, remember Paul Bechtoldt's "booklet". Did you pay in advance for the updated version, which never say the light of day.
Still hoping for Gabe and Greg's book to come out in my lifetime.

I kinda remember the GbL bumperstickers (see my Avatar ) And see this post: http://guitarsbyleo.com/FORUM/viewtopic ... 987#p57987 .

[catawompus]

Can you do a scan, please?

[jeffmarshall67]

Craig, I did pay for the second edition...and remember the dust up when we realized we were probably not gonna see it. I'm sure my address has changed at least twice since I paid for it!

I have moved about 3 times since I got that stuff, I did find the Bechtold book a while ago with a bunch of old catalogs but I'll have to search for the other stuff. I do have the Bumper sticker and a cool G&L button in my memorabilia.

[Sprinter 92]

I don't have a scanner. I'm going to mail the pamphlet to Craig and he's going to scan it and then send it back to me.

[fianoman]

How many pages? I can scan it as one PDF file if it helps. Good resolution too. Let me know if you need it.

[Sprinter 92]

How many pages? I can scan it as one PDF file if it helps. Good resolution too. Let me know if you need it.

It's 4 or 5 pages. Thank you, for your offer but I've already got it in an envelope and ready to send to Craig tomorrow.

[Elwood]

I don't have a scanner. I'm going to mail the pamphlet to Craig and he's going to scan it and then send it back to me.

That'll be sweet !!
thanks in advance Steve , and Craig ( and fianoman just the same).

[fianoman]

How many pages? I can scan it as one PDF file if it helps. Good resolution too. Let me know if you need it.

It's 4 or 5 pages. Thank you, for your offer but I've already got it in an envelope and ready to send to Craig tomorrow.

Honest, you can trust me! I don't sell a lot on ebay.

Craig, if you are scanning them as separate pages and would like, I'd be happy to combine them into one file for you. Nuff said.

Can't wait to read it!

[TBillPSU]

Can't wait to read it!

+1

[Craig]

How many pages? I can scan it as one PDF file if it helps. Good resolution too. Let me know if you need it.

It's 4 or 5 pages. Thank you, for your offer but I've already got it in an envelope and ready to send to Craig tomorrow.

I got it today and scanned it into a PDF file. It's located in Album: Ad Slicks and Memorabilia->Album: 1990 - 1991 Memorabilia of the Gallery: Album: The Story of G&L.

Thanks again to Steve for sharing this document!

Steve, the document is in the mail on it's way back to you.

Enjoy.

[catawompus]

Thanks a lot for sharing!

[Miles Smiles]

The Story of G&L

The First Ten Years of Guitars by Leo Fender.

In 1980 Leo Fender, the father of the modern electric guitar and bass, formed G&L
Musical Products. Dale Hyatt, who has worked with Leo since 1946, became his partner
in G&L Music Sales. Their purpose was to create an innovative line of solid body guitars
and basses - the best instruments and designs possible. Leo worked in his lab at the
factory testing, designing, and creating. Dale's title was vice president of sales; he handled
all the marketing and along with Leo, much of the product development. Another
long-time associate, George Fullerton added his skills as a craftsman and former
executive for the original Fender company.

Today G&L has helped shape modern music for over ten years. Thousands of
guitarists around the world proudly own and play G&L's - Guitars by Leo...The Real
Ones. Leo and Dale believe that their new guitars are the best they have ever made. But
who was more likely to top Leo Fender than Leo Fender? This man has created a legacy
few could hope to match. His inventions have included the Telecaster, Stratocaster, and
Precision electric bass guitar. In addition, Leo Fender pioneered the development of
electric guitar amplifiers such as the highly respected Fender Bassman and Twin Reverb.
Leo Fender, who turned eighty last August, takes pride in his early work. Nevertheless,
he has made a career out of pushing the past aside and moving into the future. Leo has
always followed two unspoken rules. First, if it's broken, fix it. Second, if it's not broken,
make it better. The Fender Telecaster made the early solid bodies from Rickenbacker and
Bigsby obsolete. Leo's Stratocaster took the Tele's place with many players. Now Leo,
Dale, and their team.of industry veterans have created the next generation of solid bodies.
How did it happen?
Rather than imitate his old guitars, Leo made a clean break from the past in the 1970s
with his Music Man guitars and basses. While still associated with that company, he made
plans for a wider array of guitars and basses with even more advanced features. The
instrument line Leo envisioned suited every music style and every player's needs, going
far beyond what the original Fender company had done and well past what Music Man
wanted to market.

G&L - New, Different, and Better Guitars by Leo

The essence of Leo's new G&L guitars was an entirely new pickup design that signaled
a big step into the future. Up to 1980 Leo had always used nonadjustable Alnico pole
pieces. Obviously he had always used them with great success. Some players considered
Leo's pickups from the 1950s among the finest ever made. To purists, any deviation away
from those designs was walking away from a sure winner. But to Leo, who's never been
glued to the past, the new design offered many advantages.
The new pickups used in G&L guitars followed the patented Magnetic Field Design;
they used ceramic bar magnets and fully adjustable soft iron pole pieces. In Leo's new
design the ceramic magnet's bottom surface sat under the coil, away from the strings. For
that reason the bottom surface of the magnet had virtually no influence on the magnetic
field near the string. The soft iron pole pieces resting on the top surface of the bar magnet
(the opposite magnetic pole) gathered and transferred magnetic pull up towards the
strings. The entire length of the new pole piece had one polarity without the dead spots
found in an Alnico pole.
As proven in independent tests, Leo's new coils had more ourput per number of wire
turns than his old Alnico pickups. G&L pickups used about half as much wire per coil
and therefore had less capacitance and more highs. One benefit was that Leo could
effectively tune the pickups - change the tone content - by adding different value
capacitors to the tone control circuit. Without a doubt, the new pickup had a new sound
that could be adjusted to meet all applications from country to heavy metal.
Since 1980 Leo has made many different variations of single coil and dual-coil
humbucking pickups with ceramic magnets. He has tested guitars for thousands of hours,
experimenting with every imaginable combination and configuration of pole pieces,
windings, and dimensions. Leo uses his ear rather than a spectrum analyzer or other
high-tech apparatus. Although he maintains no compreheniive, written record of his
work, he rarely discovers something by mere accident. From his years of experience, he
knows exactly where he wants to go. Finally, Leo Fender feels that he has created the
sound he has tried to achieve since starting to wind pickups before World War II.
Besides Leo's obsession with pickup designs, when Leo, Dale, and George started
G&L, they were seeking more sustain in a guitar. Leo designed the G&L non-vibrato
guitar and bass bridges using several features intended to give instruments maximum
sustain. The basic bridge assemblies were die-cast out of heavy metal, and each underside
had a boss or protrusion that set against the end grain of the wood body like an anchor.
Thus the string tension pulled through the bridge and transferred to the body.
The strings on the guitars and basses loaded through the bridge and had individual
height adjustments and individual length adjustments. Here's wheie the design got very
clever. After the player had set the action and intonation, there was another adjustment
screw that compressed the individual nickel-plated saddles against each other. In effect
the six saddles compressed together acted as one, eliminating sustain-cutting lateral
vibration.
The guys at G&L and the musicians testing the guitars wanted ro get more sustain from
the vibrato guitars, too. Except in the 1970s when he didn't make a vibrato, Leo has
always been in the forefront of vibrato designs. Many players recognize the Stratocaster's
1954 vibrato as one of the most significant breakthroughs in guitar history. Leo
developed the G&L vibrato in 1980, starting where the Stiat's design had ended. The
new unit had two pivot points instead of six. Moreover, the bridge pieces were heavier to
increase sustain.
Yet as the 1980s progressed, Leo and Dale noticed that locking nuts and vibratos with
fine tuners had became popular and useful. First, Leo invented and patented the
Locktight String Retainer, an improved device for locking the strings at rhe nur. Then he
went to work perfecting his own fine tuning vibrato, while in the meantime some mid-
1980s G&L's used Kahlers. In 1989 Leo started manufacturing a new patent pending
unit called the Leo Fender w/Fine Tuners. Among other advances, this smart, compact
design does away with energy-absorbing roller bridges.
Leo's detachable necks widely introduced in 1950 changed guitar manufacturing.
What about G&L's new neck designs? The early G&L guitars had one piece maple necks
with the truss rod installed through the back. Like the early Fender and Music Man necks,
these necks had a dark "skunk stripe" down the back. Now G&L makes a neck by
cutting a piece of maple into two, installing the truss rod, and then gluing the pieces back
together. So the newer G&L necks have no skunk stripes. Leo's new neck construction
helps prevent warping and twisting tendencies in the maple. Another real advantage in the
new necks is a much higher yield in manufacturing. In other words, now G&L wastes less
wood, cutting costs to the consumer.
In the last decade, G&L has improved another important feature at the heart of the
neck's design. Leo calls it the Precision-Tilt (P-T) neck adjustment. He created a neck tilt
adjustment in the late 1960s, but poor manufacturing standards at the CBS-Fender
factory defeated the design. Early 1970s three-bolt Strat necks moved around in the neck
slots, causing trouble for many players. Leo tightened up the design at G&L, in part, by
custom fitting each neck and body. The P-T neck adjustment allows low string action, all
easily accomplished without removing the neck or installing shims.

G&L in the late 198Os

Leo, Dale, and the talented people working around them have always considered the
needs of musicians first. Things didn't change in the 1980s. G&L maintained an ongoing,
informal evaluation program with musicians, just like Fender did in the 1940s and'50s
with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, guitar virtuoso Jimmy Bryant, and steel wizard
Noel Boggs. For all their new guitars and basses, Leo, Dale, and George carefully
considered many opinions and comparisons, including side by side tests with original
pre-CBS guitars. Several times Leo has pitted black pickguard Teles and old maple neck
Strats against prototype G&L's. Compared with an old Tele, the inventor once said that
his new ASAT guitar was "a beautiful shower of brilliance." Compared with the Strats,
his new vibrato guitars can "burn rubber around the moon." Leo's observations are
always short and to the point.
Leo's painstaking work takes houts, days, and weeks. Sometimes developing a new
product like his new vibrato has taken months. For the five string L-5000 bass, it took
years. The process points to Leo and Dale's quest for perfection and a desire to create
something for everyone. G&L has produced an astonishing number of guitar models and
variations, from the early F-100 to the new Comanche. There have been almost as many
basses. In 1989 G&L offered at least nine different production model guitars and seven
production model basses, each available with several options.
Leo has put almost every aspect of G&L guitars through relentless tests, even parts
that other guitar makers now take for granted like tuners and strings. The patent office
has granted him at least twenty-four patents in the last fifteen years. And the patented
ideas are just the most visible part of Leo's work. Of course, not all these ideas have been
as successful as others. During his Music Man days, Leo had started to use active
electronic preamps in both guitars and basses. G&L gradually stopped using active
circuits in guitars because most players didn't need the treble boost. However, the active
preamps worked well in basses and are still in production.
The saga of G&L's active elecmonics pointed to what Dale first noticed while running
the sales office: many players still wanted a more traditional style guitar. Says Dale: "I
convinced Leo that we shouldn't spend so much time reinventing the wheel. It's round,
and people like it that way." So in mid 1985 Leo and Dale started getting back to some
well established basics, like the Telecaster-shaped body. They started with Dale's idea, the
G&L Broadcaster complete with Leo's signature in the neck pocket. Dale's thinking led
to many other improvements at G&L, including the Skyhawk's new look.
The Broadcaster had a limited production due to disputes over the name, but the
ASAT model soon followed. The name, suggested to Dale by Guitar Player Magazine
columnist Richard Smith, comes from the Air Force's anti-satellite missile. Some like to
think the acronym stands for "After the Strat, After the Tele." G&L made the ASA[,
like the Broadcaster, available in several combinations, with or without vibrato. The
ASAT has inspired quite a few former Tele players to switch to G&L.
The ASAT Classic, shown for the first time at the 1990 Winter NAMM show in
Anaheim, California, goes back even further in capturing the spirit of Leo's first guiars.
Perhaps Leo has even jumped onto the nostalgia bandstand in a small way. Yet he leaves
no doubt that the guitars he makes today are the guitars he would have made had he never
sold the original Fender company. Leo designed the ASAT Classic pickups, complete
with adjustable poles and ceramic magnets, to be interchangeable with any Tele-style
guitar. Except for the six bridges, the bridge plate and control panel resemble the original
Tele design. Everyone at G&L thinks that this guitar represents the full circle of
evolution, a combination of the best old and new ideas.
Leo stepped back to his roots for the ASAT and ASAT Classic. But that didn't stop
him from jumping head first into the 1990s with another new model called the
Comanche. This guitar incorporates the latest awesome version of the G&L pickup, the
new "2" single coil humbucker. Each unit has two coils with three poles per coil. With
three pickup selector switches and three switches that split the treble and bass coils of
each unit, the Comanche has over forty different pickup/coil combinations. The
Comanche also has Leo's new vibrato with fine tuners.
As the ASAT Classic and Comanche show, Leo Fender and Dale Hyatt still have a
mission. Despite all their accomplishments, they're still trying to create the best electric
instruments possible. Even if their old guitars aren't broken, they're still trying to make
them better. The motivation is selfless. Leo could easily afford a leisurely retirement in
Palm Springs or Maui. But he's not ready to retire.
Dale Hyatt still works six days a week, sometimes twelve hours a day. He's taken just
nine days of vacation in the last ten years and expects to be just as busy in the 1990s.
Working hand in hand with Leo and the factory, Dale's goal is to continue making the
guitars players want. Dale manages the sales force, handles all the advertising, and
represents G&L at trade shows near and far. Furthermore, he's busy helping improve
manufacturing and quality control on all levels. If the past tells us anything about the
future, we can expect to see great guitars from G&L for many years to come.

[Miles Smiles]

Amazing how easy it's to convert image to text just with copy and paste in the Chromium PDF-viewer. A little amount of correction had to be done, probably there's something left to do.

[Elemeno P]

Thanks everyone for sharing.

Great read.

[Theguitarstore]

Great find. Thanks for posting the contents.

[fianoman]

Thanks for sharing this Sprinter!

Forgive my ignorance on this one. The writer really minimizes Fullerton's involvement. Was there animosity between G & L & H? I don't mean to open a can of worms here. Just curious.

[yowhatsshakin]

AFAIK George sold his stake in G&L in '85 but stayed on as a consultant after that. With Dale retiring November 4, 1991, when BBE took over G&L, George seemed to play a bigger role again, as evidenced by the George Fullerton Signature model released in 1995. This lasted until 2007 when he became a consultant for Fender again.

Hope this helps,

- Jos

[Salmon]

It is interesting that George seemed to maintain a workable relationship with both Fender, the company, and Leo Fender while whatever it was that altered his original plans when forming G&L transpired.

At least doors do not appear to have been closed.



Miles,

Thanks for converting and pasting the article here. The link to the PDF stalled and never loaded when I attempted to access it that way. I eventually opened it with a different browser.

BTW, I think the process of making the PDF identifies text and separates it from treating it as images. Either it was an option selected or it was the default setting in the scanner software. Then any reader can highlight, copy and paste the text to a text file document format. The only object that does not highlight as text in this document is the G&L logo. Even the diagonal stamp is interpreted as text. Great technology!

[yowhatsshakin]

It is interesting that George seemed to maintain a workable relationship with both Fender, the company, and Leo Fender while whatever it was that altered his original plans when forming G&L transpired.

At least doors do not appear to have been closed.

Salmon,

One important mitigating factor: his son Geoff was (and still is I believe) working for the Fender Custom Shop.

- Jos

[Salmon]

I can understand how it might have been a factor.

That also could have played out any number of different ways having nothing to do with the situation between George and the Fender company.

George did leave to form a competing business. That is akin to treason in business. Even if the son were a man who could end wars between nations George's personality and worth to Fender would be evaluated because of the precedent.

Just sort of thinking out loud.

[jmontgomery]

Great read. I love this stuff. Thank you for posting the story.

[Elwood]

+1

More thanks to you all, a worthy addition to the gallery/archives .