C.F. Martin & Company is a US guitar manufacturer established in 1833 by Christian Frederick Martin. Martin is highly regarded for its steel-string guitars and is a leading mass-manufacturer of flattop acoustics. Martin instruments can cost thousands of dollars and vintage instruments often cost six figures. The company has also made several models of electric guitars and electric basses.
The company's headquarters and primary factory are in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, located in the Lehigh Valley region of the state. Martin also manufactures instruments in Mexico. Martin produced 182 instruments during 1900, increasing to 24,085 in 2000.
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The company has been run by the Martin family throughout its history. The current chairman and CEO, C.F. 'Chris' Martin IV, is the great-great-great-grandson of the founder. The firm was the first to introduce many of the characteristic features of the modern flattop, steel-strung acoustic guitar. Influential innovations include the Dreadnought body style and scalloped bracing. Some time in the 1970s, Martin bought LEVIN guitars, and around 200 D-18's were apparently built in Sweden; they are stamped LD-18.
C.F. Martin was born in 1796 in Markneukirchen, Germany and came from a long line of cabinet makers and woodworkers. His father, Johann Georg Martin, also built guitars. By the age of 15, C.F. Martin was apprenticed to Johan Stauffer, a well-known guitar maker in Vienna, Austria. Martin returned to his hometown after completing training and opened his own guitar-making shop. However, he soon became embroiled in a controversy between two guilds.
At that time European craftsmen operated under the guild system. The guitar (in its modern form) was a relatively new instrument, and most guitar makers were members of the Cabinet Makers' Guild. The Violin Makers' Guild claimed exclusive rights to manufacture musical instruments. The Violin Makers' Guild filed appeals on three occasions - the first in 1806 - to prevent cabinet makers from producing guitars. Johann Martin is mentioned in a surviving submission dated 1832.
Although the cabinet makers successfully defended their right to build guitars, C.F. Martin decided that the guild system was too restrictive. He moved to New York City In 1833 and by 1838 he moved his business to Nazareth, PA.
The Martin company is generally credited with developing the X-bracing system during the 1850s, although C. F. Martin did not apply for a patent on the new bracing system. During the 1850s, X-bracing was used by several makers, all German immigrants who knew each other, and according to historian Philip Gura there is no evidence that C. F. Martin invented the system.[1] The Martin company was the first to use X-bracing on a large scale, however.
From the 1860s on, fan bracing became standard in Europe. Martin and other American builders including Washburn and others since forgotten (Schmidt & Maul, Stumcke, Tilton) used X-bracing instead.[2] The sound of X-bracing may be considered less delicate with gut strings, but it prepared the American guitar for steel strings, which emerged in the first quarter of the 20th century.
Growing popularity of the guitar in the early 1900s, fueled by the growing popularity of folk music and country and western music, led to a demand for louder and more percussive guitars. In response, many companies began to use metal strings instead of catgut. These became known as steel-string guitars. By 1921, Martin had focused production towards this type of guitar.
The company's reputation and output continued to grow. Forays into mandolin making in the late 1890s and ukulele making in the 1920s greatly contributed to their expansion, and by 1928 they were making over 5000 instruments per year. The company remained family-owned and employed a relatively small number of highly trained craftsmen making instruments primarily by hand. By the early 1960s Martin guitars were back-ordered by as much as three years due to limited production capacity. In 1964, Martin opened a new plant that is still the primary Martin production facility.
The Great Depression in 1929 affected Martin's sales drastically. The company came up with two innovations to help regain business.
One of these was the 14-fret neck, which allowed easier access to higher notes. Martin intended it to appeal to plectrum banjo players interested in switching to guitar for increased work opportunities. Martin altered the shape of its 0-size guitar body to allow a 14-frets-clear tenor neck. This was in response to specific requests from tenor players including Al Esposito, the manager of the Carl Fischer store in New York City. The "Carl Fischer Model" tenors were soon renamed 0-18T. This was the first time Martin altered one of their original body shapes to accommodate a longer neck with more frets clear of the body.
It was also during this time that Perry Bechtel, a well-known banjo player and guitar teacher from Cable Piano in Atlanta, requested that Martin build a guitar with a 15-fret neck-to-body join. Most guitars of the day, with the exception of Gibson's L-5 archtop jazz guitars, had necks joined at the 12th fret, half the scale length of the string. In keeping with Bechtel's request, Martin modified the shape of their 12-fret 000-size instrument, lowering the waist and giving the upper bout more acute curves to cause the neck joint to fall at the 14th fret rather than the 12th. Fourteen-fret guitars were designed to be played with a pick and replace banjos in jazz orchestras. Thus, Martin named its first 14-fret, 000-shape guitar the Orchestra Model (OM). Martin applied this term to all 14-fret instruments in its catalogs by the mid- to late-1930s.
Original Martin OMs from approximately 1929 to 1931 are extremely rare and sell for high prices. Many guitarists believe that the OM—a combination of Martin's modified 14-fret 000 body shape, long scale (25.4") neck, solid headstock, 1-3/4" nut width, 4-1/8" maximum depth at the endwedge, and 2-3/8" string spread at the bridge—offers the most versatile combination of features available in a steel-string acoustic guitar. Today, many guitar makers (including many small shops and hand-builders) create instruments modeled on the OM pattern.[3]
The change in body shape and longer neck became so popular that Martin made the 14-fret neck standard on all of its guitars and the rest of the guitar industry soon followed. Classical guitars, which were evolving on their own track largely among European builders, retained the 12-fret neck design.
Martin's second major innovation, and arguably the more important, of the period 1915-1930 was the dreadnought guitar.[4] Originally devised in 1916 as a collaboration between Martin and a prominent retailer, the Oliver Ditson Co., the dreadnought body style was larger and deeper than most guitars. In 1906, the Royal Navy launched a battleship that was considerably larger than any before it. From the idea that a ship that big had nothing to fear (nought to dread), it was christened HMS Dreadnought. Martin borrowed this name for their new, large guitar. The greater volume and louder bass produced by this expansion in size was intended to make the guitar more useful as an accompaniment instrument for singers working with the limited sound equipment of the day. Initial models produced for Ditson were fan-braced, and the instruments were poorly received.
In 1931, Martin reintroduced the dreadnought with a modified body shape to accommodate a 14-fret neck and it quickly became their best-selling guitar. The rest of the industry soon followed, and today the "dreadnought" size and shape is considered one of the "standard" acoustic guitar shapes, iconic for its use in a wide variety of musical genres.
Martin also developed a line of archtop instruments during the 1930s. Their design differed from Gibson and other archtops in a variety of respects–the fingerboard was glued to the top, rather than a floating extension of the neck, and the backs and sides were flat rosewood plates pressed into an arch rather than the more common carved figured maple. Martin archtops were not commercially successful and were withdrawn after several years. In spite of this, during the 1960s, David Bromberg had a Martin archtop converted to a flat-top guitar with exceptionally successful results, and as a result, Martin has recently begun issuing a David Bromberg model based on this conversion.
During this time, Martin also continued to make ukuleles, tiples, and other stringed instruments.
During the late 1960s, Martin manufactured hollow-body electric guitars similar to those manufactured by Gretsch. Martin's electric guitars were not popular and the company has since continued to concentrate on the manufacture of a wide range of high quality acoustics. They also reinstated the famous D-45 in 1968.
During the 1960s, many musicians preferred Martin guitars built before World War II to more recent guitars of the same model. The pre-War guitars were believed to have internal bracing carved more skillfully than later instruments, producing better resonance. Additionally, 1970s Martin dreadnoughts suffered from poor intonation in the higher registers. Some luthiers and repairmen attribute this to a gradual trend of misplacing the bridge on these guitars: the same jigs for bridge placement were used throughout the history of each model's production. As the amount of production increased from the Martin factory, the jigs eroded, resulting in inaccurate bridge placement. This was eventually identified and corrected.
Martin opened its "Custom Shop" division in 1979.[5] Martin built its 500,000th guitar in 1990, and in 2004 they built their millionth guitar. This guitar is entirely hand-crafted and features more than 40 inlaid rubies and diamonds. It is worth an estimated $1,000,000.[6] As of 2007, Martin employs 600 people. Thirteen workers are devoted to quality assurance. In October, 2009, Martin purchased at auction a D-28 that was played by Elvis Presley in his last concert for $106,200.[7]
A steel-string guitar tuned to concert pitch endures a tension of about 180 pounds (800 N) on the top of the guitar from the strings. The X-bracing system has been shown to be an efficient technique for preventing the top of the guitar from warping under this force. The braces are generally carved, scalloped and tuned to improve resonance and integrity of the guitar top, such capability being performed by skilled artisans and not readily reproducible by machine. This work is an important factor in determining the timbre of the guitar and a major determinant in the observation that rarely do two guitars ever sound alike, even though they are ostensibly identical in construction.
For many years, Martin has used a model-labeling system featuring a initial letter, number, or series of zeros specifying the body size and type (5 being the smallest and J being the largest) followed by a number that designates the guitar's ornamentation and style, including the species of wood from which the guitar is constructed. Generally, the higher the number, the higher the level of ornamentation. Additional letters or numbers added to this basic system are used to designate special features (such as a built-in pickup or a cutaway).
Martin also periodically offers special models. Many of these have a limited production run, or begin as a limited-production guitar that sells well enough to become regularly produced. Many of these special models are designed with, endorsed by, and named after well-known guitarists such as Eric Clapton, Clarence White, Merle Haggard, Stephen Stills, Paul Simon, Arlo Guthrie and Johnny Cash. In 1997, Martin launched its "Women in Music" series, which was followed in 1998 by the Joan Baez Signature guitar, a replica of the 0-45 Baez began her career with.
Roger McGuinn worked with C. F. Martin & Company to develop a seven-string folk guitar. McGuinn's guitar (the D7) is tuned the same as a standard folk guitar with steel strings, but the third (G) string is augmented with a harmonic string one octave higher. The intention was to offer the six-string player the chance to play "jangly" twelve-string style lead guitar.
As of 2005, Martin offers over 180 different guitars. Some of the more notable models are:
The EB-18 was the first electric bass the Martin company produced in 1979. The single-pickup EB-18 was a partner to Martin's E-series electric guitars. Its scroll-shaped headstock was reminiscent of the Stauffer-style pegheads of early Martins. The EB-28 was added to the line a year later. It had a mahogany body and PJ pickups. Both models were discontinued in 1983.
The general features of the EB-18 are:
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The pickup is a DiMarzio DP120 (model 1) dual pole type with a multicore screened lead. This contains red, white, black and green wires as well as an uninsulated ground wire.
The EB-18 is provided with a single volume control, one tone control, and a switch for altering the pickup wiring. The switch alters the tone from a bright to a more bassy sound by cutting one pickup coil out of the circuit.
The tone control consists of a 0.1- microfarad capacitor in series with the variable resistor that is adjusted by the control knob. This network is placed directly from the red pickup lead to ground. The volume control is a simple potentiometer wired between the red pickup lead and ground with the wiper being fed to the output jack.
The control compartment is covered on the rear surface of the body by a polished brass plate. The interior of the compartment is coated with a light colored conductive paint to act as a screen against unwanted pickup such as mains hum.
The EB-18 was supplied with a quality hard flight case. The EB-18 body fits into the shaped recess and the case takes account of the oddly shaped 'lizard-looking head and large tuning lugs. There is a pair of compartments inside for cables and other items. The inside is lined with a soft, burnt orange color, fur-like material. The case is closed with four toggle latches and has a centrally placed carrying handle.
The EB-18 was not all that popular among bass players, and total production has been estimated at 874. The more expensive follow-up model, the EB-28, was even less popular with a total production of 217 units.[14] See also: E-18 series guitars[15][16] Martin did not resume building basses until 1989 (during the MTV Unplugged era), in which their approach was more consistent with company history:
Martin's B series basses were big flat-tops with 34"-scale mahogany necks. Designed by Dick Boak, these ABGs used the same bodies as Martin's Jumbo guitars; measuring 16" wide with a depth of 4 7/8", they were large enough to produce decent acoustic volume without being ungainly like other maker's attempts. The top was solid spruce, the fingerboard was ebony, and the body was either solid East Indian Rosewood (B40) or solid flamed maple (B-65). A Fishman bridge-pickup system was available adding an "E" in the model number. Both basses were also available with fretless fingerboards.
In 1992, two more models were added, the single-cutaway BC-40 and the 5-string B-540. Although widely admired for their high quality and lovely appointments, they proved to have limited appeal due to their $2000-plus list prices. By 1997, all four of these initial basses were dropped in favor of the B-1, a lower-priced ABG with laminated mahogany sides as part of Martin's 1 series of guitars. The BM, an even less expensive model in Martin's now discontinued Road series soon followed; it had laminated mahogany sides with a solid mahogany back. Also around this time electronics became standard on Martin basses. The most recent additions are the BC-15, a single-cutaway version with a mahogany top, the BC-16GTE, also a single-cutaway with solid Genuine mahogany back and sides with a gloss top, and the 00C-16GTAE, which is a slimmer thin-line version of the previously mentioned model. As a special edition, Martin offered the Alternative X Bass with jet black High Pressure Laminate back and sides and a Graffiti-patterned Aluminum finish top. This bass was very similar in build to the other guitars in Martin's X series. There have been two Limited Edition Martin acoustic bass models. The first, the SWB Sting Signature Model, was released in 1999 and was made with woods certified by the Rainforest Alliance's SmartWood program. The SWB's top is made with book matched solid Sitka spruce reclaimed from pulp logs, the back, sides and neck are solid certified cherry, and the fingerboard is certified katalox. Sting's signature is inlaid between the 18th and 19th frets, and a label inside the body states that a portion of the sale price is donated to the Rainforest Foundation International. The second and more recent Limited Edition is the B-28KV Klaus Voormann Signature model released in 2008 for the German market. It has a Sitka spruce top with Solid East Indian Rosewood back and sides and a black Ebony fingerboard. The headstock features a unique art design by Klaus as a circular inlay making each bass a one-of-a-kind. In addition to these U.S.-made instruments, Martin also markets Sigma ABGs made in Korea.