Steinberger

Steinberger is a series of distinctive electric guitars and bass guitars, designed and originally manufactured by Ned Steinberger. The name "Steinberger" can be used to refer to either the instruments themselves or the company that originally produced them. Although the name has been applied to a variety of instruments, it is primarily associated with a minimalist "headless" design of electric basses and guitars.

==History== The first Steinberger basses were produced in 1979 in Brooklyn, New York by Ned Steinberger alone. While attempting to source materials in an industrial area of New York City, he visited Lane Marine, a lifeboat builder, where he met with Bob Young, an engineer with deep knowledge of carbon fiber. Though Young was more than twice Steinberger's age and had no experience with musical instruments, he joined forces with Steinberger after getting great feedback from his sons, Rory Young, an audio engineer, composer, musician and salesman of musical instruments and equipment who went on to win three Grammy awards, and founded the progrock band “Artificial Intelligence”; and Gary Young, a recording engineer and the original drummer for Pavement. The two brothers took to the instrument and understood the appeal of its construction. A company, Steinberger Sound, was duly set up to manufacture the basses and later the guitars on a larger scale at Newburgh, New York. The company was eventually sold to Gibson in 1987, although Steinberger remained part of the company for some time. Gibson still retains rights over the "Steinberger" name, precluding Ned Steinberger from calling his new instruments "Steinbergers". Ned Steinberger has operated a company called "NS Design" since 1990 and produces electric violin family instruments: double basses, cellos, viola, violin. Their instruments have been described as "innovative". An NS Bass Guitar (headless) was added later to the production line.