These early inventors strived to boost the natural sound of the guitar, but they found that the signal was too weak with the pick-up method they were employing at the time. The solution was a more direct approach, in which "the electromagnet registered string vibrations from the strings themselves." This proved successful and the electric guitar as we know it was born.

The first commercially available model, the Frying Pan, was spearheaded by George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacker in 1932.

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Inventors have been playing with the idea of electrically powered musical instruments since the 1800s, but "the first attempts at an amplified instrument did not come until the development of electrical amplification by the radio industry in the 1920s."

One pioneer of the electric guitar, Lloyd Loar, worked as an engineer at the Gibson Guitar Company. In 1924, he developed and electric pick-up to amplify the viola and the string bass. This pick-up consisted of a magnet and coil that received vibrations through the string when it was plucked.

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