Acoustic guitar

Claim 1

An acoustic guitar comprising (a) a hollow tone-producing body structure having a planar upper table surface; (b) a panel-shaped bridge having a generally continuous planar bottom surface fixedly attached to said upper table surface of said hollow tone-producing body structure and having an upper surface; (c) an elongate neck attached to and extending forwardly of said hollow tone-producing body structure and including a finger-board portion and an outer end; (d) an upstanding saddle mounted on said bridge; (e) a plurality of transversely spaced tunable strings under tension and normally attached at their forwared ends to the outer end of said neck and at their other ends to said bridge, said other ends of said strings extending across a first portion of said upper surface of said bridge and across said saddle; (f) transducer means mounted on said bridge for receiving vibrational energy transmitted to said bridge from said hollow tone-producing body structure during use of said guitar, a solid portion of said bridge being intermediate said transducer means to prevent said transducer means from extending through said continuous planar bottom surface of said bridge to contact said upper table of said hollow tone producing body structure; (g) first manually adjusted control means operatively associated with said transducer means and mounted on a second portion of the upper surface of said bridge, said second portion of said bridge being spaced laterally away from said strings extending over said first portion of said bridge such that a guitar player can readily grasp and adjust said control means without being obstructed by said strings, a solid portion of said bridge being intermediate said control means and said upper table surface to prevent said control means from extending through said continuous planar bottom surface of said bridge to contact said upper table surface of said hollow tone producing body structure, said control means receiving electrical signals produced by said transducer means and controlling and transmitting said signals to auxiliary signal processing equipment; and, (h) first electrically conductive means interconnecting said transducer means and control means for transmitting electrical signals from said transducer means to said control means; the positioning of said transducer means and control means on said bridge such that the integrity of said continuous planar bottom surface of said bridge is maintained permitting said transducer means and said control means to be carried by said bridge without altering the bombastic qualities, sonority, projection and other tonal qualities of said hollow tone-producing body structure.