The Coral Sitar
Since Lee Ranaldo mentioned heÕd like to have some kind of an electric Harp Guitar, I began searching on the Internet for some pictures of harp guitars and had found the Coral Sitar. A weird looking instrument with a large amount of extra string mounted on the body. The instrument was developed in the late 60s and released as a low budget product.
Reviews are mostly negative about the instrument, although some collectors also write positive about certain aspects, but I think this is mostly a justification for the pleasure the instrument exposes with its cool looks. I had never seen one in real life until April 2009, when I walked in a guitar shop in Austin, while being on tour with The Moi Non Plus at the SxSW Festival 2009. Like mentioned in other reviews I agree the instrument has a lot of odd and unlogical aspects. First of all it differs from a normal Sitar, since the typical buzzing effect is translated to a guitar. A sitar has only one buzzing string, which you struck in an open position, as far as I know. The fret positions are based on a just intonation scale. On the Coral Sitar the common Western logaritmic 12-TET scale is used. The Coral sitar has 6 buzzing strings. For playing solo notes this works, but chords are not very nice on this instrument. The buzzing sound is nice, but also boring after two minutes, so I canÕt really do very much with it regarding that aspect. I didnÕt plug it in an amp. I expect it will give decent sound, perhaps for addicted vintage guitar experts lousy, but I donÕt think it will be lesser good than any regular $400.- guitar. ItÕs not Samick, itÕs not a Fender, but something inbetween. Consider it a Squier for its quality and you wonÕt be dissapointed.
What surprised me most was the useless harp field on the body. It is not really a harp field, since the strings are not meant to be plucked, but function as a resonance field. But the resonance string field has no pickup. It also is not attached in any way to the bridge of the normal 6 strings, so it is not resonating and if it does a little it is not amplified. Perhaps with 100% distortion some string resonance sound might come through, but donÕt get your hopes too much on that. If you like the field as a harp field you can forget about that as well. The strings are positioned very close to eachother, which makes it impossible to pluck individually. You can only ring the whole serie, but since it is not amplified there is not really any purpose for that playing technique. The tuning pegs of this additional string field have the same square heads like piano tuning pegs and causes you canÕt tune them with bare hands. You need tools to tune the string field.
The instrument I had in my hands was not made from wood. The body was plastic and felt like a hard craquelured skin of a children toy lizard. This odd choice reminded me somewhat of the bodies of Dan Electro. There is more similarity with that brand. Like on Dan Electros the bridge is fixed and canÕt be intoned. For chord players unhandy, but for playing notes thatÕs not really a big issue. It works fine to my opinion.
Right after finishing the Burner Harp Guitar for Finn Andrews of The Veils, I found this modified one on Internet.
I found this informative article about the history of the Coral Sitar on friendlyrivermusic.com:
1968 CORAL SITAR
Nathan Daniels began building and selling electric
guitars in New Jersey 1954. His instruments were unique. They were mostly
semi-acoustic, constructed from a wooden frame with tops, backs and often pick
guards made from Masonite. Most of his instruments were sold to Sears to resell
under the Silvertone name. Others were sold to distributors who then sold them to
music stores under the Dan Electro name. The pickups were made from wire
wrapped around an alnico magnet, then wrapped with tape and inserted into
lipstick tubes purchased from a supplier to the cosmetics industry. The
non-adjustable necks had Brazilian rosewood fret boards. In 1967 The Dan
Electro Company was sold to entertainment conglomerate MCA. That lasted about
two years. Then the guitar company folded, but for better or worse MCA did not.
The guitars that they produced were named Coral and were sold directly to music
stores. In 1967 Vincent Bell, an extremely prolific and talented session
musician invented the Electric Sitar. The sitar had been used on records by
George Harrison and to a lesser extent Brian Jones. Few people had the time and
commitment to devote to learning and mastering such a challenging instrument,
so Vincent Bell decided to create a guitar that did a remarkable job of
replicating that unique sound, and could be played by almost any guitarist. The
Coral Sitar employed a novel bridge design that strings buzzed against. It used
regular Dan Electro pick-ups and neck along with chambered poplar wood bodies
that were made in Japan. I have found that there is a bit of a trick to get
these properly intonated and still obtain that great sitar simulation. The
Coral Sitar also employs twelve sympathetic strings that can be tuned a variety
of ways. The strings on this instrument are tuned chromatically, I have never
been able to use them very effectively myself. If you have any suggestions, please
share them! These spacey instruments were assembled at the factory in Neptune,
New Jersey.
Dan Electro also built a stripped down electric sitar
without the sympathetic strings. A few years ago I saw Ron Wood open a Stones
concert playing "Street Fighting Man" on his Dan Electro Sitar
although he also has at least one Coral Sitar. The Coral Sitar has been
associated with songs like the Box Tops "Cry Like a Baby" and a
number of pop songs, but clearly it can be a real rock and roll machine. Just
listen to Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" and lots of Tom
Petty and the Heartbreakers material. I confess I even think it sounds great on
"Band of Gold" by Freda Payne. (That may be because Vinnie himself is
playing the Coral Sitar on that track.)
Forty years after it's invention the Coral Electric Sitar
is more popular than ever. While it may be true that "You don't have to be
a Hindu to play the Coral Electric Sitar", you just may need to be a Sheik
to be able to afford one!
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