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DEAN GUITARS

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Category:	Music
Created:	Dec 26, 2006
Type:	Public
Members:	35
Owner:	Payam SiX
Language:	English
Country:	Iran

Dean Guitars was created in 1976 by luthier Dean Zelinsky who began building guitars at an early age. Zelinsky thought that rock guitar design had stagnated and decided to do what he could to change things. The first Dean guitars were released in the mid-1970s and featured designs including "pointy" guitar bodies and large V-shaped headstocks. These designs quickly gained in popularity because some people thought they looked great and because they were designed and engineered to improve the tone and sustain of the guitar. They also have a unique fast-playing "V" neck. (A different style "forked" headstock was used by Gibson designer Ted McCarty on prototype Explorers and Flying V's, but was dropped from production due to the company's unease with such a radical design feature.)

Dean's marketing campaign, which featured scantily clad female models holding the guitars in provocative poses, was widely copied by other guitar manufacturers until the onset of the grunge rock movement in the 1990s. (Advertising-heavy magazines from this time, such as Guitar for the Practicing Musician, bear a strong resemblance to "lad mags" such as Maxim.) Dean has since revived this practice, and once again many manufacturers employ scantily-clad women (including porn actress Jenna Jameson) to model their instruments.

In 1986, Zelinsky decided he did not want to continue making guitars and sold the company to make furniture. He has attributed his decision to the popularity of the "superstrat", which he derides as a "Floyd Rose trem with a guitar attached to it." In the late 1990s, Armadillo Enterprises revived the brand name, later bringing Zelinsky back aboard as an executive and creative consultant.

In the late 1990s, Dean introduced the Exotica series of acoustic guitars, many of which feature exotic hardwood tops and modern electronics. The Exoticas have been one of the reconstituted Dean's most successful products.