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.
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 âÂÂArtificial IntelligenceâÂÂ; 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.
With changing musical fashions and the complex manufacturing and inordinately high prices putting off buyers and producer alike, Gibson stopped selling Steinberger guitars in the mid-1990s. Enthusiasm for the instruments has now revived to a sufficient extent that they are again being produced and sold, although the newer versions share few commonalities with the original "Newburgh" designs.
Steinberger Spirit, a low-end line of all-wood guitars and basses, was introduced in 1992 and has been in production since, with occasional interruptions. Steinberger Synapse was introduced in 2006 and consisted of two guitars and one bass guitar model. Synapse was manufactured in South Korea for several years before production ended. As of 2026 only Steinberger Spirit guitars and basses are in production, meaning Spirit guitars and basses have been manufactured for longer than any other Steinberger model.
The best-known Steinberger design is the L-series instrument, sometimes described as shaped like a broom, boat oar, or cricket bat. Initially produced as an electric bass and later as a guitar, the instrument was made entirely of "Steinberger Blend", a "proprietary" graphite and carbon-fiber mix in two pieces: the main body and a faceplate (the "blend" being an off-the-shelf carbon fiber "system" from the DuPont product line). The headstock was eliminated, the tuning hardware instead installed on a tailpiece mounted to the face of the guitar body. The tuners utilized a finer than normal 18:1 gear ratio, with 40 threads per inch, which gave slower but more precise adjustment and helped reduce string slippage. Depending on the tailpiece, calibrated or uncalibrated double-ball end strings were used, with the former required in order to use the transposing feature of the TransTrem vibrato unit. The rationale for the overall design was the elimination of unnecessary weight, especially the unbalanced headstock, and the use of modern materials, such as graphite, for their advantages over wood. L-series basses came with one or two pick-ups; a high-impedance DiMarzio or two low-impedance EMGs, with the L2 having two EMGs. In 1990, the design would win Ned Steinberger a "Design of the Decade" award from the Industrial Designers Society of America.
The all-synthetic construction gave a very smooth sound and feel, immediate note attack, and very even tonal response. Depending upon the preferences of the listener, this was either a good thing, as it made the instrument sonically clean, or a bad thing, as it made the instrument sound synthetic and unnatural. Steinberger was and still is proud of this dichotomy and one of their slogans was "We don't make 'em like they used to."
Another innovation created by Ned Steinberger for some of these instruments was the TransTrem, a patented (now long lapsed) transposing vibrato assembly that proportionally adjusted the string tensions to enable immediate accurate retuning of the instrument with the transposing vibrato lever. The TransTrem provided the functionality of a capo in addition to vibrato effects. Bass and guitar versions were available.
Later designs included:
Several companies licensed the headless technology from Steinberger and produced numerous all-wood clones or similar instruments. Hohner, for example, produced licensed all-wood L-series copies and Cort produced headless guitars with different body designs.
The Washburn Bantam was an unlicensed 1980s imitation of the Steinberger headless style. The Bantam did not require the double-ball end strings of the Steinberger.
The Hohner B2 and Jack Basses were licensed imitations, the Jack with a full wooden body, and using the same patented locking and tuning system as the L series, although without the graphite neck. As such, it required double-ball end strings in the same way as the Steinberger originals. Hohner continues to offer the G3T Steinberger licensed guitars, which have been available since "the late 1980s". The G3T is a wooden rendering of the Steinberger composite guitar in appearance, with maple neck and rosewood fingerboard, and licensed tremolo bridge.
A wooden licensed solid bass inspired by Steinberger's designs was produced by Cort Guitars in the mid-1980s.
In the early 1980s, Kramer Guitars also manufactured a headless bass called the Duke series. Although the overall form was similar to Steinberger's, the Duke series had an aluminum/wood neck and wood body. Standard geared tuning pegs were located at the bridge-end of the instrument.