Dobro

Dobro is an American brand of resonator guitars owned by Gibson and manufactured by its subsidiary Epiphone. The term "dobro" is also used as a generic term for any wood-bodied, single-cone resonator guitar. The Dobro was originally a guitar manufacturing company founded by the Dopyera brothers with the name "Dobro Manufacturing Company". Their guitar design, with a single outward-facing resonator cone, was introduced to compete with the patented inward-facing tricone and biscuit designs produced by the National String Instrument Corporation. The Dobro name appeared on other instruments, notably electric lap steel guitars and solid body electric guitars and on other resonator instruments such as Safari resonator mandolins. The roots of the Dobro story can be traced to the 1920s when Slovak immigrant John Dopyera, instrument repairman and inventor, and musician George Beauchamp were searching for more volume for Beauchamp's guitars. Dopyera built an ampliphonic (or "resonator") for Beauchamp, which was patented in December 1929. In mid-1929, Dopyera left the National String Instrument Corporation to start the Dobro Manufacturing Company along with his brothers Rudy and Ed, and Vic Smith. National continued operating under Beauchamp, Barth et al. Dobro is both a contraction of 'Dopyera brothers' and a word meaning 'good' in their native Slovak, but also in many Slavic languages. An early company motto was "Dobro means good in any language." In 1930, the Dobro company name was changed to Dobro Corporation, Ltd., with additional capital provided by Louis and Robert Dopyera. Dobro was, during this period, a competitor of National. The Dobro was the third resonator guitar design by Dopyera, but the second to enter production. Unlike his earlier tricone design, which had three ganged inward-facing resonator cones, the Dobro had a single outward-facing cone, with its concave surface facing up. The Dobro company described this as a bowl-shaped resonator. The Dobro was louder than the tricone and cheaper to produce.