Valco was a US manufacturer of

guitar amplifier A guitar amplifier (or amp) is an electronic device or system that strengthens the electrical signal from a pickup on an electric guitar, bass guitar, or acoustic guitar so that it can produce sound through one or more loudspeakers, which ar ...

s from the 1940s through 1968. Apart from its original products, Valco also commercialised

electric Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by ...

and acoustic guitars and

basses Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass ...

through its

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a ...

companies.

History

Valco was formed in 1940 by three business partners and former owners of the National Dobro Company; Victor Smith, Al Frost, and Louis Dopyera. The company name was a combination of the three partner's first initials (V.A.L.) plus the common abbreviation for company (Co.) Valco manufactured and sold

(since the 1950s),

resonator A resonator is a device or system that exhibits resonance or resonant behavior. That is, it naturally oscillates with greater amplitude at some frequencies, called resonant frequencies, than at other frequencies. The oscillations in a resonator ...

,1964 Supro Catalog
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lap steel The lap steel guitar, also known as a Hawaiian guitar, is a type of steel guitar without pedals that is typically played with the instrument in a horizontal position across the performer's lap. Unlike the usual manner of playing a traditional a ...

and classical guitars and

vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric potential difference has been applied. The type known as ...

amplifiers An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the magnitude of a signal (a time-varying voltage or current). It may increase the power significantly, or its main effect may be to boost th ...

under a variety of brand names including Supro,

Airline An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in wh ...

, National and Oahu. They also made amplifiers under contract for several other companies such as

Gretsch Gretsch is an American company that manufactures musical instruments. The company was founded in 1883 in Brooklyn, New York by Friedrich Gretsch, a 27-year-old German immigrant, shortly after his arrival to the United States. Friedrich Gretsch ...

Harmony In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. Howeve ...

, and

Kay The name Kay is found both as a surname (see Kay (surname)) and as a given name. In English-speaking countries, it is usually a feminine name, often a short form of Katherine or one of its variants; but it is also used as a first name in its own ...

. Valco merged with Kay Musical Instrument Company in 1967; however financial difficulties forced the merged company to fold the following year.

Replicas and revivals

Since Valco's demise a number of manufacturers have issued copies or derivatives of Valco instrument and amplifier models.

Eastwood Guitars Eastwood Guitars is a Canadian manufacturer of guitars. The company specializes in making vintage-style instruments including electric guitars, basses, acoustic guitars, electric mandolins, resonator guitars, lap steels, and ukuleles. Notabl ...

produces a variety of reissue Airline guitars, as well as at least one Supro model, though all of the former semihollow Res-O-Glas models are now wood solidbodies. Several of Valco's earlier amplifier models are recreated by Vintage47 Amps of Mesquite, Nevada, using

octal The octal numeral system, or oct for short, is the radix, base-8 number system, and uses the Numerical digit, digits 0 to 7. This is to say that 10octal represents eight and 100octal represents sixty-four. However, English, like most languages, ...

preamp tubes, rather than the later miniature noval preamp tubes. In late 2013, Absara Audio of Port Jefferson Station, New York announced that it had purchased the rights to the Supro trademark from Bruce Zinky. Zinky used the Supro name for a series of amps beginning in 2005 from his company, Zinky Electronics. Absara debuted a series of new Supro amps at the Winter 2014

NAMM Show The NAMM Show is an annual event in the United States that is organized by the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), who describe it as "the industry’s largest stage, uniting the global music, sound and entertainment technology commun ...

Anaheim, California Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most ...

. The new Supro amps are cosmetically reminiscent of their progenitors from the 1960s.

Bibliography

*
Article about Valco's Supro brand *
Article about Supro's resonator guitars *
Article about National's map guitars * *

Notes

References

{{Commons category, Valco Guitar manufacturing companies of the United States Guitar amplifier manufacturers Audio equipment manufacturers of the United States