The reason for the Travis Bean guitar sterns from a need for new technology in the field of solid body electric guitars and basses. (Most of the popular electric solid body instruments on the market were designed in the late ’40’s and early ’50’s.) The clear fact is that designs in use until now were conceived to convince the buying public merely of the feasability of a solid body electric guitar at a time when acousticelectric guitars were the only ones available. The components of a Travis Bean guitar were designed as sonic complements to one another and not simply because they were traditional or inexpensive and readily available.

The improvements effected in the Travis Bean lie basically in two areas: how the sound is made and how the sound gets to the amplifier.