The origins of Lectrolab, and its parent – Sound Projects Company - are shrouded in the haze of time. Perhaps it began as a machine shop, or a cabinet-maker. Or maybe, just maybe, it sprang into life to take advantage of a radically wacky new idea, the Electric Guitar.
The Troubadour brand is a very early entry in the history of the electric guitar and guitar amplification.
Rickebacker’s “Frying Pan” lap steel is credited as the first electric guitar, introduced in 1931. The patent was not approved until 1936. That gave many companies a chance to exploit the new technology with scant legal reprisal. And many did. Chicago’s Sound Projects Company was likely one of these copycats. Certainly they emulated the cast-metal body of the Frying Pan in the design of the Troubadour lap steel.
But the pickup is different than the “horseshoe” pickup of the Frying Pan. The Troubadour’s pickup is built into the bridge, probably a ceramic-based piezoelectric. To date, no technical description of its design has been discovered.
The Troubadour’s tail plate says “Sound Projects Company/Chicago, Illinois”. “Troubadour” is inked on the front under the strings. Lap steel collector Robert Lurvey estimates this guitar as “probably mid-thirties, maybe late-thirties” in THIS video.
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I have a Sound Projects lap steel with the M200 amp that were found together. Both are in pretty good shape. The amp has what appears to be the original soft cover and has been recapped, but retains the original transformers and Rola field coil speaker. I removed the disintegrated cord from the guitar, it was terminated with a 3 prong cinch plug that mates with the cinch jack on the M200 amp. The purpose of this special jack is to power the electrostatic capacitance pickup on the Troubadour guitar. The inner construction of the pickup is basically a copper strip roughly 1/2″ by 10″ and a similar strip of celluloid placed together and folded into a Z with a lead soldered to each end of the copper strip. Pressure from the strings cause a variance of the capacitance. There is no ceramic piezoelectric in it. You need the M200 amp to play the guitar with the original pickup.