Thin Aluminum that looked like a loudspeaker worked he best. He had also tried several materials including paper, pressed fibre, glass, tin and other sheet metal to make the resonant cones. He found that as one cone was a bit louder, three produced a nicer musical tone. John Dopyera had experienced with several prototypes using from one to four resonator cones. They called this the tri-cone resonator, sometimes referred to a triplate. The early prototype utilized a large aluminum single-cone resonator, but working through the issues John Dopyera found that using three smaller cones produced a smoother more balanced guitar sound. John Dopyera had been thinking about resonator guitar for some time, so the Dopyeras then started experiments with thin, cone-like aluminum resonators attached to a guitar bridge and placed inside a metal body. It was a failure as it did not sound great. The Dopyera’s did not think much of the idea, but built it for George Beauchamp as requested. Beauchamp wanted his own idea built that featured an Hawaiian guitar that sat on a stand a Victrola horn attached to the bottom and pointed towards the audience. Some were for improved Banjos, that Dopyera and his brother Rudy were building in the small shop. Dopyera was already a recognized inventor that had several patents for various ideas. John Dopyera, a Slovak-American took up the challenge. Around this time, Dopyera patented several improvements on the banjo. In the 1920s, Dopyera founded his own store in Los Angeles where he worked making and repairing fiddles, banjos, and other wooden string instruments. In 1908, the Dopyeras emigrated from Slovakia to California, USA sensing a war would erupt in Europe. John Dopyera, a violin repairman with a shop fairly close to Beauchamp’s Los Angeles home was asked to innovate and build a guitar that was louder and better than when was already available. Beauchamp saw one of these and went looking for someone to build him one. Several inventors had already tried to build louder stringed instruments by adding megaphone-like amplifying horns to them. Musician and vaudeville promoter George Beauchamp, sought a louder, improved guitar to play at his gigs.
Many frustrated guitar players that wished they could be compete with brass and reed instruments like the banjo did, but sound sweet like an acoustic guitar. It was not loud enough to be a lead instrument. Guitars were un-amplified string instruments in those days and were relegated to just adding to the rhythm section. In this era, many guitarists sought instruments that could complete in volume with other instruments in the orchestra.
In Los Angeles, the early 1920’s was quickly becoming the entertainment capital of the world. The company was originally formed by John Dopyera, the luthier who invented the resonator, and musician George Beauchamp, a steel guitar player who had suggested to Dopyera the need for a guitar loud enough to play a melody over brass and other wind instruments. National also produced resonator ukuleles and mandolins. The National String Instrument Corporation was formed to manufacture the first resonator guitars, known as resophonic guitars.
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