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Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#21

Post by solomonb »

I strongly believe that if you set aside genre preferences the solid body electric guitar coupled to a tube amplifier is objectively the greatest electronic instrument ever created.

All other electronic instruments, with the one exception being the Theramin, have a fundamental problem with human expression. There is an unsolvable disconnect between what the performer's actions and their audience.

See: https://www.scribd.com/document/55134776/48787070-Bob-Ostert...

With an electric guitar you get the physicality and dynamism of an acoustic instrument with the complex timbres and extended technique possibilities of an electric/electronic instrument.

There are complex and musically significant feedback loops occurring across many dimensions that lead to extremely complex transformations of timbre via both traditional music theoretical techniques and the physics of a tube amplifier combined with an inductive load (the guitar pickup).

Its really crazy how much more dynamic and complex this can be then even a highly sophisticated modular synthesizer or whatever. Even the way you over load the power supply in a tube amplifier can be manipulated on the fly to enhance and transform timbre.

Then on top of all that it is so incredibly physical that a performer like Jimi Hendrix can manipulate these systems and have the audience intuitively understand what he is doing. Never in a million years would THAT be possible with any other electronic instrument.

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#22

Post by gchamonlive »

evilos wrote: post #17
yayitswei wrote: post #8

This is one of the few articles where I noticed a bunch of LLM-isms and still read to the end because it was interesting.

[flagged]

I feel for you, because moving forward more and more interesting and substantious articles will be written with llm-isms, either because LLM was used directly in writing or because the authors absorbed the style.

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#24

Post by purplekohav »

yayitswei wrote: post #8

This is one of the few articles where I noticed a bunch of LLM-isms and still read to the end because it was interesting.

Hi! I work at IEEE Spectrum and there's no way an LLM wrote this. We have a pretty strict Generative AI use policy (bottom of this page https://spectrum.ieee.org/about). I'm guessing this is from writers using actual writing techniques that Gen AI stole from...

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#26

Post by deafpolygon »

solomonb wrote: post #21

I strongly believe that if you set aside genre preferences the solid body electric guitar coupled to a tube amplifier is objectively the greatest electronic instrument ever created. All other electronic instruments, with the one exception being the Theramin, have a fundamental problem with human expression. There is an unsolvable disconnect between what the performer's actions and their audience. See: https://www.scr…

I suppose you haven’t heard some really talented sitar players out there. For a traditionally non-electronic instrument, it’s got some crazy sounds.

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#27

Post by solomonb »

deafpolygon wrote: post #26
solomonb wrote: post #21

I strongly believe that if you set aside genre preferences the solid body electric guitar coupled to a tube amplifier is objectively the greatest electronic instrument ever created. All other electronic instruments, with the one exception being the Theramin, have a fundamental problem with human expression. There is an unsolvable disconnect between what the performer's actions and their audience. See: https://www.scr…

I suppose you haven’t heard some really talented sitar players out there. For a traditionally non-electronic instrument, it’s got some crazy sounds.

I think you misunderstand my comment entirely. I'm not comparing electric to acoustic instruments at all.

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#28

Post by gwbas1c »

solomonb wrote: post #21

I strongly believe that if you set aside genre preferences the solid body electric guitar coupled to a tube amplifier is objectively the greatest electronic instrument ever created. All other electronic instruments, with the one exception being the Theramin, have a fundamental problem with human expression. There is an unsolvable disconnect between what the performer's actions and their audience. See: https://www.scr…

I watched Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips do something similar with some kind of "I don't know what" controller, it was some kind of input in his microphone stand. As he moved it around, the sound and projection changed.

I remembered learning about similar MIDI controllers when I was in school.

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#29

Post by Nition »

solomonb wrote: post #21

I strongly believe that if you set aside genre preferences the solid body electric guitar coupled to a tube amplifier is objectively the greatest electronic instrument ever created. All other electronic instruments, with the one exception being the Theramin, have a fundamental problem with human expression. There is an unsolvable disconnect between what the performer's actions and their audience. See: https://www.scr…

There have been some interesting keyboard input devices coming out which allow for more expression than normal piano keys, using a sort of hack to the MIDI system called MPE - MIDI Polyphonic Expression. For example the Seaboard Rise or the Osmose. Depending on the instrument it's possible to do per-note pitch bends, change pressure while holding notes, perform vibrato etc. Visually the physical movement is not as interesting as electric guitar though, so yours probably still wins.
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