Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 264 posts

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#211

Post by schrectacular »

WalterBright wrote: post #210
Slow_Hand wrote: post #34

Nice article for engineers to understand something that most guitar players will intuitively know. One of the great things about a hi-gain setup like Hendrix's is how the feedback loop will inject an element of controlled chaos into the sound. It allows for emergent fluctuations in timbre that Hendrix can wrangle, but never fully control. It's the squealing, chaotic element in something like his 'Star Spangled Banner…

This leaves me wondering what would happen if you attached a coupling to a trumpet and ran the sound through an effects/feedback box. Why should electric guitars have all the fun?

People do! But you have to sit there and buzz your lips to make a trumpet make sound, but for a guitar you just have to shake the strings. And the sound coming from the amp will do this shaking, completing the feedback loop. So it's mostly portable stringed instruments that get this treatment. There are some violin players that play with feedback effects. I hear Jon Rose is one but I am not familiar with his music. Folks like Jean Luc Ponty and Jerry Goodman make ample use of guitar pedal effects in their violin. And there's a YouTuber out there who plays with them on her harp.

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#212

Post by fuzzfactor »

Slow_Hand wrote: post #34

Nice article for engineers to understand something that most guitar players will intuitively know. One of the great things about a hi-gain setup like Hendrix's is how the feedback loop will inject an element of controlled chaos into the sound. It allows for emergent fluctuations in timbre that Hendrix can wrangle, but never fully control. It's the squealing, chaotic element in something like his 'Star Spangled Banner…

It's quite likely that when Hendrix went to London the first time, he was the first person ever to play a Stratocaster through a Marshall full stack at full volume.

Also maybe not until the night of his first big gig there.

Townshend had Marshall build 100 watters so he could play louder clean, Clapton had already been cranking it with a Gibson SG which is a characteristic sound all its own, he was in the audience at the gig and was blown away watching Hendrix.

Every year from at least 1964 to 1984, more advanced amps were made than ever existed before.

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#213

Post by xcf_seetan »

WalterBright wrote: post #210
Slow_Hand wrote: post #34

Nice article for engineers to understand something that most guitar players will intuitively know. One of the great things about a hi-gain setup like Hendrix's is how the feedback loop will inject an element of controlled chaos into the sound. It allows for emergent fluctuations in timbre that Hendrix can wrangle, but never fully control. It's the squealing, chaotic element in something like his 'Star Spangled Banner…

This leaves me wondering what would happen if you attached a coupling to a trumpet and ran the sound through an effects/feedback box. Why should electric guitars have all the fun?

Well,i remember a performance of Jorge Lima Barreto (Portuguese electronic/free jazz) playing with a saxophonist with 2 microphones, one normal and the other with a brutal delay. He would play on the normal microphone and sometimes he directed the instrument output to the delayed microphone and it sounded monumental. Not sure what musician he was, i think is Tomas Stanko, but not sure. The performance sounded like you went through a big storm. :D

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#214

Post by Enginerrrd »

IAmBroom wrote: post #187
Enginerrrd wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethical humans are pretty hard to come by if you put them under a microscope.

"Not beating women" doesn't require a microscope.

I agree but when you’re dealing with celebrities people sometimes lie and exaggerate, and third parties sometimes extrapolate beyond any semblance of grounded facts. So most people subject to that level of scrutiny and fame are likely to have some allegations against them whether true or not.

Hendrix’s girlfriend Kathy Etchingham claims he never abused her. Some third parties dispute her claims about her relationship.

His arrest record suggests at least some type of altercation with a previous girlfriend but it’s far from clear cut to me.

People are complex and reality is complex. I myself was subject to false accusations about abuse from a disgruntled ex girlfriend (who actually WAS in fact physically and mentally abusive to me and I have the scars to prove it).

But regardless, I have zero issues reflecting on a person’s accomplishments and talents even in the context of them being a horrible person. In fact, I find that part of the intrigue of really talented people. Reality and people are quite multi-dimensional. The only general rule I know is that nobody is perfect and holding up ANYone as some example of moral perfection is almost certainly wrong.

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#215

Post by nineteen999 »

IAmBroom wrote: post #186
nineteen999 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I love Mitch's drumming and Noel's bass, can you imagine if Hendrix had worked with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce - both much more confident and strident players than the Experience's rythym section. That would have blown the doors off of everything. I don't think there was another as "out there" guitar player as Jimi until EVH came along - a little more controlled, but just as confident and chaotic. EVH was quit…

Jimmy wasn't as good as Miles at collaboration. Miles always impressed me with his ability to pick the best to back him up, and /then/ let them take the front. Some tracks he barely plays on, waiting minutes for his entry. Jimmy wanted the best to back him up. But I agree with you; I'm just pointing out why I think he didn't.

Going to assume you mean Miles Davis and not Buddy Miles here! Correct me if I'm wrong.

Yeah that's a good insight.

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#217

Post by sophacles »

WalterBright wrote: post #205
ssl-3 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The way you can hear the machine guns, choppers, sirens, screaming in agony… You know, I've heard that performance so many times over so many decades that I don't have to hit a play button or even close my eyes in order to hear it. It's there inside my head when I want it to be. And somehow I never interpreted it in that way (sirens, screaming, etc) until just a moment ago. I thought it was just a quirky little ear…

Recently, the movie "Cleopatra" was on TV. I was watching it with the sound off while I did other things. There was one scene where Rich Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were arguing with each other. I watched their lips move, and somehow I heard Burton speaking his lines in his voice, and Taylor her lines in her voice. I had to do a double take to see that the sound was actually muted, but my mind re-created it anyway.

Going way way off topic - when those two were a couple they had a house in Puerto Vallerta, casa Kimberly thats now a hotel. I stayed there once in the late 90s and from their website it hasn't really changed since I was there. The whole time I could just imagine them being there living the hollywood getaway lifestyle. Definitely a cool place to stay - in the old town not in the resort area, and very much worth it if you get the chance. (although it does look more expensive than it was then, even adjusting for inflation).

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#218

Post by xcf_seetan »

john-radio wrote: post #129
mock-possum wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem weird, I’d expect signal to flow from left to right, as English is written, as a number line is drawn, from -x to 0 to +x

the ergonomic advantage of left-to-right is that most players use right-handed guitars, so the guitar's cord comes out the right side of your body, and it's most ergonomic for it to be directed straight away from you to the right side of your pedal board, not criss-crossing in front of you towards the left side of your board.

>criss-crossing in front of you towards the left side of your board. No need to criss-cross the cable in front of you, you can connect the cable to the guitar on the right side and the cable will go behind you and emerge on the left side, into the pedal board/fx processor.

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#220

Post by xcf_seetan »

schwartzworld wrote: post #199
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…

> have a fundamental problem with human expression. How up to date is this opinion of yours? Expression on guitar is pretty intuitive, but modern electronic instrument manufacturers have been working on this problem and created modes of expression that definitely solve this problem. For example, EWIs allow you to use breath control for expression with many of the same techniques available on actual wind instruments.…

> What makes a guitar more expressive than a cello or trumpet with a pickup/mic running through effect

A whammy bar?

Post reply on HN