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Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

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Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#41

Post by dec0dedab0de »

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 generally reserve the word electronic to mean something with a microcontroller or discreet logic components. Electronic guitars exist, but they're basically differently shaped keyboards.

I often lament the lack of other electric instruments.

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#42

Post by asdfman123 »

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…

You could argue that it's one of the most versatile instruments, sure. "Greatest" is completely subjective.

But is it one of the most versatile instruments? You can do signal transforms with any kind of audio input, although it's done more with the electric guitar than any other instruments.

I would say it in practice, it has the most versatile sonic profile.

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#43

Post by dec0dedab0de »

pdntspa wrote: post #37
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 is an unsolvable disconnect between what the performer's actions and their audience Is that really true though? If I watch a cellist play I can pretty clearly see all the things they are doing and it will correlate neatly to the timbre of the sound. Secondly I think it's important to note the tube amp and the guitar are seperable, and I don't think that their connection is particularly magical. I can reamp a…

they're comparing an electric guitar to electronic instruments, like midi keyboards. An electric cello would be the same thing as an electric guitar in this context.

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#44

Post by Nition »

pdntspa wrote: post #37
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 is an unsolvable disconnect between what the performer's actions and their audience Is that really true though? If I watch a cellist play I can pretty clearly see all the things they are doing and it will correlate neatly to the timbre of the sound. Secondly I think it's important to note the tube amp and the guitar are seperable, and I don't think that their connection is particularly magical. I can reamp a…

They're talking about electronic instruments there. The comment is about how electronic instruments don't generally match the physical expressiveness of acoustic instruments (like the Cello).

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#45

Post by nervousvarun »

RyanOD wrote: post #19

I've often marveled at the success many guitar players had with experimental electronics - Hendrix, EVH, Les Paul, Brian May, Jack White, and Tom Scholz (special case, of course) are just a few examples.

Brian May stands out even among that group (well maybe not w/ Les Paul there)

The guy built his own guitar as a teenager and has played it for the rest of his career: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Special

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#46

Post by RyanOD »

tclancy wrote: post #32
RyanOD wrote: post #19

I've often marveled at the success many guitar players had with experimental electronics - Hendrix, EVH, Les Paul, Brian May, Jack White, and Tom Scholz (special case, of course) are just a few examples.

The podcast "History of Rock in 500 Songs" (full disclosure: I am a devout, slavering fan) provides these on the regular. I was actually smiling when I heard a fairly new song that attempts a really flat, fuzzed out sound because it made me think, "Buddy Holly invented that by accident with a broken speaker". One of the episodes on The Who goes into the Marshall behind Marshall amps in similar detail. I suppose if I…

Oh wow! This is incredible...thanks for sharing.

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#47

Post by vanderZwan »

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…

The reverse example of this is musicians who play techno with analog instruments, like Pipe Guy, Basstong, and Meute[0][1][2].

There are always some people who get extremely defensive whenever I say that techno didn't click for me until I heard this kind of "techlow" music. Specifically about the part where I think that the reason is also a human expression problem, because of limitations imposed by the electronic media used.

EDIT: having said that, I don't think I would agree with your premise, because it is colored by a subtle form of survivor bias. None of us remember what it's like to not know electronic guitars or what they sound like, so claiming "the audience intuitively understands what Jimmy Hendrix is doing" is like saying everyone "intuitively understands" their native language. On top of that there's nothing about the workings of an electronic guitar that wouldn't in principle work for something like an electronic violin or whatever.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0gED3rn2Tc

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn52b-bWfFM

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYtjttnp1Rs

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#48

Post by solomonb »

pdntspa wrote: post #37
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 is an unsolvable disconnect between what the performer's actions and their audience Is that really true though? If I watch a cellist play I can pretty clearly see all the things they are doing and it will correlate neatly to the timbre of the sound. Secondly I think it's important to note the tube amp and the guitar are seperable, and I don't think that their connection is particularly magical. I can reamp a…

I'm talking about electronic instruments how they are deficient in expressiveness compared to your cello example.

> Secondly I think it's important to note the tube amp and the guitar are seperable, and I don't think that their connection is particularly magical. I can reamp a sound from my synthesizer (or maybe a keytar?) into a guitar chain, and if I manipulate the mic and other controls in the same way I might manipulate the pickup, I can also get all manner of interesting feedback effects.

The story is not quite so simple. Your synthesizer is going to have a buffered output so it wont have the complex impedance loading interactions with the amplifier as the guitar pickup.

This is actually critical to how early distortion effects such as the classic Fuzzface work and imo is essential for the kind of complex timbres you can produce with a guitar + tube amp.

In fact you can take an electric guitar, put a buffer pedal in the chain between your fuzz pedal and amp and completely destroy the ability to produce wild feedback and distortion.

Re: Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

#49

Post by soulofmischief »

vanderZwan wrote: post #47
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…

The reverse example of this is musicians who play techno with analog instruments, like Pipe Guy, Basstong, and Meute[0][1][2]. There are always some people who get extremely defensive whenever I say that techno didn't click for me until I heard this kind of "techlow" music. Specifically about the part where I think that the reason is also a human expression problem, because of limitations imposed by the electronic me…

Great recommendations. Throwing Klangphonics in the ring even though they use electronic instruments as well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bixtQAq2LzE

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