Sorry, I kind of misread, bit early for me still, I was thinking of the work an artist creates in general and how much they are in control of it, even themselves at times, control almost has to be relinquished on occasion. It's also my experience that what creatives say should be taken with a pinch of salt, for obvious reasons
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I've made 5 or so electric guitars from the ground up. The first I wound the pickups (low impedance) and designed active electronics to follow.
It took me a long time to work out what makes a great sounding guitar and
a lot of it is counter intuitive. For example, high impedance pickups generally
sound better and light, not heavy guitars also sound better.
Been playing pretty solid for 50 years.
Well - I can see we are in the presence of greatness.T
Kudos to you Terry. Yes, it does take a long time to figure out what works.
My favourite guitar is a telecaster made from a cheap and particularly nasty kit. Quite a journey, if I care to remember ....... it now has two massively overwound high impedance pickups wired in parallel straight to jack - no volume or tone controls. The saddles and nut are made from solid brass, supporting a set of heavy gauge flatwound strings. The beastie has been set up to within an inch of its life. Plays lovely, sounds beautiful. Only my complete lack of talent lets it down.
Greatness? Ohhh yes - that remark ........ actually, when I'm gone to dust, I would like to be remembered as a bit of a comedian, as in 'Kung Fu Panda' which is a classic study of 'greatness' and what such a delusion does to the psyche. It is also laugh out loud funny.
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I have built electric guitar as young student, very long time ago, and now it hangs on a wall of my audio room. Built everything except strings winding mechanism. Played it sometime then adapted it to be bass guitar, and again return it to ordinary one after some time.
Does that make me better audio Diyer?
Does that make me better audio Diyer?
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To be a good musical artist, I think you need to understand all the processes. Similarly a diy audio-er.
An analogy - to be a good photographer, you need to look a something and in your mind's eye see what you want as a finished result. To get that envisaged result this you need to understand as much s possible of the whole process from camera to whatever your chosen end medium is.
The more you understand about the instruments that make your chosen music, the better your attempts at building a reproduction chain that creates the sound you want will be (using George's definition of HiFi).
I've build many synths for people, and amps and effects units for guitarists, but not any acoustic instrument. My father in law built a harpsichord though - that was impressive!
An analogy - to be a good photographer, you need to look a something and in your mind's eye see what you want as a finished result. To get that envisaged result this you need to understand as much s possible of the whole process from camera to whatever your chosen end medium is.
The more you understand about the instruments that make your chosen music, the better your attempts at building a reproduction chain that creates the sound you want will be (using George's definition of HiFi).
I've build many synths for people, and amps and effects units for guitarists, but not any acoustic instrument. My father in law built a harpsichord though - that was impressive!
That is one wonderful looking guitar. Yes, I think it put you well on the way to become a good audio diy-er - why else would you hang it on a wall in your audio room, if not to constantly remind you of that?
Gold star dadod!
I always try to stay calm.tapestryofsound said:
My point was that producing art, including music, is quite different from reproducing art. A guitar amp is not a sound reproducer; it is part of the instrument. Knowing how to build (and play) a guitar amp will only get you partway to understanding sound reproduction, and it may teach you some very bad habits.
I guess ignorance is bliss.morinix said:
You have made your point, although I am not exactly sure what it is.
Some would argue that the electric guitar is what controls or plays the amp, especially if it's a valve amp. Or maybe it's a solid state amp with digital modelling tube amp effects built in. Or maybe it's an amp with two speakers, one alnico, the other ceramic for dialling in a precise amount of cone breakup. Or maybe the guitarist plays into two amps in parallel - one clean, the other dirty. Then the amp or amps are miked up to play into a mixing desk, then on into a PA. Others would argue that the tone, that is:- the sound being reproduced, is in the fingers (hell yes, that old chestnut) or in the strings. Or the guitar lead, especially a long curly one, to control the impedance and roll off the top end. Some guitarists merely play a guitar, others like Bruce Springfield - actually wear it.
Having said all that, I still don't understand the point your are making.
Do you really not understand the difference between production and reproduction?
Hi gpauk
It’s not my definition. It’s one of the many explanations of the term that one can find when he looks for what “Hi-Fi” means.
“Lo-Fi” has a more solid description though
(one more reason for my preference to this category)
George
What is production? Reproduction requires two, one of each sex.
It's all very well to use words which have definitions that are absolute but in the real world there's no such thing as perfect audio reproduction (just as there also isn't such a thing as perfect visual reproduction) - you've got to recognize the reality of what you're dealing with & not try to confine a discussion to "absolutes" which don't exist in the real world.
Yes, yes, I know the argument is that the reproduction is defined as being audibly good enough based on measurements & DBTSs but those two factors are what are being debated here - the measurements do not fully characterize the device (as john Atkinson says in his RMAF presentation) & the flaws of the ABX meths have been exposed.
Hi gpauk
It’s not my definition. It’s one of the many explanations of the term that one can find when he looks for what “Hi-Fi” means.
“Lo-Fi” has a more solid description though
(one more reason for my preference to this category)
George
Apologies - I should have said, the definition you mentioned!
What a cheery chap you are, and I am grateful..........
The difference between production and reproduction is sometimes called 'process'. A reproduction can in itself become a production - again by process. Somewhat analogous to turning lead into gold, and from gold back into lead. Each and every time a process is used, something is lost, and by default something is gained. This is the price paid for transmutation, and if it looks good, sounds good, it is good.
Call it from A to B and back again. Warhol understood this as an article of faith.
Now we're talking! Of course, accurate reproduction should be the goal of hi fi. That is what the definition means, but musical 'production' from a solid body electric guitar takes some modification to not be stale and boring. It is just how it is. I too have experimented with using hi fi reproduction for solid body electric guitar playback and found it wanting. I used to have a Fender Stratocaster, and I even played in a high school band for a short while, but I lacked the talent to excel in it, and I used guitar amps with it at the time. Later, I sold my Stratocaster, '-( because I wanted to concentrate on acoustic guitars that I started to collect (as best I could afford), but before I did, when I worked at UL in 1962, I looked at an oscilloscope image of my Strat direct, and then through a Fender Bassman (that we were testing) and noted that the amp's distortion was necessary to get a 'rich' sound. It was an eye opener, and to this day, I have never personally developed a guitar amp circuit. I once consulted for Gibson on a solid state IC based one, in 1976, but it was FAR from hi fi. It DID sound pretty good at the time, however, just like I remembered Fender amps to sound.(I am sure there were some differences in a direct comparison.)
So we must say that HI FI REPRODUCTION is something different than guitar amp amplification, so let's keep the two separate.
A parallel to hi fi reproduction in the visual sense might be extreme photography techniques used in the past to preserve records of the fine arts, at the Louvre, for example.
So we must say that HI FI REPRODUCTION is something different than guitar amp amplification, so let's keep the two separate.
A parallel to hi fi reproduction in the visual sense might be extreme photography techniques used in the past to preserve records of the fine arts, at the Louvre, for example.
Spoken like an artist
If it sounds good, it's high fidelity.
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