> 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 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. My inputs will have different harmonic characteristics of course, and the tube amp's effects are mostly transformations of harmonics; you'll still get some cool tones and they will be subject to a lot of the same rules as if a guitar was being played.

▲

Nition 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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).

▲

solomonb 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

▲

2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

▲

vegadw 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

So... use a reamp box to make it hiZ again?

I'm a guitarist, but there's nothing particularly magical about a high impedance signal, other than they tend to lead to noise and make really obnoxious things matter, like how low capacitance your cable is. Also, a TON of modern guitars are low(ish) impedance out because they use active pickups.

The pedals and system being dependent on the high impedance was always a bug, not a feature, and make the setup incredibly dependent on variables that really wouldn't be that hard to just buffer then recreate deterministically. Like, if your pedal should react to that impedance just buffer the front, put a big inductor (or a transformer using only half, or, - and I've actually seen this - just a whole guitar pickup) in the pedal. Then you're not dependent on the pickups of the guitar or the capacitance of cable or anything else and you can make sure the effect sounds good regardless of pickup type.

	▲	solomonb 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> So... use a reamp box to make it hiZ again? That is going to be something like a transformer to step down your line level signal and some series resistance to match the load to help drive the amp. An actual coil pickup has reactive impedance that is frequency dependent and will result in a more complex interaction between the devices. > The pedals and system being dependent on the high impedance was always a bug, not a feature Sure if you think like an engineer, but everything you are complaining about is what allows someone like Jimi Hendrix to do what he did with a guitar.
	▲	2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

▲

dec0dedab0de 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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.