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Tangent but I disagree about one point: Effects can and do change the guitarist's playing ability. Distortion or compression, for example, generally lowers the

Tangent but I disagree about one point: Effects can and do change the guitarist's playing ability. Distortion or compression, for example, generally lowers the threshold for making a note sound clearly (or at least clear enough). The result is a smoother sounding performance which can give the player more confidence when then actually results in a better performance. It hardly matters how you get to the end waveforms if they are indeed sounding good. But more than interpreting "ability" to mean a degree of technical skill, certain effects can completely change the way a good guitar player approaches the instrument creatively, particularly if they're listening closely and reacting (not playing from muscle memory).

tacos 11y ago
Rephrase it as "colored pencils can change a writer's writing ability completely" and you can see the logic error. "Put a little reverb on it" is a good way to comfort a singer or a musician and perhaps coax a better performance out of them. But the effect itself does not change the skill level of the performer. If the article were discussing production techniques I'd agree with you. But it says things like "Guitar effects have modified their users" and gives a comical explanation of how a rotating speaker works so I think the author is just nuts.
- tlb 11y ago
  Rotating speakers don't require less player skill, but distortion does. Guitar distortion reduces the need to mute adjacent strings, a very difficult thing to master, because only the strongest tone comes through. Or, given equal skill, distortion meant you could jump around, play writhing on your back with your tongue, play with your guitar on fire, which you absolutely cannot playing without distortion.
  - tacos 11y ago
    Distortion adds harmonic content. It is not a filter that lets "only the strongest tone come through." If there's a 600Hz thump as you move your hand between strings, now you've got that same 600Hz thump plus a 1200Hz and 1800Hz thump too. That's the definition of harmonic distortion. And those 1200/1800Hz components are approaching where the ear is most sensitive. So you've made it worse. A previous poster said that compression helps. Well, no. Compression reduces dynamic range. If there's a soft squeak between loud notes, a compressor makes the soft squeak louder and the loud note quieter. That's the definition of a compressor. And none of this changes the fundamental skill of the performer, in the same way that an Instagram filter does not change the fundamental beauty of the object. Sure, presentation is important and changing your resume font might even get you a better coding job. But changing the font doesn't make you a better coder.
    - disantlor 11y ago
      IMO The only fundamental skill that is relevant to music is the ability to express a particular feeling, and effects can "completely change" one's ability to do that. The only way you could quantify the type of skill you seem to be referring to is to entirely remove any degree of expression or improvisation (or effects) and boil it down to the raw performance data. You may then succeed in determining who is objectively a "better" musician but you've lost all the aspects that make a Beatles song based on a I IV V chord progression sound different than one by the Velvet Underground, or anyone else. EDIT: also, yes to some degree that is how harmonic distortion works, though the particular harmonics and amplitudes of those harmonics vary widely and there is often some filtering added to reign in those harmonics in a particular way. Distortion also effectively compresses the signal. Sometimes it starts oscillating and generating notes that aren't even being played. The point is that if you're playing with the distortion (not just laying it on top) then it is changing how you play.
      - tacos 11y ago
        You're basically arguing "it's the gear" whereas any musician over a certain age and skill level will tell you "hell no it isn't." Instagram filters don't make people better photographers; AutoTune doesn't make people better singers. Hell, the Abbey Road mic collection didn't make John and Paul better singers. By your logic you can flip anything around and make the author's argument: Shitty British industrial towns modified their users. Beer and the tiny stage at CBGB modified their users. Cheap Seattle heroin and terrible weather modified their users. Is any artistic pursuit highly dependent on the mood of the performer and her implicit capacity to make you feel? Of course. But the author did not say "playing a guitar through a stomp box changes the way you play it" or "the Edge's signature delay effect created a new sound that nobody had heard -- or felt -- before." He said "guitar effects have modified their users" and "new effects can change a guitarist's playing ability completely." If you read the entire article you'll see the author suffers from an bad case of "word salad" and these are not meant as debatable nuances. He's suffering from dysgraphia, ignorance of the subject matter as a whole, and a really bad editor. Which is why he defines "clipping" with a phrase lifted from the Wikipedia article for digital clipping, applies it to slicing a speaker with a razor blade, then claims rotating motors were picked up by speakers in a Leslie after being picked up by "coiled magnets" in a guitar pickup.

tacos 11y ago

Rephrase it as "colored pencils can change a writer's writing ability completely" and you can see the logic error. "Put a little reverb on it" is a good way to comfort a singer or a musician and perhaps coax a better performance out of them. But the effect itself does not change the skill level of the performer. If the article were discussing production techniques I'd agree with you. But it says things like "Guitar effects have modified their users" and gives a comical explanation of how a rotating speaker works so I think the author is just nuts.

tlb 11y ago
Rotating speakers don't require less player skill, but distortion does. Guitar distortion reduces the need to mute adjacent strings, a very difficult thing to master, because only the strongest tone comes through. Or, given equal skill, distortion meant you could jump around, play writhing on your back with your tongue, play with your guitar on fire, which you absolutely cannot playing without distortion.
- tacos 11y ago
  Distortion adds harmonic content. It is not a filter that lets "only the strongest tone come through." If there's a 600Hz thump as you move your hand between strings, now you've got that same 600Hz thump plus a 1200Hz and 1800Hz thump too. That's the definition of harmonic distortion. And those 1200/1800Hz components are approaching where the ear is most sensitive. So you've made it worse. A previous poster said that compression helps. Well, no. Compression reduces dynamic range. If there's a soft squeak between loud notes, a compressor makes the soft squeak louder and the loud note quieter. That's the definition of a compressor. And none of this changes the fundamental skill of the performer, in the same way that an Instagram filter does not change the fundamental beauty of the object. Sure, presentation is important and changing your resume font might even get you a better coding job. But changing the font doesn't make you a better coder.
  - disantlor 11y ago
    IMO The only fundamental skill that is relevant to music is the ability to express a particular feeling, and effects can "completely change" one's ability to do that. The only way you could quantify the type of skill you seem to be referring to is to entirely remove any degree of expression or improvisation (or effects) and boil it down to the raw performance data. You may then succeed in determining who is objectively a "better" musician but you've lost all the aspects that make a Beatles song based on a I IV V chord progression sound different than one by the Velvet Underground, or anyone else. EDIT: also, yes to some degree that is how harmonic distortion works, though the particular harmonics and amplitudes of those harmonics vary widely and there is often some filtering added to reign in those harmonics in a particular way. Distortion also effectively compresses the signal. Sometimes it starts oscillating and generating notes that aren't even being played. The point is that if you're playing with the distortion (not just laying it on top) then it is changing how you play.
    - tacos 11y ago
      You're basically arguing "it's the gear" whereas any musician over a certain age and skill level will tell you "hell no it isn't." Instagram filters don't make people better photographers; AutoTune doesn't make people better singers. Hell, the Abbey Road mic collection didn't make John and Paul better singers. By your logic you can flip anything around and make the author's argument: Shitty British industrial towns modified their users. Beer and the tiny stage at CBGB modified their users. Cheap Seattle heroin and terrible weather modified their users. Is any artistic pursuit highly dependent on the mood of the performer and her implicit capacity to make you feel? Of course. But the author did not say "playing a guitar through a stomp box changes the way you play it" or "the Edge's signature delay effect created a new sound that nobody had heard -- or felt -- before." He said "guitar effects have modified their users" and "new effects can change a guitarist's playing ability completely." If you read the entire article you'll see the author suffers from an bad case of "word salad" and these are not meant as debatable nuances. He's suffering from dysgraphia, ignorance of the subject matter as a whole, and a really bad editor. Which is why he defines "clipping" with a phrase lifted from the Wikipedia article for digital clipping, applies it to slicing a speaker with a razor blade, then claims rotating motors were picked up by speakers in a Leslie after being picked up by "coiled magnets" in a guitar pickup.