I recently discovered the joy of feedback through a friend when I was jamming out with him. Now from how I understand it, you turn up the gain very high, then turn up the volume slowly until the you start to hear the squealing, and at that's the point when you can start messing around. I tried it with his whammy bar, which was pretty cool (i'll try to get my dad to make one, because they seem simple enough to make). But I want to find some techniques that work on a constant basis. Most of the stuff I do seems to sound pretty random no matter how I try to repeat it exactly. I try just slapping the back of the neck to force the strings to vibrate, tap certain parts of the neck, etc, but it all seems pretty random. Does anyone have any advice (with or without a whammy bar) on how to actually control feedback?
And since this is more of a equipment question, I might as well ask if anyone has any cool things they do outside of 'playing' the guitar to create cool effects. Jimmy Page would quickly switch between pickups, but it seemed like he was not playing any strings and yet he'd get a sound that clicked as he switched pickups.
So I guess I'm asking if anyone has any cool little 'tricks' they could share, that would be awesome. :wink:
"All I see is draining me on my Plastic Fantastic Lover!"
i found a boss pedal that generates feedback, the df-2. its a distortion pedal but when u hold the switch in it generates feedback in the pitch played when u stomped on it and theres a knob to change the tone of the feedback. maybe not the natural feedback ur looking for but its easily controlled.
cheers
Cheers.
Better shred than dead.
Hmm... that sounds cool! I'll have to give that a shot...
Do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life...
Tube amplifier overdriven, and a short cord. Do it often enough to get a feel for it. If it still don't want to work scrape your strings against the speaker cab. The great masters of feedback like Hendrix, SRV, Beck and Trower all played through tubes.
One of the best ways (old school) is to use a wah pedal. Feedback is all about getting a note to resonate and a wah is basically a variable sweep resonance filter. Santana does that a lot, I've used it and it's pretty consistent. Combined with high gain amp settings, you can get feedback at very low volumes.
Another useful device - though it's not natural feedback - is the eBow Plus. It has a two-way switch; one is normal note sustain, the other introduces a higher harmonic (or emphasizes it), and it sounds like the note is just tipping over the edge into feedback.
Both are great sounds.
i get a lot of feedback if i hold my bass up to the amp when it's cranked. the frequency of the feedback changes with distance.
A lot of cool ideas (I sit in front of my amp as close as I can), but I don't really have the money to spend on new equipment. Any ideas I can try with just an electric guitar (a Squire Strat), and a little amp with only a distortion button for effects?
"All I see is draining me on my Plastic Fantastic Lover!"
In my experience, it is much harder to get a good feedback easily with a small amp, because you can't get the volume you need. I can only get feedback when I'm playing quite loud.
The first time I heard a Beatles song was "Let It Be." Some little kid was singing along with it: "Let it pee, let it pee" and pretending he was taking a leak. Hey, that's what happened, OK?-some guy
A lot of cool ideas (I sit in front of my amp as close as I can), but I don't really have the money to spend on new equipment. Any ideas I can try with just an electric guitar (a Squire Strat), and a little amp with only a distortion button for effects?
Make sure you have the volume all the way up on the guitar and the tones set to full-treble. On your amp set the distortion/gain as high as it will go, the overall volume to a comfortable level. I'm thinking maybe you have a 15 watt amp with an 8" speaker: just sit with the guitar right in front of the speaker - like a foot or so away. If you get that close you might be able to start feeding back at lower volumes. Without really high gain - or a fuzz pedal or some sort of gain booster between the guitar and amp - it's a little iffy; you might not get the effect you want. But at least you can get something.
Good luck :)
get the amp up on something so it's at the same level as the guitar.
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
Well, if you think about it, fedback with a guitar is just like feedback with a mic. With a mic, the mic picks up the sound from the speaker, and then it is re-amplified in an endless loop. When a guitar feeds back, the sound from the speaker is vibrating the strings, or some part of the guitar. Therefore you need high gain to pick up the signals of the sound hitting the strings. You also need a loud amp so that you can generate enough sound. I agree that wah's are a really good way of doing this without excess volume.
I have a really a stupid question ya...
Can someone explain to me what feedback is? :?:
"You know, it eez possible to be too attractive." - Pepe le Pew
"Be excellent to each other, and party on dudes." - Bill and Ted
the post above answers it. it's called a feedback LOOP because it's an amp picking up and playing noise created by itself.
noone's heard of the Fernandes Sustainer ? I have a Fernandes guitar equipped with one...it's quite cool to play around with
otherwise yea you gotta be loud to generate real feedback....a 15w tube amp should allow it in a small room but a 15w solid state...forget it, I have an 18w tube amp that will push enough air to allow it...my 100w Marshall stack...stand back!
You can achieve feedback at any volume level. If you drive 100 watt amp into a dummy load, line out into Eq, into effects processors, into another Eq, into a power amp with attenuators, into speaker cabinets. It will give you control of your sound and feedback, by sustaining a note you'll have control of it. the better your able to control your signal chain the better you will play and sound.
Joe
