I own an Ibanez RG 570 guitar and a Johnson JM60 Marquis amp. I love the sound of harmonic feedback, where a single note can sustain for a long time. Any techniques as to the best way this can be achieved? I've heard that raising the pickups might help. Can anyone list the pros and cons of this? Thanks. Paul
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How to get harmonic feedback?
- Thread starter Paul D
- Start date
hockey punk
New member
By harmonic feedback do you mean , an extra note a third or fifth or seventh or octave or ninth etcetera above the origional note ? You can create this effect artificialy by picking and deadening the note at the same time , I use a thumb pick and deaden the plucked string with my index finger just ahead of my thumb and vary where you pick your note eg. over the front pick up or somewhere else . If this is not what you mean by harmonic feed back then I have just invested several minutes in making myself look foolish . Give me another Fosters !
cheers
cheers
OK two types of harmonics, natural and pinched. Some other players may use a different term for pinched. A natural harmonic is when you deaden the string by touching it lightly at, let's say, the 12th fret and then picking the string. If done correctley you should hear that same note several octaves higher along with overtones. It will sound like the string rings. Many players tune their guitars using the same technique. This will take practice to find out hard much to deaded the strings and at what frets.
Next, there is a pinched or forced harmonic. I think that hocky puck was describing this type. To acheive this type you "pinch" your pick as you dig harder into the note. Pinching the pick and flicking your wrist away from the guitar as you pick down will cause your thumb to slightley deaden the string-causing harmonics and overtones to be heard over the original note. This takes even more practice than the natural harmonic, but you should be able to find your way quickly. Perhaps somebody else here can help clarify or simplify what I'm trying to explain.
Feedback is another issue altogether. Harmonics can be heard with no amplification. whereas feedback exsist because of amplification. And yes harmonics and feedback do co-exist. I don't think it is nessasary for me to go into detail about the physics envolved to create feedback, I'll just give you some pionters. To get feedback thruogh your amp, turn up the treble, use your bridge pickup and use more gain. If you have a distortion pedal use it also to create feedback.
Remember though, feedback can get out of hand. It can be nasty ugly microphonic noise or cool sounding overtones that occour when your guitar strings resonate in various relationships with sound waves coming from the amp. OOPs there goes that Physics stuff. Set your volume, EQ, and gain controls so that your amp is on the edge of feedback. Meaning it will only feedback if you move closer to the speaker or if you let certian notes sustain.
Now, try the harmonics techniques with the feedback technique and see what kind of noise you get. It may not sound right or even good at first-so keep tinkering around with it and I'm sure you will start to hear from your rig what you hear in your head....... hope this helped.
Next, there is a pinched or forced harmonic. I think that hocky puck was describing this type. To acheive this type you "pinch" your pick as you dig harder into the note. Pinching the pick and flicking your wrist away from the guitar as you pick down will cause your thumb to slightley deaden the string-causing harmonics and overtones to be heard over the original note. This takes even more practice than the natural harmonic, but you should be able to find your way quickly. Perhaps somebody else here can help clarify or simplify what I'm trying to explain.
Feedback is another issue altogether. Harmonics can be heard with no amplification. whereas feedback exsist because of amplification. And yes harmonics and feedback do co-exist. I don't think it is nessasary for me to go into detail about the physics envolved to create feedback, I'll just give you some pionters. To get feedback thruogh your amp, turn up the treble, use your bridge pickup and use more gain. If you have a distortion pedal use it also to create feedback.
Remember though, feedback can get out of hand. It can be nasty ugly microphonic noise or cool sounding overtones that occour when your guitar strings resonate in various relationships with sound waves coming from the amp. OOPs there goes that Physics stuff. Set your volume, EQ, and gain controls so that your amp is on the edge of feedback. Meaning it will only feedback if you move closer to the speaker or if you let certian notes sustain.
Now, try the harmonics techniques with the feedback technique and see what kind of noise you get. It may not sound right or even good at first-so keep tinkering around with it and I'm sure you will start to hear from your rig what you hear in your head....... hope this helped.
Sorry for the confusion in my post, but thanks for all the different explanations of harmonics. What I'm interested in is as you pick a string and let that note ring out, eventually you will begin to get some cool harmonic overtones via feedback. Aside from moving closer to the amp to achieve this, is there any relationship between the action of the strings and the pickup height? Thanks for all the help. Paul
Yes and No and this is why. What happens when you move the pole pieces closer to the strings, you are in a since increasing the gain. The closer the pickups are to the strings the pickups become louder - more gian. If you remember from my previous post, gain and siganal boost is the key to get the right kind of feedback.
And your correct in thinking that the vibration of the strings play a part in this as also mentioned in my previous post. Now think about what pickups utilize to transfer the vibrations of steel strings to electrical signals- magnets. If you move your pickups too close to the strings you can reduce the amount of sustain because the magnets will "pull" harder on the strings and the strings will stop vibrating sooner. So, since you will be increasing the gain by raising the pickups, you will lose sustain. Harmonic feedback requires that you boost the signal before it is amplified by using the onboard EQ's or some sort of distortion unit. Distortion units are preamps with some extra parts mixxed in and are great for achieving feedback-again refer to my ealier post describing what your amp should be doing if it is set for achieving feedback. [I'm into old gear from the 50's and 60's, so I'm not familiar with your amp. If it is a tube amp, crank the volume way up so that you saturate the power tubes. The tubes will give you great distortion at this piont-and welcome to feedback city.] After your amp starts to feedback, the frequency that the sound waves produce from you amp will start to resonate the strings on you guitar. This is the piont where you will start to hear the overtones because the soundwaves from the amp will cause the string to vibrate at a higher frequency that the original note that you are letting ring. It all depends on the Natural Laws of Physics. Boost your gain, boost you treble, use your bridge pickup and come up on your volume and you should be very close to get some cool hamonic feedback.Sorry that I didn't answer your pickup question the first time.
[Edited by Daddy-O on 10-22-2000 at 14:19]
And your correct in thinking that the vibration of the strings play a part in this as also mentioned in my previous post. Now think about what pickups utilize to transfer the vibrations of steel strings to electrical signals- magnets. If you move your pickups too close to the strings you can reduce the amount of sustain because the magnets will "pull" harder on the strings and the strings will stop vibrating sooner. So, since you will be increasing the gain by raising the pickups, you will lose sustain. Harmonic feedback requires that you boost the signal before it is amplified by using the onboard EQ's or some sort of distortion unit. Distortion units are preamps with some extra parts mixxed in and are great for achieving feedback-again refer to my ealier post describing what your amp should be doing if it is set for achieving feedback. [I'm into old gear from the 50's and 60's, so I'm not familiar with your amp. If it is a tube amp, crank the volume way up so that you saturate the power tubes. The tubes will give you great distortion at this piont-and welcome to feedback city.] After your amp starts to feedback, the frequency that the sound waves produce from you amp will start to resonate the strings on you guitar. This is the piont where you will start to hear the overtones because the soundwaves from the amp will cause the string to vibrate at a higher frequency that the original note that you are letting ring. It all depends on the Natural Laws of Physics. Boost your gain, boost you treble, use your bridge pickup and come up on your volume and you should be very close to get some cool hamonic feedback.Sorry that I didn't answer your pickup question the first time.
[Edited by Daddy-O on 10-22-2000 at 14:19]
MO ELEMENT
New member
thassryte daddio,
ok, plus, you need to be in the field of the speaker, cuz
thass part o' the feedback loop and it helps to try moving
the business end of the pickup into the axis of the speakers
voice coil. you can get some nice and different effects with
different pickup selector settings and like the man said,
open up the voluce pot so the power tubes get saturated with elctrons. don't ferget to grind them strings against the frets........oh what a feeling!!!
peace and love
mo
ok, plus, you need to be in the field of the speaker, cuz
thass part o' the feedback loop and it helps to try moving
the business end of the pickup into the axis of the speakers
voice coil. you can get some nice and different effects with
different pickup selector settings and like the man said,
open up the voluce pot so the power tubes get saturated with elctrons. don't ferget to grind them strings against the frets........oh what a feeling!!!
peace and love
mo
Getting your guitar to feedback on harmonic of a fretted note is pretty easy if you have your gain full, bridge pickup selected, and playing at a fair volume. All you do is play the fretted note, then with your middle finger on your picking hand lightly touch the string.
The key is WHERE you touch it. Harmonics work on fractions of string length, which correspond to different intervals. For example:
If you touch at the midway point of the active string length, (12 frets higher) you'll get a harmonic an octave higher. If you touch at the 1/3rd of the active string length (7 frets higher) you'll get a high 5th. Here are the main fractions and the corresponding natural harmonic.
1/2 length-1 octave higher (12th fret)
1/3 length- a 5th a full octave above (7th or 19th frets)
1/4 length- 2 octaves higher (5th fret)
1/5 length- a major 3rd 2 full octaves above (a little behind 4th fret)
1/6 length- a 5th 2 full octaves higher (a little above third fret)
Hope that helps
Jeff
The key is WHERE you touch it. Harmonics work on fractions of string length, which correspond to different intervals. For example:
If you touch at the midway point of the active string length, (12 frets higher) you'll get a harmonic an octave higher. If you touch at the 1/3rd of the active string length (7 frets higher) you'll get a high 5th. Here are the main fractions and the corresponding natural harmonic.
1/2 length-1 octave higher (12th fret)
1/3 length- a 5th a full octave above (7th or 19th frets)
1/4 length- 2 octaves higher (5th fret)
1/5 length- a major 3rd 2 full octaves above (a little behind 4th fret)
1/6 length- a 5th 2 full octaves higher (a little above third fret)
Hope that helps
Jeff