Dissecting HIYAW... the science, the psycho-acoustic nature, and the fallacies

[deltaslim]

Can you hear it in this clip?

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=330460&songID=9321479

[tongski_02]

kung ganoon pala, gawa na tayo hiyaw pedal o hiyaw modeler. 

gumagawa na si plugzzzz electronics ng hiyaw pedal. lahat ng note,chords, pick attack lage humihiyaw. bebenta namin na mas mahal pa sa tunay na gibson lespaul 1959.

[firemodel55]

I just want to commend deltaslim's efforts in trying to explain 'hiyaw'.  Its is very difficult to convey via the written medium but joric is doing a great job at it.

[itchybrain]

I think it's more accurate to say that the guitar can have it acoustically (eg, in an anechoic chamber)  but it might be hard to hear w/o good pickups and amps. The pickups and amp just convert, amplify, and possibly enhance what the guitar is producing physically. If it's not produced by the guitar itself, the best pickups and amps in the world won't re-produce it.  It might help to note that acoustic guitars can have double tone/hiyaw properties too, which just proves the point that the root of that characteristic is the physical/construction properties of the guitar.

However, the moment string vibration is converted to electromagnetic energy by the pickup and amplified by the amp/speaker, i believe the pickup and amps start to play a very big role in the final tone. That's when pickup materials, construction, location, height, position, and a myriad of amp properties, changes the basic acoustic tone into something more. So, again, in that sense, pickups, amps, and speakers, play a part in how that double tone (or hiyaw or whatever you wanna call it) will be heard by human ears post-amplification. It's still the sum of all parts, even though the physical guitar is the only part that you cannot do without.

ok.. now my nose is bleeding. i'm getting this. slowly.

I just want to commend deltaslim's efforts in trying to explain 'hiyaw'.  Its is very difficult to convey via the written medium but joric is doing a great job at it.

kudos to you, too, Alex, for the humility. *bro-fist.

[free2rock]

Can you hear it in this clip?

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=330460&songID=9321479

I don't know how to describe what I heard, but I like it

It's hard to put it in words if you have a narrow vocabulary, you see

[bryanarzaga]

I just want to commend deltaslim's efforts in trying to explain 'hiyaw'.  Its is very difficult to convey via the written medium but joric is doing a great job at it.

how about describing it in a way that makes you feel such as if you went to Filipo's house and bring your baker with you, test the two and in a way describe which one gives you more of the mojo that you are looking for..

that is between the two

[chicken08]

Yung hiyaw ba, yun ba yung tunog kapag nagpluck ka ng string, tapos unti unting madodoble yung tunog na parang octave, na parang mejo naka wah pedal?

Hiyaw ba yun or Ngiyaw?

[toybitz]

Going to Arie is perhaps the only way to avoid guess work. Others will give you their own interpretation which may or may not be 100% accurate to Arie's definition and intent.

I'm not discounting the possibilty that others can demo hiyaw but if I want to be 100% sure, I'l go straight to the source.

The luthier should own a sample of 'mojo' and since Arie can show that...yes...

I agree, Kuya Arie's place is the place to go.

[toybitz]

I heard "hiyaw", but heard it in the wrong hands Thurs, two weeks ago sa Freedom bar..a guy with a white bolt on Les Paul, subbing for the band's on vacation guitarist.....

I want to coin the awful outcome of his sound, "ngiwi".

Can some members start using the word "ngiwi"? gusto ko din makapag-contribute sa "Makabagong Diksyonaryo".

If some of you were there, like 3 other members were...several times we looked at each other as the guy continued to finish the set...and we swear his guitar + skills oozed with "ngiwi".

good guitar + bad intonation + bad hearing + good amp + great facial expressions = NGIWI

I am half-glad the band didn't finish "Cause We've Ended As Lovers" for their sound check.

[juan_portnoy]

I'd like to quote Slipperman here from this collection of articles:

http://www.badmuckingfastard.com/sound/slipperman.html

Most(not all, with the advent of CMI's) musical instruments, and the poor bastards cursed with playing them, are integrated human controlled sound pressure transduction systems. That is, some guy stands in a room, straps on a guitar, picks up a plectrum, strikes a string(or 2 or 6), the string resonates in response to the applied mechanical energy at a frequency determined by a combination of it's tension, it's length, and it's diameter(which partially facilitates it's range of frequency vs. total tension)a pickup converts that mechanical energy into electrical current containing both frequency and amplitude, it passes down a guitar cable, into a pre-amplifier/Eq, onto an amplifier(these two are often an integrated system, as we know), and out to a speaker(or often a number of speakers in an enclosure) which excurse and create sound pressure changes at the same frequency(s) in the acoustic environ that those speakers are located in.

Those sound pressure changes contract and expand(the actual terms are compression and rarefaction) the air in the room, this energy zips into our eardrums, our eardrums resonate in sympathy and in turn convert these pulses into human electrical energy that gets loaded onto the 'hellbound express' and shipped right into the brain.

That's when we go.... "Dude......YOU ROCK!!".

Or maybe. "Doooooode.... YOU SUCK!"

Anyways.

These HUMAN CONTROLLED SYSTEMS of SPL generation are an INTEGRATED system that stretches all the way from the skill/intentions of the player to the movement of the speaker cone in the room.

1 (hopefully) harmonious system that is inter-dependant(to varying degrees and often in a bewilderingly complicated series of relationships) ON EVERY SINGLE COMPONENT IN THE SYSTEM.

Again.

1 INTEGRATED SYSTEM, DEPENDANT TO VARYING DEGREES ON EVERY COMPONENT IN THE F****** SYSTEM.

Again.

1 INTEGRATED SYSTEM, DEPENDANT TO VARYING DEGREES ON EVERY COMPONENT IN THE F****** SYSTEM.

One more time because it's going to become a f****** mantra here in this thread........

EVERY SINGLE COMPONENT IN THE WHOLE F****** SYSTEM MATTERS TO SOME F****** DEGREE, IN SOME F****** RESPECT.

The f****** pick matters.

Dude.

The F****** PICK MATTERS.

[deltaslim]

Yung hiyaw ba, yun ba yung tunog kapag nagpluck ka ng string, tapos unti unting madodoble yung tunog na parang octave, na parang mejo naka wah pedal?

Sakto!

[burnsbhm]

Can you hear it in this clip?

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=330460&songID=9321479

Yes Joric, around the first few seconds of the tune. Pretty amazing, the guy has jazz chops. And more amazing to thing he used Chinese pickups on that guitar.

[spankyrigor]

Yes Joric, around the first few seconds of the tune. Pretty amazing, the guy has jazz chops. And more amazing to thing he used Chinese pickups on that guitar.

By "Chinese" did you mean "cheap, mass-produced"? joke
Zhangbuckers are boutique pickups. The guy is based in LA:

http://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=156601

[burnsbhm]

dude, Zhangbuckers are boutique pickups. The guy is based in LA:

http://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=156601

Ah ganun ba? Kasi nakalagay Zhangliqun or something like that sa description niya and the first thing that comes to mind is a pinyin translation of a CHinese brand.

I STAND CORRECTED SIR.

[spankyrigor]

^^

  peace tayo chief.. Zhangliqun is the builder's forum username.

[Mocho]

Sakto!

Ah yun ba yun? Kasi pag nagbebend ako dun sa 2nd hand cheap Epi ko parang nagkakaroon ng wah effect na parang pusang naglalampong

[burnsbhm]

Ah yun ba yun? Kasi pag nagbebend ako dun sa 2nd hand cheap Epi ko parang nagkakaroon ng wah effect na parang pusang naglalampong

Same case in two of my guitars, akala mo may sustaining wah sound pag nag bend ka on a very good tube amp. Kahit Fender Twin Reverb on slightly dirty mode, may lumalabas na ganun.

[itchybrain]

Ah yun ba yun? Kasi pag nagbebend ako dun sa 2nd hand cheap Epi ko parang nagkakaroon ng wah effect na parang pusang naglalampong

Gusto ko yang "pusang naglalampong." One for the books, brother. One for the books.

[fusionenigma]

You should change your sig bro to "I WANNA HEAR THE PUSANG NAGLALAMPONG" 

[redballs17]

I'm still curious whats the universal term for this "hiyaw"? or it's just a slang word here in PM?

[Filippo]

Joric

I wonder what guitar the guys was using in the clip. Would you know what it is? it says 55 les paul? Is it a 55 conversion?

[masterchoxter]

I'm still curious whats the universal term for this "hiyaw"? or it's just a slang word here in PM?

hiyaw = squeal

that's the closest translation possible... 

[firemodel55]

how about describing it in a way that makes you feel such as if you went to Filipo's house and bring your baker with you, test the two and in a way describe which one gives you more of the mojo that you are looking for..

that is between the two

Of all the guitars I have tested on Earth at this point in time, the Baker Firemodel 55 has the most hiyaw.  For those who don't believe you can ask my close friend Arie Hipolito.  Period.  Pending the Gil Yaron I ordered, Baker Firemodel 55's HIYAW ABILITY is its specific strength aside from the fact that the guitar itself has MOJO.  I don't feel comfortable comparing it to anyone's other guitar because it might make them feel bad.  I mean ... walang solution.  How can I even duplicate the 55 or even transfer its properties to the other guitar?

By the way, I have two bakers but Firemodel 55's strength is both the thick top of the bend sustain along with the double note when its bent.

In the case of the Firemodel 55, its like the double note is always ON.  Its not some kind of distorted raspy electronic effect but its as if the guitar had a built in slight chorus.  As a consequence, you really need to back off on the gain and the volume on a good amp because the guitar is so richly harmonically that it can cut thru all the instruments in the band and that includes beating the bass, keyboards, drums and cymbals. 

[shodawmoon]

Same case in two of my guitars, akala mo may sustaining wah sound pag nag bend ka on a very good tube amp. Kahit Fender Twin Reverb on slightly dirty mode, may lumalabas na ganun.

I've experienced the same thing on that amp.

using a cheapo plywood guitar in fact. no kidding.

bear in mind i was using a Seymour Duncan hot rails on the bridge with a boston HM100 (this was around 2007) just before i joined this forum.

what would that mean then? could it be that it was just the pedal and the pickup?

[Filippo]

Of all the guitars I have tested on Earth at this point in time, the Baker Firemodel 55 has the most hiyaw.  For those who don't believe you can ask my close friend Arie Hipolito.  Period.  Pending the Gil Yaron I ordered, Baker Firemodel 55's HIYAW ABILITY is its specific strength aside from the fact that the guitar itself has MOJO.  I don't feel comfortable comparing it to anyone's other guitar because it might make them feel bad.  I mean ... walang solution.  How can I even duplicate the 55 or even transfer its properties to the other guitar?

By the way, I have two bakers but Firemodel 55's strength is both the thick top of the bend sustain along with the double note when its bent.

In the case of the Firemodel 55, its like the double note is always ON.  Its not some kind of distorted raspy electronic effect but its as if the guitar had a built in slight chorus.  As a consequence, you really need to back off on the gain and the volume on a good amp because the guitar is so richly harmonically that it can cut thru all the instruments in the band and that includes beating the bass, keyboards, drums and cymbals. 

Alex's guitar may have more double tone than the conversion. Then again maybe not. As of this point, I don't think it really matters, with that being a distinct attribute of the guitar. What's more important if you ask me is what you do with the double tone and how you actually make use of that beautiful character and make it shine with the way you play the instrument. You really don't need double tone if you're just going to pound power chord after power chord on your guitar.

I've played that guitar. It sounds as darn good as it looks. Is it an all around guitar because of its hiyaw? Probably not. I think it will be killer for a particular type of musical application but not all. I guess my point is, nobody needs to feel bad if his guitar doesn't hiyaw as much as his neighbor's guitar. At the end of the day, pick the intrument that best suits what you want based on your application.

Alex, if you do decide to want to compare though, I don't mind at all. You're welcome to visit! We're all grown men, I can handle it no matter which way it goes