Skip to main content
Music Radar MusicRadar The No.1 website for musicians
  • Guitars
  • Amps
  • Pedals
  • Drums
  • Synths
  • Software
  • Pianos
  • Controllers
  • Recording
  • Buyer’s guides
  • Live
  • DJ
  • Advice
  • Acoustic
  • Bass
  • About us
  • More
    • Reviews
Magazines
  • Computer Music
  • Electronic Musician
  • Future Music
  • Keyboard Magazine
  • Guitarist
  • Guitar Techniques
  • Total Guitar
  • Bass Player
More
  • How to make an AI cover song
  • 84000+ free music samples
  • Foo Fighters' new drummer
  • Ken Scott on recording The Beatles
  • First EVH Jump synth recording

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

  1. Home
  2. News

10 kings and queens of feedback

By Si Truss
published 11 September 2013

A handful of our favourite feedback pioneers

Come on feel the noise...
(Image credit: Katy Winn/Corbis)

Come on feel the noise...

Audio feedback. It’s the soundman’s worst enemy: responsible for ruining gigs, blowing amps and inflicting tinnitus on unsuspecting audience members. It is also, however, responsible for some of the most exciting moments in modern music.

When harnessed and used with skill, the gritty, undulating sound of an audio signal feeding back in on itself becomes a raw and primal sound source. It can create otherworldly drones, turn mundane guitar parts into roaring crescendos, and the past hundred years of music wouldn’t be the same without it.

Here, we’ve rounded up ten of our favourite feedback-wielding musicians, bands and composers - from early pioneers to modern masters of noise. Have we missed any of your favourites? Who else deserves a special mention? Let us know in the comments section below.

Next: 10 kings and queens of feedback

Page 1 of 11
Page 1 of 11
Jimi Hendrix
(Image credit: Dieter Klar/dpa/Corbis)

Jimi Hendrix

If we’re going to talk about feedback, Hendrix seems like an obvious place to start.

He might not have been the first musician to utilise the roar of noise created when the sound of an electric guitar is allowed to fold back on itself, but his iconic manipulation of the technique makes him an undisputed feedback king.

Live, feedback became a cornerstone of Hendrix’s gritty and exciting playing style, whilst on record... well, just try listening to the opening of Fox Lady without getting excited.

Page 2 of 11
Page 2 of 11
The Beatles
(Image credit: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS)

The Beatles

Supposedly, The Beatles ’64 single I Feel Fine is first instance of feedback being used on a pop recording.

The effect, found at the track’s opening, was the result of a note played on McCartney’s bass being picked up and fed back through Lennon’s semi-acoustic, which was resting against its amp at the time. Listen to said feedback in all its isolated glory below.

The Liverpool lads repeated the idea of starting a song with a swell of feedback - in more grizzly and overt fashion - a few years later, with Yellow Submarine’s It’s All Too Much.

Page 3 of 11
Page 3 of 11
Pete Townshend
(Image credit: Jay Dickman/CORBIS)

Pete Townshend

Lennon and McCartney might be able to lay claim to its first recorded use, but The Who’s Pete Townshend is easily guitar feedback’s most notable early proponent.

The bands’ 1965 singles Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere and My Generation both see Townshend manipulating his instrument to work screeches and throbs of feedback into his playing. Right from the outset too, feedback was an iconic feature of the bands energetic and destructive early live shows.

Page 4 of 11
Page 4 of 11
Steve Reich
(Image credit: Jörg Carstensen/dpa/Corbis)

Steve Reich

It would be a fallacy to imply that feedback is a sound technique solely pioneered by rock guitarists. There are multiple influential uses of feedback manipulation that appear throughout 20th Century classical music.

US composer Robert Ashley was possibly first to experiment with feedback as a compositional tool. His 1964 work The Wolfman, a piece based around vocal mic feedback, gained a reputation for being potentially threatening to the listener’s health and hearing.

American minimalist Steve Reich’s Pendulum Music is, however, probably the most notable modern classical work to take feedback as its primary sound source. The piece is based around a series of microphones suspended by their leads over speakers, which are rocked like pendulums to create throbbing and slowly evolving feedback that eventually morphs into a constant drone as the mics come to rest at a standstill.

Page 5 of 11
Page 5 of 11
Lou Reed
(Image credit: Jean-Louis Atlan/Sygma/Corbis)

Lou Reed

Lou first embraced the noise with the Velvet Underground during their White Light/White Heat period, but it was his ’75 album Metal Machine Music that really saw him pushing feedback manipulation to new extremes.

The record features four extended drone pieces, each comprised entirely of guitar feedback created by feeding differently tuned guitars through reverb pedals and then placing them in front of powerful amps.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the album received a critical slating upon its initial release. It’s undoubtedly proved an influential record though - an important foundation in the noise rock genre and a grand statement within Reed’s post-Velvets career.

Page 6 of 11
Page 6 of 11
Grateful Dead
(Image credit: Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis)

Grateful Dead

Ever-touring psychedelic jam band icons the Grateful Dead were one of the first acts to include extended stretches of feedback and noise into their live shows.

Alongside their standard drawn-out sets and extended improvisations, Deadheads could often expect to be treated to long period of squealing guitar noise pumped out through the band’s custom-built Wall Of Sound PA system.

Page 7 of 11
Page 7 of 11
Sonic Youth
(Image credit: Christopher Felver/Corbis)

Sonic Youth

Although controlled feedback was a pretty prominent sound throughout underground rock in the late-‘80s and ‘90s, few bands became masters of it in the way Sonic Youth did.

The band’s three guitarists - Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo and Kim Gordon - pushed rock playing into new territory by combining the sort of feedback experiments pioneered by Lou Reed with techniques borrowed from modern classical composers (notably, they performed Reich’s Pendulum Music on their ’99 release Goodbye 20th Century.)

Page 8 of 11
Page 8 of 11
Steve Albini
(Image credit: JOSE COELHO/epa/Corbis)

Steve Albini

As both a musician and a producer, Steve Albini is modern rock’s go-to man for noise.

Albini’s screeching, dissonant style of feedback and distortion-drenched guitar playing has provided the defining feature of his bands Big Black and Shellac. Creating abrasive, almost-industrial riffs that provide percussion more than melody.

Moreover, as studio engineer for bands like Nirvana, Pixies and The Jesus Lizard (to name just a few of literally hundreds) he’s been responsible for capturing the feedback-soaked performances of some of the most iconic, noisy rock bands of the past 25 years.

Page 9 of 11
Page 9 of 11
Robert Fripp
(Image credit: Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis)

Robert Fripp

Whilst he might not be quite as prolific a feedback merchant as some of the other musicians included here, King Crimson icon Robert Fripp deserves inclusion for being responsible for one of the most iconic uses of guitar feedback of all time: the guitar line to David Bowie’s Heroes.

Working with producer Tony Visconti, Fripp formed the famous lead line by positioning himself and his guitar at various points around the studio to record each note and create the pitched, sustained feedback effect.

Page 10 of 11
Page 10 of 11
My Bloody Valentine
(Image credit: Jared Milgrim/Corbis)

My Bloody Valentine

To be fair, on record, the ear-splitting noise experiments of MBV main-man Kevin Shields aren’t entirely unparalleled. His effect-laden playing style has obvious roots in the work of bands like Sonic Youth and The Jesus And Mary Chain - both of which should be considered feedback icons in their own right.

The Irish four-piece deserve mention, however, for their apocalyptically loud live shows, which generally climax in a section known as ‘the holocaust’. The performance sees closing track You Made Me Realise descend into an interlude of feedback and distorted noise, played at deafening volume, which tends to last for around 30 minutes.

Page 11 of 11
Page 11 of 11
Si Truss
Si Truss
Social Links Navigation

I'm Editor-in-Chief of Music Technology, working with Future Music, Computer Music, Electronic Musician and MusicRadar. I've been messing around with music tech in various forms for over two decades. I've also spent the last 10 years forgetting how to play guitar. Find me in the chillout room at raves complaining that it's past my bedtime.


More about guitars
Pil & Bue pedalboard

Pedalboard tour: how Petter Carlsen from the Norwegian duo Pil & Bue gets his juggernaut guitar tones

PEDALS

What makes overdrive, distortion and fuzz pedals different?

Latest
SSL UF1

SSL’s UF1 promises to “set a new standard for single fader DAW controllers”

See more latest ►
Most Popular
The unlikely story of Aphex Twin's weirdest gig, when he DJ'd with sandpaper and stuck a microphone in a blender

By MusicRadar31 May 2023

Gryffin: "After I discovered deadmau5, Skrillex and Avicii, I immediately downloaded Ableton Live"

By Andy Price31 May 2023

Fender’s limited edition MIJ Hybrid II Stratocasters expands, offering specs and finishes previously only available in Japan

By Jonathan Horsley30 May 2023

Klevgrand’s Richter is a ‘tectonic’, super-heavy compressor plugin that the company thinks is off the scale

By Ben Rogerson30 May 2023

New Van Halen documentary takes us back to the early ‘80s to tell the story of how Eddie built 5150 Studios as the band were coming apart

By Jonathan Horsley30 May 2023

The Jura’s out: Air Music releases new plugin emulation of Roland’s Juno-60 synth

By Ben Rogerson30 May 2023

The "first producer to be transformed into AI", Cosm Bot is an AI chatbot and music production expert trained on 1000 hours of online tutorials

By Matt Mullen30 May 2023

Dave Mustaine’s signature Vs from Epiphone and Kramer are officially released and they look mighty thrashable

By Jonathan Horsley30 May 2023

The plugin deals are heating up with 50% off in Native Instruments' Summer of Sound sale

By Daryl Robertson30 May 2023

The RX1200 plugin could be the closest you’ll get to having an E-MU SP-1200 sampler inside your DAW

By Ben Rogerson30 May 2023

Ibanez expands its Paul Gilbert signature series with the super classy, super shreddable PGM50 and PGM1000T

By Jonathan Horsley30 May 2023

  1. And you can watch Mr Gilbert introduce them in the maximum shred demo video
    1
    Ibanez expands its Paul Gilbert signature series with the super classy, super shreddable PGM50 and PGM1000T
  2. 2
    The Jura’s out: Air Music releases new plugin emulation of Roland’s Juno-60 synth
  3. 3
    Mick Hucknall on the 10 songs that changed his life: “The Beatles changed the way music sounded, but the Stones were the world’s greatest rock band”
  4. 4
    People are going crazy for Nopia, the MIDI chord generator prototype that’s racked up 2.6m video views in 8 days
  5. 5
    Learn these four essential guitar chord inversions and unlock new ideas
  1. Get your fifths and ninths in order as we explore one of the most identifiable pad sounds around
    1
    How to create the 'perfect fifths' synth pad
  2. 2
    The Jura’s out: Air Music releases new plugin emulation of Roland’s Juno-60 synth
  3. 3
    Mixing engineer Bob Clearmountain: “I shouldn’t say this, probably, but I think in a couple of years Dolby Atmos is going to go away”
  4. 4
    Mick Hucknall on the 10 songs that changed his life: “The Beatles changed the way music sounded, but the Stones were the world’s greatest rock band”
  5. 5
    “Nebraska was cut on crap equipment…” How Bruce Springsteen made his most important album in his bedroom with just a Gibson J-200 and a TEAC 144

MusicRadar is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All rights reserved. England and Wales company registration number 2008885.