{"id":593851,"date":"2026-05-20T06:11:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T06:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/593851\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T06:11:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T06:11:13","slug":"the-time-jimi-hendrix-was-stunned-by-eddie-kramers-tonal-technique","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/593851\/","title":{"rendered":"The time Jimi Hendrix was stunned by Eddie Kramer’s tonal technique"},"content":{"rendered":"

Few producers and engineers have had as much impact on rock \u2019n\u2019 roll history as Eddie Kramer<\/a>. His sonic fingerprints can be heard on career-defining records such as Led Zeppelin<\/a>\u2019s Led Zeppelin II, Kiss\u2019s Alive!, and Anthrax\u2019s Among the Living.<\/p>\n

Yet it\u2019s perhaps his close collaboration with Jimi Hendrix<\/a> that most pushed the envelope of the craft itself, including pioneering techniques such as stereo phasing\/flanging, which created the characteristic whooshing psychedelic sound that\u2019s quintessentially Hendrix.<\/p>\n

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\u201cExperimenting with stereo, which I really, really got into on Axis: [Bold as Love, released in 1967] showed the next expanse of Jimi\u2019s sound: phasing,\u201d Kramer tells Rick Beato <\/a>when reflecting on Hendrix\u2019s ever-expanding palette of guitar sounds.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI was very fortunate to have worked with the Beatles<\/a> on two occasions. I did All You Need is Love and Baby, You\u2019re a Rich Man. I think it was on the All You Need Is Love session. We asked \u2013 now he’s dearly departed \u2013 George Chkiantz, a fantastic engineer, and we said, \u2018George, how did you get that phasing sound for the Beatles?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Chkiantz was far from keen to spill his secrets. \u201cHe says, \u2018Well, chaps, you know, if you look in the BBC Radiophonic Handbook, you\u2019ll actually find it there.\u2019 And we said, \u2018Fuck you, George.\u2019 I mean, come on, we\u2019re just asking!\u201d<\/p>\n

Kramer knew that the Beatles had managed to get it in mono, and, spurred by the nonchalant reply, was determined to go one step further \u2013 and teamed up with Chkiantz himself to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge, God bless him, locked himself away in one of the small studios in the back with about four tape machines, and a week later he came out and said, \u2018Eddie, I got it. I got the stereo phasing.\u2019 \u2018Great! Let\u2019s try it with Hendrix.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s exactly what they did, testing it first on the coda of the freshly recorded Bold as Love.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the appointed day, we’re putting the final touches to the mix. \u2018Jimi, come in. We want to play you something.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

As Kramer relates, the tape machines were rolling, and right as Mitch Mitchell launches into that massive, thundering drum break, the phasing kicks in \u2013 created by slightly delaying one signal against another \u2013 forever defining Hendrix\u2019s psychedelic-infused sonic universe.<\/p>\n

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\u201cJimi’s sitting behind me on the couch, and he hears this, and he loses his shit completely,\u201d Kramer recalls.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe falls on the floor in a fetal position and puts his hands on his ears. \u2018Oh my god, oh my god, I can\u2019t believe [it]! What is that? That was something in my dream. How did you do that? Play it again!\u2019 So we play it again. Oh, he\u2019s going crazy! [He says], \u2018I want that shit on everything, man.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cTrue story!\u201d the producer concludes with a laugh. Watch the full interview above, or subscribe to Rick Beato\u2019s channel<\/a> for more.<\/p>\n

Kramer spilled the beans on what went into working with Hendrix<\/a> in a recent Guitar World interview, where he also detailed how they managed to achieve the \u201cbackwards guitar\u201d on Are You Experienced. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Few producers and engineers have had as much impact on rock \u2019n\u2019 roll history as Eddie Kramer. His…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-593851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}