Hacker News Reader

Comment by MrMetlHed | Hacker News Reader

I saw on Twitter he has a patent for a guitar... "support device" that includes the greatest patent image I've ever seen: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4656917A/en

View on HN

What strikes me: the one who draw the guitarist could have done it adding a neutral facial expression (e.g. a jazz musician) but, hell no!, the choice was for a shredding-guitar-solo rock expression. Nice.

A twist on that is that when Eddie played he had a beatific smile, and never the twisted-face shredder guitar look.

he could have made the 142 line ... different too.

The shoes Michael Jackson used for Smooth Criminal were patented as well.

(And if we’re gonna talk about cool patents by entertainers, nothing’s gonna beat Hedy Lamarr’s work on spread spectrum communications.)

> "thus allowing the player to create new techniques and sounds previously unknown to any player"

Not including players of the pedal steel. But that's the patent system for you.

In any case it's all about what you do with it.

That’s like comparing a turn table used for DJ’ing to a record player used to just listen to records. Completely different application, accessories, and technique.

Perhaps, but modern decks have lots of features that record players don't have like effects and EQ. In this case the patented device is basically played in the same way (or can be) just in a different place. It's intended to be for tapping but that's a common pedal steel technique

This is really pedantic, but even in a modern DJ setup the effects and EQ are part of the mixer, not the turntable. The mixer is separate from the turntables, it's the thing with the knobs and faders usually between two turntables.

Even modern DJ turntables are still very, very basic: https://www.technics.com/us/products/dj-series/direct-drive-... They are just more rugged than your everyday home listening record player.

Your pedantry is outdated: there are Serato-compatible decks that have MIDI pads built into them, not everything is trying to mimic the SL-1200s aesthetic these days.

Decks have neither of the examples you claim. Are you confusing an deck with a mixer, sometimes referred to as a mixing desk (though incorrectly)?

https://www.pioneerdj.com/en-gb/product/controller/ddj-400/b...

That's not a record player though, that's a DJ controller. Very different.

The parent comment was comparing DJ equipment to a record player (to this patent), which I feel is a poor example because modern DJ equipment almost always has different equipment too rather even if you could technically do it with a fader and some record players (as in at a gig, I'm aware people still mix on vinyl - pretentious as it can be).

The patented guitar thing is literally played the same way but in a different place, which I think should really be considered prior art unless the fashion aspect is considered rather than purely functionality.

your comment said "decks" though - the ddj1000 is _closer_ to decks, but it's still a controller.

decks, you're thinking (some examples):

cdj350 cdj400 cdj800 cdj850 cdj900 cdj1000 cdj2000 xdj1000 etc

I think part of the reason people are chiming in on the distinction is that a controller is comparable to a mouse for a computer; a controller requires something else for any functionality, at which point you're comparing a general computing device that can do anything to a much more restricted special use device

this guy mixes

> It's intended to be for tapping but that's a common pedal steel technique

I have no idea about how to play pedal steel (but I do play guitar), I thought the string action was way too high on a pedal/lap steel steel to be able to tap on it?

I don't own one but I have done some tapping on one in the back of a music shop, so you might be right on average?

Correct, the action on a pedal steel is very high (so high that you'd probably break strings if you managed to bend one to the "fretboard") and played with a bar.

Not really. The patent just takes the guitar and stabilizes it in a horizontal position, instead of a vertical position, allowing you to do something different with the same instrument. Nothing about the guitar itself changes whatsoever, but the orientation provides for the guitar to be used differently.

The better analogy would be, say, if you took an SL-1200 (a turntable manufactured for DJ'ing) and it rotated it "battle style" - same instrument, same accessories, but a different orientation resulting in a fundamentally different use of the device.

I’m not a fan of battle style but is it really fundamentally different? Eddie’s patent is more like rotating the deck about the z axis and holding it like a guitar. Which would be pretty cool and ridiculous come to think of it :-)

> I’m not a fan of battle style but is it really fundamentally different?

It gets the tone arm out of the way, which is what makes scratching a lot more feasible.

That, and the footprint of a setup is reduced when decks are placed battle style. This is important because turntablism requires a lot of very quick manipulation of both decks and mixer, and it's easier to do this if everything is a lot more compact.

That's also why you typically see turntablists using a simple, small two-channel mixer while other DJs tend to employ wider, bulkier 4+-channel mixers.

To OP's point I could've maybe dropped the word "fundamentally" in my post because at the end of the day the fundamentals remain the same, as do the fundamentals of the guitar in the patent vs regular use.

It is possible to scratch the sl-1200/sl-1210 at 90 degree angle and at 180 degree angle, by Dj Marky:

https://youtu.be/wA5b_AOjrI8 https://youtu.be/6z63irhX6Qs

The analogy does not hold up. There are quite a lot of differences between a "pedal steel" guitar, and an electric guitar. First, electric guitars do not have pedals. Pedal steel guitars do not have a resonating wood body. They produce very different sounds in very different ways.

Of course they do but the description described "techniques"; he's talking about a horizontal guitar play style.

As my comment said I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the patent itself (and really the claims are the thing) just saying that that part of the description is probably wrong. And that the patent system doesn't care.

FWIW all the pedal steel guitars I've ever seen are in fact electric guitars... but I know what you meant.

From the image, it looks like it’s intended to be used specifically for two-handed tapping, which was made famous by Van Halen and not commonly used (or at all) in pedal steel playing. Not sure if that would be unique enough to qualify for patent or not.

https://youtu.be/z_lwocmL9dQ

To my knowledge, steel guitars typically don't even have frets, so it would be essentially impossible.

I play both guitar and pedal steel. The tapping techniques that would be used on a horizontal 6-string guitar would be impractical on a steel guitar (lap or pedal) because the action is too high and there are no frets.

I don’t think that’s true at all. The standard DJ turntable (SL-1200/1210) has no specific features for DJing. I use the exact same ones for “just listen[ing] to records”.

Can’t speak to guitars or pedal steel, though.

That would be Junior Brown's patent. . .

To be pedantic, Pedal Steels are supported by legs like a table. You are probably thinking of lap steels. When played standing up, they are usually supported just by repositioning the strap.

An even better example I don't know why I spaced on it.

Not that I'm complaining he was given a patent.

Or you can just sit in a chair and stick a regular guitar in your lap, like lots of people have done.

For example, Jeff Healey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwgOUzodS6E&t=2m25s

(Not trying to turn this into a competition, by the way. His style definitely seems like it was influenced by Van Halen.)

Or you could just play a stick. https://stick.com

Fwiw, I would be surprised if Eddie Van Halen was not aware of the instrument, since they were invented in Southern California ~8 years before the release of "Van Halen".

Unfortunately that site is using TLS 1.0/1.1 and won't open in modern Firefox...

Eddie was a tapper, which is why this is innovative (not having to use your thumb to stabilize the neck opens up greater range of motion for tapping with the fingers). Very different method than pedal steel, which is always barred.

Also a great example of “Patent Hands”: https://5by5.tv/hypercritical/68

(I’d link to the Flickr album with similar patent drawings involving hands, but it appears to be down)

yeah he sells guitars that he's designed

https://www.evhgear.com/

very neat. Kind of turn the guitar into an a Pedal Steel guitar

Does anyone else find it strange that Van is actually a middle name, thus rendering his name as HALEN EDWARD VAN

“Van” is part of the surname. It means “of” or “from” in Dutch. It’s similar to “De” prefixed to Spanish surnames.

Yes, but the patent application lists his name as "Halen Edward L Van".

So apparently this was misfiled (under the last name "Halen") or filed correctly, just displayed weirdly on patents.google.com (since it appears correctly on the linked uspto.gov [0]).

[0] http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H....

So is the rendering on the patent application correct or incorrect?

His middle name was ‘Lodewijk’, ‘Van’ is just part of a compound last name like Von Richthofen or Fitz Patrick, O’Leary, Di Chirico, etc.

I'd heard before they were Dutch born, but still, to hear that Eddie Van Halen was actually called Edward Lodewijk van Halen makes him sound way more Dutch.

And here I was thinking that Jan Akkerman was the best Dutch guitar player ever.

So in that case, why does it make sense to split up a compound name?

Blame it on tradition. Just like today we don’t write “today” as “to day” as used to be the case.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com