Hendrix had a ferocious, powerful signature sound with howling guitar solos that few could ever replicate. There were a few key factors to his signature style; firstly, his most commonly used guitar was a fender Stratocaster. Hendrix would play the guitar upside down as he was left-handed and flip the guitar strings. Due to the pickup positioning this gave him a brighter sound on the lowest string of the bridge pickup. Another factor and one of Hendrix’s signature effects was a Wah pedal. The opening riff of Voodoo Child is one of the most popular uses of a Wah pedal in modern music.
He would combine this with a Fuzz and an octave-doubling pedal alongside a Uni-Vibe, which emulates the rotating of a Leslie-type speaker. Hendrix was also one of the first to use stereophonic phasing effects in recordings. One effect that’s synonymous with Hendrix is his love for amp feedback. He would perform with a row of Marshall Super Lead 100 Watt full-stacks and was estimated to own between 50-100 Marshall amplifiers. Hendrix would visit Jim Marshall through drummer Mitch Mitchell and he would commonly ‘Dime the amp’ which resulted in him turning every knob to it’s maximum level. Resulting in that classic, saturated, overdriven sound.
Besides his love for Stratocasters, Marshall amps and fuzz/wah, Hendrix’s playing technique was just as unique as his tone. He would commonly use his thumb to fret the 6th string root note instead of bar chords, allowing him to play lines over the top of the fretted root note. He would also use double stops and open-string voicings to create truly unique phrases. For example, the use of the chord F#7#9 heard in Foxey Lady.