flyinguitars

Faiz Haq — engineer at AMD, guitarist, photographer, Himalayan trekker

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I write software at AMD for a living. Everything else — the guitar, the camera, the mountains — is what I do to feel alive.

Music and creativity

Senior Software Development Engineer at AMD. M.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Hyderabad. The day job involves high-performance computing. Everything outside of it involves significantly less computing and significantly more feeling.

flyinguitars started as a name for guitar videos on Instagram. It became the handle for all the things I do after I close my laptop — playing electric guitar through Neural DSP, photographing skies I'll never see twice, and walking into the Himalayas with a backpack and no particular plan to come back on schedule.

Chelsea supporter since I was twelve. That's the hill I'll die on.

Role
Senior SDE, AMD
Education
M.Tech CSE, IIT Hyderabad
Signal Chain
Neural DSP
01 — Music

The guitar is how I think
when words stop working.

I play electric through Neural DSP — Archetype Asato for the cleans and leads that ring out, Archetype Rabea when I want something heavier and wider. No band. No live shows. I record at home, put things on YouTube, and spend an unreasonable amount of time adjusting the same three knobs.

The electric guitar is the only thing I'm genuinely patient with. If you play, you understand. If you don't, I'll spare you the thirty-minute explanation of why one amp sim sounds "warmer" than another.

Plugin
Archetype: Asato
Cleans, leads, the organic side
Plugin
Archetype: Rabea
Crunch, ambient textures, the big sound
Electric guitar
02 — Photography

Mostly skies.
Sometimes what's under them.

Started pointing the camera up because the sky kept doing things I couldn't believe. Golden hour stretching across a Himalayan valley. Monsoon clouds stacking into towers. A single contrail across a clear blue. It grew into landscapes, village life, and the occasional street frame when the light decides to cooperate.

Two handles. @faiskies_ for the personal, contemplative work. @flyinguitars for where music and photography overlap.

@faiskies_ @flyinguitars
Snow-capped Himalayan peaks, Himachal Pradesh
Tin rooftops in a Himachali village
Mountain landscape
03 — Treks

The mountains are where
I stop thinking.

Two major treks done. A handful of Himachali village walks. An ever-growing list of reasons to go back.

01

Kashmir Great Lakes

Sonamarg to Naranag · ~72 km · 7 days

Seven alpine lakes across a corridor of wildflower meadows and snow-dusted passes. Done it twice — the first time for the lakes, the second time for everything in between.

Read 02

Pin Babha Pass

Kafnu to Mud Village · Kinnaur to Spiti · ~50 km · 4,919 m

Fifty kilometres from Kafnu to Mud Village, through Kara Lake and over a 4,919-metre pass into the grey moonscape of Spiti. Then five landslides on the road home.

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The village trails
of Himachal

Not every walk needs a summit. The best days were often on unmarked trails between Himachali villages — wooden bridges over glacial rivers, chai with shepherds, skies with no light pollution.

Kheerganga Jibhi Shoja Ragupurgarh Kalga Pulga Tulga Gajnau Thatch Malana Barshangarh Shangarh Triund
Contact
Say hello.
fh.haq27@gmail.com Email @faiskies_ YouTube @faiskies_ Instagram @flyinguitars Instagram