Weird guitar sounds

[Dylan]

There's a picture of Fred Frith in the new Wire with his "pickup at the headstock" guitar.

[johnnyshape]

If you mail your guitar to Alaska and put a lot of chorus on it, you can get some pretty cool sounds.

I like turning the first knob on my amplifier up, the one by the input socket. When I say up, I mean past 3 o'clock, man! You start getting this crazy, filthy dirty sound. If you turn the last knob up as well, sometimes you can make your guitar scream! Not much use for music, but sure as hell scares the neighbours!

[Swat]

Hmmm... What about shoving a mic in a piece of pvc tube? You could also kinda get someone to move it around the speaker cone. I'd think that mixing the signal would work better, but this is just a conceptual idea.

Also, for acoustic guitar, have a pair of stereo mics with a fair amount of space between them and get the guitarist to walk around the room while playing. You can hear the phase going in and out kinda like a flanger/chorus. If it's an ambiant room, you'd pick up the steps of the guitarist, the squeeking of the floorboards etc. I would assume that a pignose or 'belt' amplifier might work as well.

The heating vents that are above my room sound pretty cool with a mic in them too.

What about a mic in a bass drum?

As for the guitarist side of it, the E-bow is pretty damned cool. Also using a wah pedal as a way to control feedback works too.

[bpchnc]

I was also wondering how the hell the guitar sound on "Passing Complexion" was achieved.

santiago wished his repeating harmonic figure could have been played an octave higher than executed. iain burgess responded with a little eventide magic. (very exciting stuff in the 80's) if i remember correctly sant was cranking up his mini roland practice amp at this point.

[Space_Streakings_are_Gods]

the first poster asked about passing complexion... the band scissor shock actually covered that.. look it up on http://www.soundclick.com

listening to their version, it sounds like it's just bottom string octave harmonics. obviously the big black version just has tons of distortion..

Anyway, I like to put a fork in between the strings right in front of the pickups.. put the end of the fork on the bottom string and then have the top of the fork go OVER the middle strings and then put the top of the fork under the 2nd-from-the-top string.. whatever. when you hit the bottom string, the whole fork will move and make crazy vibrating sounds.

Also, near the pickups.. put a pen/marker/drumstick under the strings.. obvious but I don't think anyone mentioned it.

A quarter or an allen wrench rubbing really hard against the strings almost makes the guitar sound like a double bass.

Take the jack out of the guitar and rub it against the strings; in some guitar/amp combinations, it can make cool sounds. Be careful, though, because it can shock you. Literally shock you.

I once put tinfoil around the strings... Also:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepared_guitar

[pepezabala]

I played slide with my mobile phone, then a call came in, with all these interferences, that was actually kind of funny. You can get some evil noise with a guitar-pickup, a distortion-pedal and a mobile phone, and if there is someone actually talking on the other side of the phone, it sounds as if the voice comes from hell. In order to have that effect on stage you can just call mom.

[mfpole]

My friend gave me an old Kramer guitar. I was messing around with it, so soon two of the strings broke (5th and 1st). I then looped the 5th string around the 2-4 around a few times and then tied a knot. Its neat.

Also, if I'm doing work at home, I'll sometimes just turn the volume up and throw pen and pencils at my guitar. Sometimes its just great to hear the sound of feedback, huh.

[Guthrie]

One of my personal favorites is making your guitar sound like a steel drum by weaving heavy picks between the strings and playing between the picks.

I once played around with a small, $60 ZOOM multi-effects pedal and there was a pre-programmed steel-drum sound. It is, of course, a digital pedal and it was some pitch-shifting, reverb and a little chorus mixed together, I believe.

It was pretty stupid but sounded fairly realistic.

[gideon]

A classic...


Headstock right into the cab till the whole body is resonating.

[blue_thunder]

you can get a bunch of weird efects using the electro harmonix polychorus pedal. http://www.ehx.com

I've cleared many bars with my polychorus. At the end of my shows, I used to lean my guitar up against my amp with the pickups facing the speaker so that it would continually feedback. Then I'd start turning knobs on my polychorus and some of my other pedals for like 10-15 mins. The couple guys who'd actually sit through the whole thing would tell me how amazing it was. I'm pretty sure they were on drugs.

[aen]

Weird guitar sounds is kind of my MO.

http://www.myspace.com/aenpage (except "sea of fists" thats like metal or something)

I'm not 100% sure what pedals are in there...
POG
Devi Ever TP
crybaby
loopstation
Great Destroyer

more, im sure.

[kerble]

I've taken to using a violin bow on my semi-hollow. I use flatwounds, so it doesn't catch on the cat hairs. shit sounds great through fuzzes, distortions, etc. the POG octave down really makes it sound like a cello. I am running it through a 12" a 15" and a tweeter, though, so it resonates nicely.

love it.

[2207]

I sometimes use a violin bow with bass.

[japmn]

Get those little black hair band that your girlfriend has and the cat likes so much, the little rubber band things, and put them around your guitar neck at the 12th fret and play. It harmonic-izes everything. Move it around. You can get some space banjo sounds. Putting a thin piece of plastic like from a train card in the strings by the bridge wil banjo out your guitar even more.

Also get a 12 string and tune all of the secondary strings to a fifth or third or what ever and rip solos into a fuzz. that is nifty.

1 more. Use those little hand held fans with foam blades to bow the strings of you guitar.

all of it through a delay and fuzz. all of it.

[30Peak]

I've gotten some great tones putting the guitarist in a tanning bed after several shots of Jägermeister. Be sure the Jäger is ice cold. This seems to work best with Strat players.

[aen]

I love my Murf.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyr8OhfmDxY

[aen]

Fucking spambot. I htought someone was excited about my noises.

[Ryan Electrocution]

I found that using an Ebow and the Electro-harmonix Q-tron is just super for really squealing parts, the best thing is that the qtron is a volume controled envelope so when you move the Ebow back from the pickup you get mellow tones and the closser you get the more the high harmonix, volume and sustain increase untill it sounds like a really squelshy synth. this also works really well with phasers/step phasers like the Boss ph3, the tracks Ive done using these effects and the 'bow sound nothing like a gtr, plus you can't play chords with the ebow so it will make you look for new things to add to your songs or whatever.


On another note, if you use the butt/side of your hand when damping parts between power chords smack the strings right onto the pickups rather than down near the bridge where you dampen. this gives a real nice glich to breaks etc..

EBows can be great, I agree, there's a ton of things that you can do with them.

[japmn]

Inside every flanger (that I have seen) is a trim pot. Turn that bitch until the flanger sounds like Tron.

[joed424]

put your guitar directly in front of your amp for direct feedback, put it through a wah and a leslie emulator and you get some cool sounds, also put some light tom medium dist on it.