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On Mon, 17 Aug 1998, Steve Lauder wrote: > I was wondering whether anyone had played round with effects to get any >real > weird sounds out of a guitar? > I've used delays, distortions, compressors, vocoders etc, but at the end >of > the day you can still recognise the sound as that of a guitar. I'm after > something really whacky, and I was after some hints. I assume you've already tried how all these monsters interact with each other in different settings. If not try a chain with something like: Delay-> Distortion -> Chorus or flanger -> compressor -> EQ and mess with the knobs throughout the chain. I think flangers in general are awesome warpers of sound as are cheapass EQs or Phasers. Put them where they're not supposed to be and see what happens. The most effective warper I've used is weirdass guitar synths. Unfortunately these are pretty expensive in the Vintage market but they give you a sound unlike any stompbox. basically if you churned the sound through a resonant filter and some form of envelope you might start coming close. Then Korg X119 is a great little unit and shows up for arodun $250 or so on the 'net occasionally. It tracks horribly but as a processor it's fantastic. The Korg MS20 synthesizer has an onbaor pitch to Voltage converter and two resonant bands on it's fliter which makes this the ultimate processor (unless you're going to go fully modular like eno did with a SynthiAKS or something). Alsa again these things are $$$. You mentioned Nine inch nails and trent often would run his sounds into an Arp 2600 modular synth to get something no one else (including himself) could duplicate). The Nord Virtual modular would laos fit this bill if you've got $2k sitting around. on the more realistic price front the Boss SYB3 bass synthesizer is a new pedal out that has a setting that warps the sound quite well plus two autowah settings that are a good start when you start to mess with the cutoff and Resonance knobs. I did a review of it here: http://www.voicenet.com/~legion/syb3.htm Also the New sensor/EH QTron has a fantastic multimode filter it uses for it's autowah setting. it claims to do everything the mutron III envelope follower does and then some. get some patterns runnning with that and throw them into a digital Echoplex and you'll have juicy drum beats coming from your guitar. A company Called Zvex makes one of a kind pedals such as an 8 step phaser called the Seekwah and the "Machine" which is a combination of ringmodulator and compressor plus some other magic. These are basically indescribable. they do things nothing else can and do so even more when combined with other pedals. They run around $250 or so each and are tough to find though so are not to be taken lightly The ultimate warper IMO is the electro harmonix Guitar synth pedal with three ocatave sliders, an attack/envelop, Square wave fuzz, and harsh raspy filter with attack/decay sweep setting all in one. I'm told these will be reissued shortly but I've head that "any day now" for two years. Used these go for $350-450+ (some dealers ask $700-800). This is the most unique stompbox I've ever played. I love it. You can make your own version mini using an octave pedal, autowah or filter pedal, and fuzz in a chain. Not the same but it you already have some of these sitting around you'll find some pretty cool combinations. Again I love the boss stuff but really anything will do. The Boss Dynamic Filter pedal can do nice things and has an input to sweep the filter with an external cv pedal (the DOD FX17 is a nice cheap one used).Hell just "cheat" and use a wah wah pedal in there somewhere anyway. It's basically a lowpass filter circuit. One of the easiest techniques I've found to getting a "non guitar" sound is to remove the attack from the note and run it into a delay. This is what everyone from Belew to SRV has done by literally putting your pinky on the volume and picking a string and then sweeping the volume up slowly. In effect this is a form of envelope shaping and when you run it through a delay you get an extended note. Now if you run the guitar into a filter, fuzz, and flanger and then use this techique you'll get a *very* unguitar-like sound. Also I've has good results playing what I call "metal drops" using an old metal case Ibanez flanger with everything set on the highest speed. It sweeps the delay range so fast it warbles but still retains a pitch of the note. I run this "plunk" into a delay and/or play harmonics on it and it sounds kind of like a mix of striking a metal tube and running a blender depending on the attack. Whew! that's quite a few ideas. Basically remember the main rule: There are no rules. Run three delays into a vibrochamp amp and add some fuzz from there. Play chords through mono pitchshifters. use the "volume Attack" technique while playing through a ring modulator. Have fun! Last but not least try to rent or buy a copy of Adrian Belew's instructional Video "How to Play Electronic Guitar". It's really very entertaining in additon to informative on some techiques as well as fresh ideas. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- HELP WANTED PRODUCTIONS - Http://www.voicenet.com/~legion "Bringing you the best in Organic Electronic music since we started..." 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