Re: Percussive Sounds on El. Guitar

[Legion <legion@helpwantedproductions.com>]

> I am interested to find out about technique/looping tools/effects that
would allow one to produce percussive/drum-like sounds on el. guitar
without having to resort to a synth guitar. 

I do a few tricks with stomp boxes to make "percussive" type sounds.

The first and easiest(perhaps too obvious?)  thing is to alter your
attack by picking and muting the string at the same time. this produces a
"click" type of attack instead fo a melodic note. If you throw that into a
delay you'll get a kind of "cricket beatbox" type effect. Scraping the
strings, playing higher or lower on the neck/bridge with a pick can also
generate other interesting percussive sounds with no effects necessary.

Another way to make odd percussion is to alter your attack. play a
perccsuive note or chord as above but have the volknob down. After the
attack sweep it up so that it swells. This is the famous belew
"seagulls" type sound but with a little practice you can make it sound
like a sinewave or other analog drum machine type sound. Again catch it
into a loop or delay and you're on your way to building a drum track.

Of course I can't leave well enough alone. Using the above examples you
can drastically alter the tone with a few stomp boxes. Different
distortions will yield fuller or more raw sounds. I have gotten a lot of
rhythmical almost metallic type percussion using an Ibanez FL9  flange
pedal with adustable speed and width  set to kill and regenration almost
al the way down. You can "tune" the boings with the delay time. this is an
usual type metallic percussion and more orgain than a ring modulator but
of course that will do the trick to make your guitar more percussive as
well. I use a WD "dan armstrong" Green Ringer or DOD Gonkulator but there
are a number of cheap things out there or you coudl go the boutique route
(I personjally thing the Frostwave Blue Ringer is the best sounding one
but the Moogerfooger is also cool). 

If you prefer to keep things simple and on the cheap there are a plethora
of muliteffects boxes out there that will give you plenty or access to
"percussive" types sounds. Look for a box that offers adustable
delays,flanges,distortions and you'll be fine. Hell most boxes these days
offer ring mod or some type of autowah/synth sound as well that you could
mix into the dry signal to make it freak a bit more when doing the
pluck/mute things.

One example of a secret weapon I use for weird guitar percussion:

ART SGX2000  - old 80s multieffects rack unit with ring mod, pitch
shifting as well as more vanilla delays, etc. 

There is no one "way" to make percussive sounds but if you start with the
attack and then mess with the tone you'll definetely gets something you'll
like IMO.

most of all experiment and have fun trying. that's how most of this stuff
got discovered in the first place :)


 
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