Dirty guitar

frans_13 · Post by **frans_13** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 5:47 am

In january a trio comes in, basic drums, bass + guitar. The guitar player says she wants her guitar very, very dirty. Not necesarily with lots of gain and distortion pedals. I don't think they will layer more than two tacks of guitar and they will track everything at once and together in the room, because that's the thing my place is known for. So here are the ideas I'm throwing around:
-split the guitar output for two amps, one cleaner, one more output tube saturation
-mult a track and throw some ringmodulation on it
-using filtered noise to use it as an input for a vocoder
-damaging an old speaker with a knife (like Link Wray was said to do)
-sacrilege: damaging the diaphragm of a cheap old dynamic mic with a razor blade
-building a little box with four diodes to literary rectify the signal and mixing that in, perhaps via a damaged spring reverb which is damped with and old napkin, you get the idea.
If you have some more ideas, please share them.

A.David.MacKinnon · Post by **A.David.MacKinnon** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 7:05 am

With distortion I usually find I want to hear less in the control room than what my gut tells me to dial in in the live room. You hit a certain point where the guitar starts to sound smaller the more gain/dirt/fuzz you add and it just doesn't translate as powerful on playback. I like the idea of running a clean(ish) and dirty amp. I do something similar for fuzz bass so I don't lose all the bottom to the fuzz pedal. Let her dial in the dirty amp as distorted as she wants and use the other to add body and attach back into the distortion sound. I also really like broadcast limiters on distorted guitars. The CBS Volumax is a personal favourite. The Gates Solidstatesman can also be amazing but it's so crazy sounding that it's a hit or miss thing.

GooberNumber9 · Post by **GooberNumber9** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 8:56 am

If she's ok with it, you might take a DI at the same time and then you can play around with re-amping or using different plug-ins in the box to get unusual sounds.

On that front: one thing that makes normal guitar distortion sound smooth is the output transformer and speaker in the guitar amp, which together cut off most of the frequencies above about 5 kHz or so, depending on the amp. So you might try using either a DI signal or a keyboard or bass amp and try some different distortion pedals through a signal chain that does not dump the highs. You'll get a dirtier sound with lower actual gain settings.

Also, if you have an analog synth with any audio or CV inputs, you can potentially create some very crazy sounds by plugging the guitar in (don't forget to gate open the keyboard in some way). A vocoder plug-in might be able to do something similar.

You can also try a wah pedal after a fuzz box with the wah all the way forward (towards the highs) or somewhere around there to get a really piercing distortion sound.

And going back to the DI you might be able to find a digital distortion or manipulation plug-in that could do some crazy things. There were some Digidesign plugins (Trash? or something?) back in the day that would seriously mess with audio in a Nine Inch Nails kind of way. You could look at bit reduction and decimation and see if that's what she likes.

If she can name a recording that sounds anything like what she's looking for, that might help a lot.

I like the damaged spring reverb idea, BTW.

Also, +1 getting a clean (mostly) copy of the performance also, whether via DI or multed to a clean amp. A lot of this stuff will take away most of the tonal content so you won't be able to hear any actual notes, so bringing up a clean copy in the background can help make it sound like music again, and you can control how much like music it sounds.

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 9:53 am

I like those little battery-powerable amps a lot, and have a Zues, a Epiphone, a Mouse, and a First Act.

They can be stacked themselves, one with the highs rolled off, etc.

Drone · Post by **Drone** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 12:53 pm

I second the little amps recommendation, especially the ones with the built in distortion circuits, they are dirty. If you want more bass, lay them back on the floor. I'd blend one of those cranked with whatever she normally uses.

ubertar · Post by **ubertar** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 4:13 pm

You might try, in addition to everything else you normally do, putting a cassette boombox in front of the amp, playing back/mic'ing the results, and adding that to the mix.

A.David.MacKinnon · Post by **A.David.MacKinnon** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 4:58 pm

Along the vocoder line, I forgot to mention this crazy pedal -
http://www.moogmusic.com/products/mooge ... 07-freqbox

It'll turn anything you plug in into a synth. I use of with my farfisa for synth tones but I've also run guitars and basses through it. Things get pretty crazy really quickly. Lots of fun.

frans_13 · Post by **frans_13** » Sat Dec 20, 2014 3:29 am

She made the point to not use much distortion from overloading circuits in amps, pedals and the lot - she said she's tired of it and wants to go a dirt road nobody ever went down. The idea with the input of a synth - yes, I see if I can borrow an MS20 or something like that.

ashcat_lt · Post by **ashcat_lt** » Sat Dec 20, 2014 10:55 am

Ring mod can make all kinds of nasty dirt. I like really low frequency carriers, but I very much prefer when I can provide both modulator and carrier inputs. Plug the guitar into both inputs for a nasty kind of octave-up fuzz thing. Use a delayed version of the guitar for a variation on that. I also like to ring modulate the guitar against other things in the mix - the bass can be cool, but you could try drums, or another guitar track, or whatever.

You might look for some way to get crossover distortion. That can get really nasty. By nature, it acts as a sort of instantaneous noise gate, so will kill sustain like a farty fuzz, but it might get you somewhere. Don't know where you can buy that kind of thing in the analog realm*, though you can make your own with a couple back-to-back diodes in series with the signal. Maybe schottky or germanium, but it'll still probably want a bunch of gain before it. You can pad back down after if necessary.

On a similar bent, you might try sending the output of each diode to a different amp, so that the top half of the waveform is treated differently from the bottom, and then mix them back together.

Has anybody ever tried something like a kazoo effect? Like put a piece of wax paper across a speaker. Maybe cut some slits in it or something. Experiment with tension...

There's also the idea maybe of "preparing" the guitar itself a la Sonic Youth. Paperclips on the strings, screwdrivers jammed in strange places, etc...

*Actually, this can be a byproduct of certain ring mod circuits. Maybe with a DC voltage on input and the guitar in the other, or something?

djimbe · Post by **djimbe** » Sun Dec 21, 2014 5:59 pm

let the microphone/preamp choice deliver the dirt? Set up a separate mic path on the clean amp and go nuts. Another alternative is mic the strings as she plays the takes and mess with that with mic choice and preamp drive and such. that one will be bright and attacky and will take messing with without losing all the definition.

Magnetic Services · Post by **Magnetic Services** » Sun Dec 21, 2014 7:08 pm

I used to have a cheap small subwoofer with the bass port on the front. One day I dropped a piece of paper down by it and it got sucked onto the port and started making this amazing noise as the air being pushed in and out made it come away from the hole and reattach many times per second. It was regular printer paper I think, and the port must have been no more than 2 inches across. EDIT: it was a scrap of paper not much bigger than the hole. That might make a difference. Too heavy and it might fall off.

It may fall off during breaks in her playing, but maybe you could tape it on just enough to keep it in place but still make the sound.

Not sure about this, but maybe it would highlight the fundamental notes in a cool way, since it's only acting on the lowest frequencies? Her playing would obviously make or break this trick.

Variations: different port sizes, crossover, eq to sub, 2 subs out of phase with eachother, thicker paper, cut the paper, use a paper snowflake... (pictures mandatory if you do that one.

Most importantly - post back here if it was cool! Post your results!

Another edit: obviously blend it in with another track. Or not!

A.David.MacKinnon · Post by **A.David.MacKinnon** » Sun Dec 21, 2014 7:28 pm

A million years ago I did a record where we ran the guitar into a talk box, took the tube from the talk box and stuck it over the vent hole on the snare drum and then mic'd the snares. The result was kind of kazoo like - buzzy, rattly, nasty.

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Sun Dec 21, 2014 9:33 pm

I think it was Zappa put a Pignose inna metal filing cabinet ...

drumsound · Post by **drumsound** » Mon Dec 22, 2014 1:13 am

vvv wrote:I think it was Zappa put a Pignose inna metal filing cabinet ...

I don't know about that, but I do know he loved the Pignose, with a wah not moring in his echo chamber.

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Mon Dec 22, 2014 4:27 am

No mention of the filecab, but a worthy article on guitar/amp recording, here ...

Hmm, just found this, and this other guys citing the approach ...

Just google, Pignose amp metal filing cabinet zappa.

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