How to make this sound (some kind of harmonic?)

suicas · #1 08-19-2004, 09:45 AM

There's a certain sound I've heard on a few recordings, I've mostly heard it played on guitar, heard a few bass players use it too.

It might just be a pinched harmonic of some kind, but I can't play anything approaching the sound I mean on guitar or bass.

I'll add more references to it as I find them, but at the moment, two places I've heard it are:
On guitar:
Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream, Mayonnaise - 33 seconds or so in.

On bass:
Steve Lawson - Conversations - 1, 2, 3, 4../broken lead (mp3 downloadable from www.stevelawson.net) - 1 minutes 55 seconds and 2 minutes 03 seconds in.

It's the very high pitched plucked sound that is played for a couple of notes.

I know this isn't much to go on, but this is something that's been bugging me for a long time now

Matt Till · #2 08-19-2004, 10:46 AM

Artifical Harmonics?

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/search...earchid=362522

suicas · #3 08-20-2004, 04:26 AM

Could be.. Could also just be that my artifical harmonics sound nothing like that

Something to work on I guess..

jenderfazz · #4 08-20-2004, 08:59 AM

I haven't listened to the examples yet, but could it be pinch harmonics? I think that's what they're called... Where the guitar sounds really high pitched like a mix between harmonics and actual notes. YYZ actually has guitar doing that near the end of the song. Not sure if that's what you mean.

EDIT: Just heard them in the Lawson song, I think it could be what I'm talking about. All I know is my guitarist said something about hitting the note and tapping the string with your thumb or something right afterwards. The note is kind of choked and the weird harmonic rings out.