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Weird effects tricks

Cristo

Cristo

Jun 10, 2005
1,006
263
South Carolina, USA
#1
Got any strange or nonstandard way to use effects to get new results?

Long ago I discovered (by accident) that hooking a wah wah in reverse to a Strat and manipulating the tone control produced the weird howling/laughing bird/witch sound David Gilmour used in Echoes.

Here's another guy on youtube that figured it out:



Don't know if it works with a bass...
 
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#4
Great stuff, I loved the ambient noise stuff you got out of the cable tester and your effects :bassist:

I have one too:

Try pointing a remote control at one of the pickups on the bass and press a random button on the remote.

You will get a bleeping sound that you would have no way else to create on your bass.

Now you can add whatever effect you want to that.

PS: It's been a while since I tried it last time, and can't check up on it right now. But you might need some drive on your bass for the trick to work, can't quite remember.
 
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#8
HolmeBass said:
With a lot of gain, you can yell into your pickups and the strings will vibrate enough for your voice to come through. It winds up being pretty quiet even with a lot of gain, but still sounds different than any mic would.
Click to expand...

Well the times I tried it I wouldn't exactly call it quiet, in fact I would call it very loud and noisy.
But of course that depends on how high you crank up the volume on your rack, the gain on your distortion and then finally of course how loud you scream.
I think at the time we used it as an effect in the noise rock band I was in at that time, I used a Boss MT-2, and then screamed my lungs out.
You'll have a hard time making out the words though, but you can without doubt actually make out that someones screaming something.
It's more like a weird feedback like sound that sound somewhat like a human screaming something through somethings heavely distorted with a lot of weird frequencies boosted and cut, maybe a bit like a faulty megaphone.
 
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#10
Taking an analog delay pedal and cranking it all the way up, produces some weird sounds. I forgot which knob, but one of the knobs can then be turned back & forth, to get a strange whirling sound. This was tested on a vintage Ibanez AD-9 analog delay pedal.
 
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#11
fretter said:
Taking an analog delay pedal and cranking it all the way up, produces some weird sounds. I forgot which knob, but one of the knobs can then be turned back & forth, to get a strange whirling sound. This was tested on a vintage Ibanez AD-9 analog delay pedal.
Click to expand...

It's the feedback knob, and it is indeed an awesome effect. Just be aware and turn down again before it goes totally bonanza and blow your speakers and ear drums.
 
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#13
fclefgeoff said:
A guitarist friend of mine used to stick a dust buster on his pickups and get some pretty cool effects.
Click to expand...

At first I thought: What!?! How in the world is that going to make any strange sounds what so ever?

Then I came to think of the engine that drives the vacuum in such a thing.
If it is electro-magnetic which it probably is, it will cause interference with the pickup's magnetic field.

Just wondering what sound exactly it would make, could you maybe describe it?
 
#16
Cristo said:
Got any strange or nonstandard way to use effects to get new results?

Long ago I discovered (by accident) that hooking a wah wah in reverse to a Strat and manipulating the tone control produced the weird howling/laughing bird/witch sound David Gilmour used in Echoes.

Here's another guy on youtube that figured it out:



Don't know if it works with a bass...
Click to expand...


I just played this and my dog ran into the room looking for a fight :)
 
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#17
HolmeBass said:
With a lot of gain, you can yell into your pickups and the strings will vibrate enough for your voice to come through. It winds up being pretty quiet even with a lot of gain, but still sounds different than any mic would.
Click to expand...

That reminds me of a Phil Keaggy unplugged concert from years ago. Phil was doing a crazy solo with his Olsen acoustic, and missed a note. He suddenly stopped, put the sound hole up to his mouth and said, "Pretend it was feedback!" We all howled as he went on for another 5 minutes of 32nd and 64th notes. Thanks for jogging my memory! Good times.
 
#18
About 12 years ago I built an AMZ Mini-Booster, a Lovetone Big Cheese and a EA Tremolo into the same enclosure, in that order (see diystompboxes.com). The Mini-Booster cranked the gain about 5x without distortion, then the Big Cheese (an overdrive) freaked out and turned the signal into a big, fat buzztone. Once I got the tremolo in time with a song, the bass sounded just like an old school synth. Fun stuff.
 
#20
The tic-toc of an analog wristwatch will be picked up by a pickup to create the world's most limited metronome. That sound, however, is subject to whatever else you're doing with your effects chain, like delay, phaser, fuzz, etc.
 

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