By Michael Molenda | Mon, 01 Jun 2009
Guitarists often spend entire careers
discovering, developing, and refining
“their” sound. It’s a noble quest. But
sometimes a track may require something
out-of-the-ordinary to bring it
to life, and that extremely personal
tone you worked so hard to make
your own may not cut it. Time to step
into the great unknown. Here are four
swift and relatively painless schemes
for leaving the familiar behind.
SWITCH GUITARS
Sounds simple—dumb, even. So why
don’t more players move out of their
comfort zones, leave their favorite guitar
in its case, and try something
strange? And I don’t just mean trading
a Les Paul for a Strat, or vice versa.
Borrow anything that tosses you into a
different creative space: big hollowbodies,
cheapo planks with skyscraperhigh
actions, dobros, acoustic-electrics,
kiddie models, and so on. And while
you’re at it, don’t leave the instrument’s
Volume and Tone controls cranked.
Experiment with the subtle colors
available by rocking those knobs back
and forth. Ever see Jeff Beck or Les
Paul weave their magic? They are continually
switching between pickups,
adjusting volume levels, and playing
with Tone controls. There’s a reason for
all those manipulations—different
tones happen.
DO IT ALL WRONG
A Shure SM57 placed right against
the speaker grille is a time-honored
and trusted method for miking an
amp. But if you need a very different
timbre, don’t just jettison the triedand-
true, do something downright
stupid. Position a mic behind the
amp—even if it’s a closed-back cabinet.
Heck, lay the cabinet down so
that the speakers are firing into the
floor, and drop a mic beside it. Buy a
$29 microphone from an electronics
store (I’ve found some beauties at
Radio Shack throughout the years),
and position it off-axis to the speaker
cone. Throw the amp in a coat closet,
a bathtub or shower, or even in your
car (if your garage is close enough to
your studio space), and toss the mic
in the dumbest place imaginable (a
coat pocket, gaffer’s taped to a
faucet, under the passenger seat,
etc.). Seek any option that may surprise
you with something ghastly,
bizarre, or even oddly useful.
GO REALLY SMALL
Small wattage amps are all the rage
right now—and Jimmy Page used
them to great effect on the early Led
Zeppelin albums—but I’m talking
about downsizing to micro levels.
Danelectro, Marshall, Fender, Dean
Markley, and others make minipowered
(1 watt or less) amps for
solo practice and mobile rockin’, as
well as for looking cool on your desk.
These petite ravers can sound gloriously
ratty when pushed to the limit,
so plunk down a mic in front of
one. Whatever you do, it will sound
nothing like it would if you had
plugged into a pro-quality tube or
modeling amp, and that can be a
good thing. In addition, because these
amps are so small, you can toss them
into freezers, car trunks, garbage
pails, coolers, ventilation shafts, and
other sick environments to achieve
the double bonus of a weird tone captured
in a truly bizarro sonic space.
ABUSE YOUR TOOLS
While many guitarists feverishly promote
their creativity, let’s face it—
when it comes to pushing the
envelope, a significant percentage of
players can barely lift the flap. You’ll
get a heck of an argument to that
statement, and, if you do, simply ask
the shocked and angry guitarist
whether he or she programs their
own effects from scratch, or blindly
uses the preset parameters provided
by the box or pedal. Gotcha! So
whether you process your guitars
with plug-ins or hardware pedals,
start grabbing every parameter
option—even the ones you don’t
really know (waveform, diffusion,
ratio, etc.)—and spin through the values
until something interesting pops
up. Don’t even listen to the preset—
just start destroying its sonic imprint
in the quest for a startlingly peculiar
tone. Yes, this exercise will take some
effort and some guts if you’ve made
accepting what you’re given a habit,
but if you want something different,
you’re going to have to dial it in all by
yourself. Be brave!
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