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Re: distortion, overdrive,fuzz,crunch,special sauce, secret goo
I've been following this thread avidly because I am currently in love
with distortion, fuzz and overdrives in my own work lately
(and have spend stupid money that I didn't really have buying
up stomp box pedals in the vein).
I totally hear what both Krispen and Bill are saying, viz a vis, the
fact that
heavily distorted guitars over heavily overdriven amps at high volume
can cause
a compression of both volume and a compression of timbre that can really
both limit nuance and dynamics and also, potentially, hide poor technique.
At the same time, I'm not a guitarist (though I own several) and I
don't tend to think like a
guitarist.
I have neither skill or nuance in my 6 string playing, but I do think
like a multi-instrumentalist
and a composer and I love the timbral range that is available with all
kinds of different distortions, overdrives,
feedbackers and fuzzes.
If I was only playing guitar in my peformances, then I think I would
probably avoid the kind of
tones that can potentially put Krispen and Bill off of Nels Clines' sound.
As a composer, though, I find his sound absolutely fascinating,
sometimes, specifically because
it IS linear and non dynamic. I've also found that it is
efficacious in some composing to
juxtapose musical lines that are very uni-dynamic against things that
are much more so.........the
resultant contrast makes for interesting and very musical results.
Trent Reznor has been really good at this: using very monolithic
sounds (compressed to hell
frequently) and then using a ton of dynamics in his vocals or in the
rest of his arrangements
(even just controlling the volume of his heavily distorted sounds in his
mix)
Lately, I'm most attracted to sounds that are ridiculously
overdistorted........almost to the point
of obscuring the melody being played.
I recently produced a very small Noise Festival and used my Olympus
recorder to record my sets
and the set of Bryan of Rape Shower fame.
I wasn't able to check my settings and the entire thing clipped horribly
with digital
distortion................arguably the ugliest distortion found.
To my delight, I went back and listened to some of Bryan's tracks
which, in a digital sound editor
looked like solid black. He had started his set out in a cool way ,
just playing an old blues
song, fairly straightforward before launching into a very loud and
aggressive noise set.
The blues tune, distorted to square wave clipping sounded really cool to
my ears.
Again, as my brother so wisely said, everyone has their own aesthetic
and it's valid.
I just wanted to put it out there that there is a lover on this list of
stupid overly distorted sound.
A student of mine who I just turned on to the My Bloody Valentine body
of work said,
"...............I'm also rethinking distortion now; I've never heard so
much color in distortion before!....."
Noise and the noise-esque sounds you can get with radical combinations
of distortion
are the equivalent of White light. They contain hundres of sine waves.
To me the after the effect processing of such sounds can yield really
subtle and even
quite melodic work.
Yeah verily!
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