guitar as sitar?

[jimmychan]

Anyone know if it's possible to tune/play a guitar to sound like a sitar? I don't mean full on Ravi Shankar type stuff but little bits, like the sitar sounds that crop up on Beck's Mellow Gold. Occasionally I've tried tuning my acoustic down so the strings are pretty slack, then sort of slap playing them, if you get my drift. That sort of works, but anyone know any kind of tuning/ scales that sound sitar-like?

 

[toyL]

...search for "shitar" on this forum...not too long ago a guy from south america was here with instructions on how to get a very nice sitar sound...

 

[Whoopysnorp]

Yeah, he included some sound clips, and lemme tell you, it sounded pretty damned convincing.

 

[TexRoadkill]

Now that i have a fixed bridge guitar I can finally make my own Shitar. The samples he gave were pretty cool.

 

[Ginzoo]

I think this is what you are talking about.

 

[NewOrder]

Use a pedal

Or you could just use the danelectro pedal.

 

[Hard2Hear]

I just shove a pick in between the 3 highest strings next to the bridge, kind of like that picture. I've been doing it for several years when I'm messing around.

H2H

 

[overseas]

Brian May got a sitar sound out of an ordinary acoustic guitar

He used that sound on two Queen songs: "White Queen" (Queen II) and "Jealousy" (Jazz). I seem to remember his saying he got the sitar sound by placing bits of wire in the string grooves on the nut. Every time the strings vibrate, they cause the bits of wire to buzz. If you listen to those two songs, I think you'll agree it sounds pretty convincing.

Bruce in Korea

 

[kartikbala]

Instead of wire, use thick cotton strings and place it between the string and the bridge, right inside the groove. I'll get you sound samples in a bit...just hang on there.....

kb