Homemade Tricks

[rapedbyape]

Dropping sand and gravel is a large bucket partially filled with water, whilst making retching noises, creates an excellent 'vomiting in the toilet' sound.

 

[post.aux.fader]

Hahah yea I think they used that on the end of Dead Kennedy's Too Drunk to Fuck.....

"You give me head, it makes it worse.

Take out your fucking retainer, put it in your purse"

OWCH!

Any large cardboard tubes placed over a speaker will augment the bass.

 

[mattamatta]

I used to always take an empty coffee can, flip it upside down... put some coins on the bottom, which is now the top, and put the lid on the bottom/new top... so you've got some coins sandwiched between the metal bottom and the lid.

I used to play that with my hands and with pencils as a snare drum sound.

Best cymbal I've ever made was a soup can, with both top and bottom cut off, cut down the side, flattened and hammered out, sitting on top of two tuna cans.


I've made several percussion songs where I've used any combination of the following:

-tic tac box maraca
-fork hanging from a string (sounds like a triangle)
-plastic trash can kick drum
-bongos (real [yet cheap] ones though... sorry)
-various sizes of coffee can
-needlenose pliers clicking together, being circulated around the mic for envelopey sounding effects
-bouncing basketball
-probably other stuff

Once I made a thing with bongos, shakers.... several wierd and disturbing noises my friend was making through a piece of pvc pipe that sounded like distant dinosaurs, and some of his bird call sounds....

And then we topped it off with about 20 different tracks of two friends talking, run together with some reverb.

Wierd stuff man.

 

[Rokket]

I used to stack magazines of various thinknesses as drums, using a piece of plain paper a single magazine as a snare. Cymbols were my mother's pot and pan lids. That ended when she saw how beat up they were getting. I never tried to record it, however, so I don't know how it would sound. But I played along with the radio and in that context, it sounded pretty cool.

 

[Rokket]

I think this thread should be a sticky. There's a lot of cool shit on it...

 

[Dani Pace]

Another trick for those popcorn cans is to place your kick mic inside one, gives it some interesting reverby effect, you might need to EQ out some of the highs or it will sound a bit tinny.

 

[Track Rat]

I like to run just about anything (like vocals, guitars) through a Leslie. A VERY cool effect.

 

[Tekker]

Wouldn't it be good if you had a spectrum anylizer that had 4 or 5 inputs that made 4 or 5 different color lines move. that would be so fuckn usefull. Wonder if there's already something like this. If not I just invented it.

I haven't seen anything like that, so I don't know if something like this already exists... But you're right that would be useful! You should go to www.voxengo.com and suggest that on the forums. Aleksey is very good about putting good ideas like this to use. He pretty recently added a sidechain for his Chrunchessor plugin, so I'll bet he could add more inputs to his analyzer plugin....

Getting back on topic, I have miced the sound of our electric grill (I used chicken, but any meat will work) and it gave some pretty interesting sounds when covered in reverb and other effects. I have yet to find an actual use for it, but it sounded pretty cool!

Another unusual trick is to record the fan noise from your PC and bring the track up just slightly in your recordings for a real classic "home-recorded" sound.

-tkr

 

[lykwydchykyn]

I once lived in a house with aluminum duct work, which was exposed in the basement. I pulled the vent cover off in my room, stuck a mic in the vent, then ran to the other end of the house with a drum stick and banged the crap out of the vent. Great sample. Still using that one.

Similarly, try putting a guitar cab at one end of the ductwork and a mic at the other for some narrrrrrrrrrsty 'verb.

Also, I've mic'd a guitar cab with different sized cardboard and metal tubes between the amp and mic. Mixed together, they give a kind of hollow, phase-shifter-standing-still kind of tone.

Finally, if anyone ever comes to your home to do any kind of maintenance or construction work, slip a discrete SDC somewhere nearby and record as much of it as you can. Wonderful source of thumps, bumps, klanks, squeeks, slams, and other such noises, not to mention great vocal samples.

 

[EdWonbass]

I recorded a song one time where I beat on the arms of my couch with wooden spoons. I close mic'd it and added reverb. Sounded pretty good.

Then of course I made a bong out wrapping paper rolls.

 

[A Reel Person]

... I have miced the sound of our electric grill (I used chicken, but any meat will work) ... I have yet to find an actual use for it...
-tkr

Eh,...
"this is the sound of your brain on drugs?"