Interesting Recording Techniques

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guitaristic

guitaristic

prophet of Dave
I was reading about one of my favorite bands today (Switchfoot) and the history behind some of their songs. They mentioned that for one song they had a standard electric going into an amp. Then in front of that amp they put an acoustic that had the open-tuning of the key the song was in. THEN they had that acoustic going into an amp, and they recorded that amp. It turned out pretty awesome :D


So I figured maybe in this thread we could throw around strange techniques/styles like the one I mentioned! Anyone else heard of/done any strange things like this?
 
I find it hard enough to get a good sound with conventional methods.

I like to hear little stories like that though!

I've often wondered what piezo sensors would pick up on objects near a kit.
Like, would a window act as a kind of dark plate reverb for example?
 
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Steenamaroo said:
I find it hard enough to get a good sound with conventional methods.

I like to hear little stories like that though!

I've often wondered what piezo sensors would pick on up objects near a kit.
Like, would a window act as a kind of dark plate reverb for example?
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Haha maybe! Who knows :D


Also, Jon Foreman has also recorded vocals while singing (loudly) into a piano to get all the strings resonating.


Epic stuff lol
 
There was this one time that I ...... Never mind that is a federal offense now.
 
guitaristic said:
Jon Foreman has also recorded vocals while singing (loudly) into a piano to get all the strings resonating.


Epic stuff lol
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In the days before I bought a reverb unit, I used to sing into a bass drum for spacious reverb. It was like singing in space. It was also kind of painful !

Capriccio said:
In theory playing guitar with a pencil and loose and recording it in your kitchen shouldn't work
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Once I played the beginnings of a guitar solo {hah !} with a fork. On a 12 string guitar. Sent into a bass amp. Just bouncing the fork off the strings with my chord hand holding position. I still think it's the best part of that 'solo'. When you're limited like I am, you have to take daring and folly to as yet unimagined heights !
One other thing I used to like doing was with a Hammond organ. If you held down a chord position while it was switched off, then turned it on, it used to wheeze and make this really otherworldly sound until it regained it's equilibrium. It was a cute way to end sections when I was stumped for a dramatic ending.
 
guitaristic said:
I was reading about one of my favorite bands today (Switchfoot) and the history behind some of their songs. They mentioned that for one song they had a standard electric going into an amp. Then in front of that amp they put an acoustic that had the open-tuning of the key the song was in. THEN they had that acoustic going into an amp, and they recorded that amp. It turned out pretty awesome :D
Click to expand...

Which Switchfoot song did they do that in?
 
guitarplayr82 said:
Which Switchfoot song did they do that in?
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"Needle and Haystack Life" off of Hello Hurricane! Here's what he said:

Drew came up with an ingenious idea for a unique guitar tone. We played the electric guitar through an amp, miked the amp with an acoustic guitar (in open tuning of the key of the song), plugged the acoustic guitar into another amp and recorded the signal from that second amp. The result was so expansive and dramatic I felt like it should start the record. So that’s what you hear at the top: a sweet amalgamation of electric and acoustic madness.
 
I heard Hendrix left a second guitar tuned to open Eb plugged in to his stacks, so the open strings would vibrate during the performance. I've listened to alot of Hendrix, the only time I ever heard something that may have even resembled sounding like that was the "live at the Philmore New Years eve" album.

Its probably just a story.
 
guitaristic said:
"Needle and Haystack Life" off of Hello Hurricane! Here's what he said:

Drew came up with an ingenious idea for a unique guitar tone. We played the electric guitar through an amp, miked the amp with an acoustic guitar (in open tuning of the key of the song), plugged the acoustic guitar into another amp and recorded the signal from that second amp. The result was so expansive and dramatic I felt like it should start the record. So that’s what you hear at the top: a sweet amalgamation of electric and acoustic madness.
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Nice! I never would've guessed they achieved their sound that way. I suppose experimenting around with techniques like that are some of the freedoms you get when you sign to your own label :)
 
guitarplayr82 said:
Nice! I never would've guessed they achieved their sound that way. I suppose experimenting around with techniques like that are some of the freedoms you get when you sign to your own label :)
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Haha yeah and when you build your own studio! :D
 
Nice to know there is at least one fellow SF fan here at HR btw :)
 
guitaristic said:
Nice to know there is at least one fellow SF fan here at HR btw :)
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Yeah, same here! They're amazing live. I've seen them twice and they're one of the tightest bands I've ever seen play together. They're all real nice too -- I got to meet them after one of their shows I was at.
 
guitarplayr82 said:
Yeah, same here! They're amazing live. I've seen them twice and they're one of the tightest bands I've ever seen play together. They're all real nice too -- I got to meet them after one of their shows I was at.
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Nice! I've never met them but I saw them last October and I'm seeing them again in December! I can't wait for their new album to come out.
 
My favourite little 'odd' techniques while recording strings or brass is to hold the sustain pedal on a grand piano down and pic the piano up in stereo. The piano strings then vibrate in harmony with the source material so you get a lovely tuned reverb. It would work with any instrument that's loud enough I guess but particularly well with sections of tuned instruments that make the whole spectrum of frequencies vibrate.
 
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