[DDDorian]

I was inspired by this video to ask: What sort of tricks do you people have to make crazy, random or just plain fucked-up noises?

Something I do every now and again is to scrape the fleshy part of my fingernails against the treble strings in an up-and-down motion towards and wawy from the body of the guitar in a sort of rapid bowing motion. Usually I use the fingernails on my index and middle fingers (usually right near the bridge) and play diads along the high B and E strings. It gives a sound kinda similar to blowing through a cardboard tube or something. It's more appropriate for overdubs or something, I guess. From memory, I think David Gilmour from Pink Floyd did something similar but with small pieces of metal rather than his fingernails.

Another thing I like to do is a kinda "fake whammy pedal" trick. I'm guessing most people are familar with the sound of the high E string when it's bent right off the fretboard, Kirk Hammett did it occasionally back in the day (if not, try it out!). Well, sometimes I like to fake the sound of stepping on a whammy pedal by playing a note, then tapping a note on the same string roughly twelve frets up and pulling it off the fretboard with my tapping finger (I use my middle finger). When the string is sitting just over the edge of the neck, I then shake the absolute crap out of it with my tapping finger to simulate a radical pedal vibrato. Kinda tricky to get a grip on, but once you do it can be pretty cool.

Anyone else?

[Leon]

my roommate puts a drumstick under his strings, then hits that drumstick with another drumstick. when he's got the guitar... uh... "tuned"... it sounds kinda cool.

you can also tap the pickups with something metallic, to get a popping noise.

[distressed_romeo]

I've got a way of making whale noises with a combination of reverb, harmonics, the whammy bar, and a volume pedal...
There's also the 'dentist's drill' effect, where you hit two notes a semi-tone apart, and pull up on the bar...

Adrian Belew has a whole video on this sort of stuff...

[Nick1]

While plugged into your amp take a TV remote and aim it at your pickups and press buttons.

Also try....

1. Whammy Bar

2. Ebow

3. Delay

[Drew]

Ooh, I love this shit.

Couple things I do - place your picking hand on the neck of the guitar on the strings, muting them, around the 3rd fret, and slide up towards the bridge slowly. As your hand nears the end of the fretboard, start your fretting hand going about the same point. move your picking hand back down, and repeat. With some gain, this gives you these great screeching noises cupled with random harmonic overtones.

A variation - do the same thing with one hand, but slide it quickly in one direction about an inch or two, then immediately back down. DJ scratching.

Take a shot glass. Place it against the strings over your pickups, and sort of "roll" it against the strings, letting it wobble a bit. This will give you these great chirpy R2D2 sort of noises.

I don't know if this is just specific to my wah pedal or not, but try this - click to your distortion channel and hook your wah up backwards - the "input" should be your output, and vice versa. Play a while - things should sound normal. Click the wah on, however, and suddenly when it's down you get crazy microphonic-ish feedback, Rock it back and it sort of slides down in pitch until it abruptly chokes off. Flip your pickup selector switch, and it'll jump to new pitches. Badass.

I'm also big on overdubbing random string noise behind mellower sections od tunes - just the occasional scratch against the strings, whammy bar rumble, whatever. That and a ton of ping-pong delay can sound great.

Finally, the "ALC" thing - take a simple chord progression, and overdub it one note at a time - play each note of the first chord to a seperate track, each note of the second to a new track, etc. Then, flip them around backwards in an audio editor, pan to taste, and dump down to a single stereo track. Compress a bit, then pile on the chorus, flange, delay, reverb, whatever (delay and verb probably in the mix, not on the file). Loop it, and you've got this whacked-out synth pad sound that sounds nothing like a guitar.

[The Dark Wolf]

Nice tips, everyone! I don't personally make any crazy noises with my guitar (unless you count my attempts at playing it ), but technique info is always nifty.

[D-EJ915]

I remember one thing I do with my H207 because the knobs are the slide-off variety and easy to take off...just run one against the strings and like turn it around and do stuff...weird noises, lol.

[All_¥our_Bass]

Originally Posted by Drew

Ooh, I love this shit.

Couple things I do - place your picking hand on the neck of the guitar on the strings, muting them, around the 3rd fret, and slide up towards the bridge slowly. As your hand nears the end of the fretboard, start your fretting hand going about the same point. move your picking hand back down, and repeat. With some gain, this gives you these great screeching noises cupled with random harmonic overtones.

A variation - do the same thing with one hand, but slide it quickly in one direction about an inch or two, then immediately back down. DJ scratching.

Take a shot glass. Place it against the strings over your pickups, and sort of "roll" it against the strings, letting it wobble a bit. This will give you these great chirpy R2D2 sort of noises.

I don't know if this is just specific to my wah pedal or not, but try this - click to your distortion channel and hook your wah up backwards - the "input" should be your output, and vice versa. Play a while - things should sound normal. Click the wah on, however, and suddenly when it's down you get crazy microphonic-ish feedback, Rock it back and it sort of slides down in pitch until it abruptly chokes off. Flip your pickup selector switch, and it'll jump to new pitches. Badass.

I'm also big on overdubbing random string noise behind mellower sections od tunes - just the occasional scratch against the strings, whammy bar rumble, whatever. That and a ton of ping-pong delay can sound great.

Finally, the "ALC" thing - take a simple chord progression, and overdub it one note at a time - play each note of the first chord to a seperate track, each note of the second to a new track, etc. Then, flip them around backwards in an audio editor, pan to taste, and dump down to a single stereo track. Compress a bit, then pile on the chorus, flange, delay, reverb, whatever (delay and verb probably in the mix, not on the file). Loop it, and you've got this whacked-out synth pad sound that sounds nothing like a guitar.

David Gilmour did that on Pink Floyd's 'Echoes'. That's how he got those screeching noises in the middle creepy/abient section.

[distressed_romeo]

What about taking your slide up over the pickups to mimic birdcalls?

[kung_fu]

I've done that fake whammy technique some of you have talked about. Sometimes i also play entire melodies on the high e string on the side of the neck. Has that same whammy pedal sound but also kinda reminds me of a sitar.

Also have done the beneath the bridge string scraping thing ala zakk wylde (superterrorizer) and emperor (forget the tune off prometheus). has a cool whammy sound as well. kinda also reminds me of a fast slide across a piano/keyboard.

[metalfiend666]

I have a whammy pedal. Enough said