OK, thanks to twelvepoint, fatchance, losthighway, and Curry Pervert for your encouragement to start this thread. Sorry this is kind of meandering (I'm a little hungover).

The idea is a thread that can function as a “How to make experimental noise,” where people can share the multitude of ways they go about it. I wrote an email recently answering questions about gear, and figured it might be helpful / interesting information to have available publicly. I'm looking forward to seeing what other people share in this thread.

I am using the term "experimental noise" broadly to refer to anything relating to harsh noise, heavy electronics, noise / dark ambient, death industrial, post-industrial / root-industrial influenced stuff.

Anyhow, I have been recording in the "noise" realm for over 25 years. People are most interested in the DEATHPILE album "G.R." Almost all the noise on that was made by my friend / bandmate David E. Williams using a Korg Triton. I personally don't use a programmable digital keyboard like that for my solo stuff, or other projects. They do a lot, but are expensive, and require an investment of time to learn how to use.

Main gear is essentially a small vintage analog synth, distortion pedal(s), and a reverb / delay of some form. You can do a LOT with just that gear.

I have always been broke, so the gear I have has always been free and / or inexpensive. I've been using a Moog Prodigy since the '90s, and added an Octave Cat to that back in 2004 or so. My distortion pedals have been a Boss Heavy Metal HM-2 and Boss Super Distortion Feedbacker DF-2 for ages. I am not super loyal to them, they just "do the job." Since 2014 I've been using the Electro-Harmonix Cathedral for delay / reverb and LOVE IT.

For the solo tape I just finished, I added a handmade "Leaning Board of Springs" to my setup. It's a lot of fun. I'll post about that later on when I have a little more time.

I will leave you with this... my friend Skye from the band [HALO] very wisely said "Use what you can get. Make what you like. Ignore everything else."

OK, how do YOU make experimental noise?

When I want to add layers of weirdness to a more conventional rock mix I often turn to my pedal board. A Fender Rhodes keyboard into various fuzz, distortion, delay and reverb can do some fun stuff.

I also have a rack delay, the Deltalab Effectron. Twirling the knobs can make things crazy, as well as the 'hold' button.

I’d love to hear this stuff.

I’m wishing there was an easy / accessible way for folks here to post a sample of their work to go along with the posts.

If any of you smart / tech folks have any ideas, please share.

I don't make much experimental noise myself, but I've mastered a bunch of it for my friends label:

https://wrongwhole.bandcamp.com/

I don't 100% remember off the top of my head, but I think the Golden Shores, Infrastructure Rot and hntrhntr are the most experimentally noisy. One of those records I described as "20 minutes of gravel in a washing machine".

Working on that stuff influenced me to make this:



As for the HOW...the basics of that was a real old (mid 90s) track I unearthed, would've been a strat through a jamman, with the loop evolving over time....played back half speed and thus an octave down, through the Valhalla Supermassive plugin. Then there's some other shit on top, the Soniccouture Haunted Spaces plugin and the NI Noire piano. And a bass drum, also an octave down for maximum earth shakingness.

On the prettier experimental side I have this:



Same ideas....half speed guitar loops, Haunted Spaces and Noire. Lot of the Sketch Cassette plugin on there too, crunching things up. And Audiothing's Wires too, highly recommend both of those, real affordable and fun to use.

Although my musical past has been a more traditional indie/punk/noise rock background, my main thing now is a group called Boston Typewriter Orchestra. I mentioned this in another thread and the bandcamp link is in bio, if anyone is curious. But the gist is, we make music with typewriters, voices and sometimes some other office/industrial sounds. Historically, it tends to be pretty rhythmic, and even melodic, but the nature of playing a fucking typewriter depends, I think, on coaxing sounds out of a decontextualized item, which probably qualifies as experimental?

Lately, we've gone a little further, incorporating samples, tuned desk bells, electromechanical stuff, triggers, in an effort to expand the palette, I think. I'm going to be doing a few videos on our channel soon, describing a few customizations and custom instruments we have. If anyone's interested I'll paste links in here. One I want to do is customized machine with a motorized platen with a vari-speed, so that clacky escape mechanism can really start to buzz. Another instrument is an octave of tuned desk bell, mounted in a frame and struck with servo-actuated hammers, controolable via MIDI thru an arduino. I'm pretty proud of this one. We also have some projects happening with triggers which can produce some interesting new sounds.

We also had a project this year with remixes (a few of which we did internally; 2/3 with other artists) that's been really interesting. Slice-and-dice style reworking isn't really in my wheelhouse, but I have a new appreciation for being able to radically rework music like that.

You mean like this?

turnbullac wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 1:48 pm You mean like this?

I'm getting a "Video Unavailable/Private" message on this. Anyone else have the same issue?

twelvepoint wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 2:10 pm

turnbullac wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 1:48 pm You mean like this?

I'm getting a "Video Unavailable/Private" message on this. Anyone else have the same issue?

Yep, unavailable here too.

I'd be curious to hear about experiments using contact mics, triggers, percussion pads and things of that nature, as I've been looking into integrating more of that into a drum kit.

penningtron wrote: I'd be curious to hear about experiments using contact mics, triggers, percussion pads and things of that nature, as I've been looking into integrating more of that into a drum kit.

This stuff can be a lot of fun but takes legit good PA to be done w/ any impact which can make it cost prohibitive from the jump considering the places most of us play may not even have monitors and lugging an extra amp that's powerful enough to make this work along w/ your drums...bleh

Contact mics: haven't a ton of experience w/ this but I mean to correct this now that I'm living alone for a while and will only be annoying my dogs instead of my wife. I think this is the closest of the bunch to the original post because of the amount of manipulation you could do to an acoustic source being mic'd as opposed to a drum brain.

Triggers: Only limited by the "brain" you use. The heavy Roland ones work the best that I've seen. I've got a set of the ddrum ones that go under your tuning lug but I don't entirely love the damping it does.

Perc pads: the roland spd-sx has kinda had the lock on the market for a long time - this is the one you see most often w/ guys who've implemented them in their acoustic kits. A good starter one for lower dough is the SPD ONE that allows you to load up any samples you want. You can set loops in there and trigger them on/off however you see fit as well as whatever other fun stuff you want like your 808 sub-smashers. Alesis makes some too but I would be wary about their comparative durability/longevity (but might be a good place to start.

Alesis also made a midi converter too which would allow you to hook up pads to whatever sound source you want including laptop software.