llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Wed May 01, 2024 6:05 am This thread is perfect for the prepared guitar nerds. I’m kind of inspired!

One of my favorite prepared guitar things it to take an elastic hair tie thingie and putting it on the guitar neck at harmonic points like 5th or 12th fret, great for fingerpicking weird little stuff like that. Also taking a playing card and cutting a little 1/4" strip off of it and inter weaving it into the strings back by the bridge can make your guitar sound kind of "banjo-ish".

penningtron wrote: Wed May 01, 2024 8:35 am
(back to topic) I haven't tested it out yet, but I want to make an electronic-ofied kick out of a kick practice pad, a contact mic, into a Bit Commander and maybe other things. These are things I already have so why not.

This is pretty cool and I’d like to hear the results.

As someone who tried a lot of stuff to make a contact mic have a kick drum quality (on a typewriter), I needed to use a graphic EQ pedal into a gate pedal into a subwoofer to get that happening acoustically. If that’s what you’re going for.

Back when I played more, I used to cut out drumheads as described above for the fat, low snare sound. You can also use like a simple plastic A4 sleeve, like for school papers. Bonus points if it has the textured surface that you can use to make "scratching" noises with a stick or butt end of a brush etc.

If you want to go the other direction on snare or toms, I used to use door stoppers like this on the batter heads:

https://www.amazon.de/Schramm-T%C3%BCrs ... 00UFWMWCC/

Fun for getting a wide range of sounds out of a small amount of drums while playing free improv.

The saw blades can be nice. If you want more overtones, more of a gong sound, metal thermoses can be cool.

Years ago, I made a DIY Jecklin disc out of some scrap fiberglass insulation and a chunk of plywood. Staple some fabric around it (like an old T shirt or something) to keep the fibers from falling off. Don't know what happened to it, I probably gave it to somebody when I moved from Nashville, but I've been thinking about making another one. Probably doesn't even really need to be circular, as long as it's about the same size as a human head.

twelvepoint wrote: Wed May 01, 2024 4:56 pm As someone who tried a lot of stuff to make a contact mic have a kick drum quality (on a typewriter), I needed to use a graphic EQ pedal into a gate pedal into a subwoofer to get that happening acoustically. If that’s what you’re going for.

Yeah.. this is probably correct. Even with the sub octave settings of the Bit Commander, it'll probably just sound like a deep synth bass note. Maybe the better option is to attach the contact mic to a real kick to get some natural attack in the room.

Most of my frugal advice revolves around going on god knows how many tours, exclusively in bands that no one has ever given a shit about. As such, money is at a premium on the road.

-For fly out tours we use bolt-on neck guitars, take them apart and pack them in a large duffle. Can ship a bass, guitar, all the pedals and cables for the cost of one checked bag.

-cheap hotels are about 50/50 (more so overseas) on having some sort of breakfast. Between that and a large-ish lunch, you can usually get by w/o an evening meal.

-When you're teching for bigger bands, there is almost always food brought in, or craft services, in addition to your per-diem. Never skip the free meals and you can typically pocket most of the cash. I know dudes who would routinely go home with an extra $2k at the end of a run.