I picked up an old Korg MS-20. If you patch the headphone out back into it (via any CV, but 'total' is always fun), you get really aggressive sounds, especially with the ring modulator. It works as a guitarish sound, with more ugly mess. It also gets more difficult to control...

Basically, distorted analog synths. Hard to go wrong with a MiniMoog into an SVT. You will know when you hit all the sounds you want to hate instantly. Take a little time to tweak the programs/settings, and you can go from lame disco to horrifying mess fairly quickly.

Though they can get a little wanky, Simply Saucer is interesting.

Rimbaud III wrote:

galanter wrote:Especially current bands?

Les Georges Leningrad

Hear Hear!

galanter wrote:Does anyone want to try to generalize from these examples? Are there arranging pointers or timbral rules of thumb for mixing synths and guitars hard and good?

I guess I'd say let the synth be a synth, and not (say) a fake flute or fake sax or fake violin or whatever. Like in Ubu, Allen Ravenstine's use of the EML-101 was to create these very industrial sounds (as in "sounds of industry," not like the genre that's become known as "industrial")--hisses like steam pipes, geiger counter crackles, end-of-shift-at-the-mill whistles, sounds that might come from a bank of electronic test equipment. The synth can then be harsh and powerful in its synth-space, while the guitar can be powerful in its way, and there's no confusing the two. Difficult-to-control analog synths (particularly modular synths) seem good for this purpose, maybe because the old ones wouldn't stay in tune very well, so players who didn't want to keep tuning would have to do things other than play melodic lines. Also, ring modulation is your friend.

Sometimes I like plugging the synths into a Fuzz Factory.

Oh, Jeezus. How could I forget the prototypical synth-as-guitar-plus band:

The Screamers

eva03 wrote:Isis

Seconded on this.

Also - An Albatross does the spazz stuff better than the Locust.

Zeni Geva's "Freedom Bondage".

These Arms Are Snakes - bassist switches over to a keyboard from time to time.

= Justin

scott wrote:

galanter wrote:Especially current bands?

New Black!

thx scott. check out the song nothing scares us for my blantant rip off/homage of "babies got the rabies" by 6FS. well, it's roughly the same part transposed to diff drums... the 6FS song was where i started the main idea from for the verse parts... i rip off hot snakes parts elsewhere... and tons of other shit everywhere....

i also like milemarker and satisfact did it well. and lost sounds. actually ...scares us rips off a lost sounds arrangement w/a 6FS beat.

Comets on Fire has a drummer, a guitar player, and a guy who basically plays overloaded Echoplex. Not a synth in the classic sense, but 'electronic synthesis' nonetheless. Noisy and synthy in feel, with a heavy psycho-dellic sound (re: 60's overplaying). Pretty cool.

Crime In Choir
Battles