Anyone know of a good way to achieve a metallic guitar sound with low gain, but so it will still have a raw edge to it? Yes...similar to shellac...kill me now

try a single coil pickup - the one closest to the bridge, play closer to the bridge, cut your mids. use new strings.

play around with your amp, a marshall's gonna be totally differant than a fender twin (obviously). play around. you can also use an aluminum pick.

but i'm a drummer so take that for what it's worth.

Try buying the DOD "Shellac" pedal. It rocks and most importantly is super cheap.

Try the Danelectro French Toast in the octave mode. Neck pickup works best. It's a super cheap copy of the Foxx Tone Machine. Gently tapping on the strings creates a very metallic sound.

I'm a big fan of the Boss PS-2. The later models have a pitch shift sound that is too smooth for me, but the PS-2 on the higher octave setting is, as the saying goes, "fucking sweet". Has a kind of harsh ring to it that is fun to try to keep under control. Can be very percussive when played like the Gang of Four.

I think KK Null uses one in Zeni Geva, but he shifts the guitar stuff an octave down, which sounds frightening and cool as well.

Why am I typing this? I should go play with that thing right now.

= Justin

cool...thanks for the posts. I'm going to check out a PS-2 this weekend...I've needed a new pitch shifter latley anyway for noise....so this will be murdering two birds with one weapon of mass destruction. Previously I've been confined to my friend's toneworks combo board...a thousand sounds to try out but none are the best example of their ilk....any idea for good samplers for beginners?

I got an intersound IVP on ebay a while back for $60. Use the DI out on that and you can get a very pierce-y. clank-y, ouch-y tone. I use it for bass, though.

The key to a metallic sound, IMO is a lot of high frequency without upper midrance, say around 4kHz. Guitar speakers top out at about 4kHz, so adding treble on an amp will just add a bunch of upper mids.

Try plugging your amp into a PA cabinet with a horn or tweeter... this will give you response up to 15kHz or above.

have fun

ben adrian
amp tinkerer

As far as a sampling pedal, or what have you... the AKAII Headrush is very cool. There's also this crazy pedal... don't remember the name too well. Something like the Z-Vex Lo-Fi Loop Junky or something. That's probably wrong, but oh well. It's pretty interesting.

That PS-2 is a great pedal. It can get a pretty smooth reverse delay as well. Set the Mix/Effect to 10 (max). The two middle knobs both to 5 (right in the middle). And the selector (far right knob) to 7. argh!!!
That pedal is so versatile... you can do all kinds of shit!

i was wondering what kind of harmonizer was used by steve in big black which sounded quite similar to the one used by slint in "tweez". i think it added also to the metallic sound.

Harmonic percolator.

They're hard to find, and the schematics that you can find on the internet are rumored to be incorrect.