The Expressway to Yr Skull

#SONIC COOKBOOK#

There's a misconception that noise is the opposite of 'proper' guitar playing, and that it's easy. Well, sonic distortions aren't rocket science (but then neither is 'proper' guitar playing), but there is a certain amount of skill + ingenuity + hardware that goes into noising.

GEAR
You can't make noise without distortion, so that's the most important thing. If you noise a clean (i.e. undistorted) guitar, it sounds like you just can't play, whereas if you fuck up a heavily fuzzed or overdriven axe, it sounds like you're doing it on purpose, thanks to the stirling work of Jimi Hendrix, Lou Reed, Neil Young and Sonic Youth, the big four feederbackers of history, who turned guitar noise into an art form.
I use a Marshall Shredmaster pedal and a Korg AX1000G Signal Processor (or multi-FX, to everyone else).

Generally I use the modelling features of the Korg to get my sound; the pedal is turned off with the all the knobs turned up to full. All I have to do is hit the footswitch to turn on the pedal, and I get instant super-distortion and feedback which is constant, even if I stand a long way from the amp.

The guitar I used for most of the example files on this site was a Fender-licensed Stratocaster copy called a Sunn 'Mustang'. It's made in India, which is unheard of, and is very rare but so cheap and crap that no one on the planet would ever collect it. I like cheap guitars because of the extreme low quality of the hardware; the pickups are so badly shielded that they feedback very easily, and have a really nasty, brash sound. Still, that's not to say I wouldn't prefer a 1965 Fender Jaguar.

Since then, I've got rid of the Mustang (my dad wanted it back, although I do come round to play it now and then). I now have a new, good guitar (a British Burns Marquee), which is good because I'd always wondered what playing in tune sounded like. I've also bought a cheap strat-type copy, a Kramer Focus, which isn't as good as the Mustang, but does the job.

My new amp is a keyboard or multipurpose amp, which is capable of handling lower bass responses than an ordinary guitar amp, which is handy when experimenting with pitchshifters and the like.

FX
Effects are cool. My multi-FX unit does a pretty good job of 'digitally modelling' actual stomp boxes, but lacks the inherent coolness of them little metal units. However, stomp boxes need power, so if you have more than two or three, you'll need to either buy or construct a pedal rack to power all the boxes. The advantage of a multi-FX is that you have access to expensive FX, like the ring modulator, without having to buy the pedal or boxes themselves. The main disadvantage is that unless you pay a reasonable amount for your multi-FX, it'll sound really really bad, very inorganic and 80s. That's a sound in itself, but not neccessarily one you'll want all the time.

BOSS make the best distortion pedals, value wise. Electro-Harmonix, however, are reissuing a lot of their 1970s range and these pedals and boxes are very reasonably priced, and probably the most popular make among good bands. The Big Muff distortion created the sound of American indie rock of the late 80s and 90s, along with the Pro-Co Turbo Rat, and both reissues are priced reasonably.

The other alternative is very cheap and nasty boxes; cheap boxes have their own amusing properties and disfunctions. The only one I wouldn't recommend buying on the cheap is wah-wah; cheap pedals just don't work very well, and tend to sound very tame. However broken or damaged pedals are always worth a go.

TECHNIQUES
The trick with noising is to make something that sounds interesting and difficult to achieve, rather than sounding like you meant to play something else, but just fucked it up. Here's a list of some of the most wacky techniques:

Slide. You can use a regular slide (basically a piece of metal the size of the third or fourth finger), or another household object, such as a drumstick, or, my personal favourite, a screwdriver. Slide up and down the strings to create an oscillating effect with is very Sonic Youth. Slide around the pickups to make some high-pitched shrieking.
Mute chords. Not technically noise per se, but one of my personal favourite guitar sounds. Lightly rest one of your fingers, usual first or second, over all the strings so that they don't move, but aren't touching any fret, then hit them with heavy distortion on and the amp on loud.
Bending. Everyone likes a bit of bending. A great way to make your guitar go completely out of tune. Push or pull a string up/down the fretboard, so it scrapes across the fret and goes up in pitch.
Tapping. Tap either the back of the neck, or around the pickups to make a rumbling noise or hollow jarring sounds. As used at the end of Sonic Youth's 'The Expressway to yr Skull'.
Screwing. Hmm, slightly misleading title; not actually making love to your guitar, but jamming a screwdriver blade between strings and fretboard and either sliding up and down, to doing other unpleasant things. If your guitar is worth money, or you've only got one set of strings, don't do this.
Feedback.Turning up your amp loud enough for the components and stuff to, er, react. Or something. Can be controlled by messing about the with amp, guitar and pedal controls. If you get it to the right pitch, you can make dogs howl for miles around.
Shredding. The process of playing the strings very fast to create a kind of messy tremolo effect. Also works rather well with an electric drill.
Detuning. If you guitar is enough out of tune, and distorted enough pretty much anything you play with sound like noise.
Pickup Switching. A little-used effect, partly because it relies on your guitar being extremely cheap, and making an audible noise when the pickup selector switch is flicked.