Always looking for a new angle?
Experimenting for me is much more interesting, unfortunately the more your learn about the correct ways of recording the less likely you are to just mess around.
So I thought I’d start a new series of articles about recording in weird, cool and/or destructive ways
Todays Tip:
Using and acoustic guitar to affect the sound of your amp.
This only works with a clean electric guitar sound.
First you tune your guitar to an chord using an open tuning, this will be in the key that your song is in.
If your song is in the key of ‘C’ tune the guitar to an open ‘C’ chord.
If you’re not sure how to do this read the table below for a safer guide.
Place the re-tuned guitar next to or near the guitar amp you have mic’d up for recording.
Playing the guitar through the amp will make the strings on the acoustic vibrate, placing a microphone toward the soundhole of the guitar should give you a ‘tuned’ reverb effect.
Experiment with tunings to see what happens.
Open Tunings: Ideas. Work from 6th string the Bottom ‘E‘ downwards. Bottom ‘E‘ is your thickest string.
————————————————————————————————————
Key of C tune guitar to C major chord.
Tune: Leave E as is – Tune A to G – Tune D to C – Leave G – Tune B to C – Leave E as is.
————————————————————————————————————
Key of G tune guitar to G major chord.
Tune: Tune E to D – Tune A to G – Tune D to D – Leave G alone – Tune B to B – Tune E to D.
————————————————————————————————————
Key of D tune guitar to D major chord.
Tune: Tune E to D – Tune A to A – Tune D to D – Tune G to F# – Tune B to A – Tune E to D.
————————————————————————————————————
And so on, always look at each string and see which note is closest, a good tip is to tune down rather than up if it can be helped.
Also try and make sure you include the major 3rd or minor 3rd as appropriate to the chord.
Try using 3/4 size guitars or even nashville tuned guitars.
Expand on a trick and see what happens.
Have fun…