So I guess pedals are the new forward guard.

[Invisible Man]

As far as gear, I love the Seppuku Kassette (V.1) and how it distorts time and the concept of a consistent pitch. Noise Ensemble gets there as well, with added dirt. (I like them "minus the original note" if you catch my drift).

Awesome. Thanks. I'll check them out.

[Invisible Man]

I like to think of myself as more of a sound designer than a guitarist or a musician . In fact those are terms that I actively disassociate with myself when confronted with them. I recall this conversation with my girlfriend on our first date:

Her: "You play guitar, right?"
Me: "Well, I have a guitar"
Her: "What kind of music do you play"
Me: " I just make noise"
Her: "<<laughs>> Seriously, what kind of music do you play"
Me: "Seriously, I just make noise"

I'm fascinated by the purity of sound without context - where the sound itself is the final product, as opposed to just an ingredient in a melody or rhythm. Obviously pedals are invaluable to that end.

Sounds like an amazing date. She was thinking "WTF, I thought maybe he'd write a song for me, or gently strum a Jewel tune for me late at night" and you're thinking SCREEEEEEEEEE

I was homeless for my "first date" with my now-wife. I borrowed my car back from my friend (a 1970 VW Beetle on loan to pay him back for some stuff), and took her to dinner. No fucking idea why I thought spending $25 on chicken sandwiches was a good idea. But I told her 1) I had no job; 2) was not in school; 3) I was fighting a felony charge. It was 2006; we were both 19. I took her leftovers home with me.

But she just gave birth to my second kid, so fuck it. I'll call it a "win."

[Invisible Man]

But I'm not young and have done this stuff a LONG time.

What do you mean? Like, you've seen enough come and go that this isn't something that matters? I'm on board with that, but my question's still there, I guess. It sounds like you're after the elusive "tone," which is cool; I'm on the other foot, where a pedal represents some idea bigger than the stuff it can do to mangle audio. I guess I just wonder why (and I don't know that you care about this--I know you're more than happy to use Boss, Roland, other big manufacturers) so many of us ILFers are borderline-obsessed with microbuilders. We feel like they "get us," or something, in a way that economy-scaled producers don't.

I could trip, fall, and get impaled on the number of raging ILF boners I've seen for Seppuku, Dwarcraft, Dr. Scientist, Fairfield, and Montreal Assembly. Know what I mean?

God damn it, work is slow.

[Eivind August]

The power of the limited palette. I remember the Brians in Lightning Bolt making a big deal out of that in their tour documentary. As a multi-instrumentalist, I think about this all the time. It's probably why I try to collect so many versatile tools. It's just me making the music, so I know it's kind of limited already. I don't want to further limit it by not having at hand the thing I'd need to accomplish something.

You should talk more about your thesis. Love to hear what you mean by all this. It sounds like--and I mean this in all seriousness--you're getting close to that weird mystical moment that so many of us have once in a while. It's the thing we keep chasing, you know? When you just do something, and zone out, and then realize it's been forty five minutes and your daughters are crying and your wife is ready to kill you and the dog is howling and you just didn't notice because holy shit that detuned oscillation just resonatedinyourmotherfuckingsoulamirite?

I had a breakthrough in my dissertation when I discovered ray Kurzweil's insane ideas about technological singularity. Though synthesizers weren't the subject of my research, the possibilities for thinking about this other problem I'd been working on immediately blossomed. And that conversation came out of talking to a colleague about pedals. So, holy shit.

As for SF: oscillation/oscillators just kill me, because it's basically the sound of electricity. It's not modeled on anything. And it sounds like power. I wake up early every single day so I can go down to the basement and (quietly) get my Moog filter oscillating into a bass amp. Incredibly stimulating. I often don't even pick up a guitar/bass; I just let noises happen.

And don't worry about being an insufferable douche. It's okay to have thoughts...even if you might get blowback. People don't have to read the thread. I'm definitely not trying to be pretentious about any of this, or to pretend there's something happening here that isn't. I just wanted to put words to my thoughts on this, and to see if there's anyone else thinking on this stuff.

I agree with the "having what I need at my disposal" idea. For me, my regime of limitation stems from constantly recording, listening, and seeing what works or not for the abstract idea I have. For instance, I never mesh with modulation pedals. The constant repetition of swooshes or whatever just doesn't work for me. I do like it when others rock their flangers or phasers etc., but it just doesn't feel right for me. Oscillating fuzzes into analog delays on the other hand, maybe with a touch of glitch or a manual filter sweep...

Heh, my thesis. So, I'm a philosopher (which, at least to me, sounds weird to say), and am one of the few that works more with aesthetic philosophy than ethics, history of ideas and metaphysics (I do have a fair share of metaphysics and ethics under my cognitive belt though, and might apply some ideas in my thesis). Basically, I want to write about the use of noise in music, and how noise can be 'beauty'. Trying to apply Aristotles or Hegels view on beauty, or something. Yeah. Just started, so don't yet know what will come of it. Remember reading this futurist manifesto written by some guy in the roaring twenties, where he stated that noise would become a part of popular music because it was becoming a greater part of our surroundings; traffic, construction sites, electrical appliances... We've created this soundtrack to our lives with all of our machines and technology, and it makes sense that it would influence our art as well.

The sound of electricity. I like that. Will need to check out Kurzweil as well.

And yeah, the douchebag bit was just a slice of self-loathing sarcasm. I'm obviously for intellectualizing art and trying to make sense of things. Oh, and congratz on your new mini human!

[Warpsmasher]

a pedal represents some idea bigger than the stuff it can do to mangle audio.

MASF is like the current definition of cyberpunk. Possessed just nails that broken robot thing so perfectly.
Eventide is like George Lucas or James Cameron, legendary for bringing special effects to a new level, and expected to keep it coming.
There are also bad examples, like how your overdrive pedal represents your financial position in life. This is why I like stuff like Way Huge and EHX. Working class ass kickers, eminently capable and thoroughly respectable.
Boss and Digitech are changing with the times and keeping up quite nicely. I certainly don't see either of them as any kind of lowest common denominator anymore.

[D.o.S.]

I could trip, fall, and get impaled on the number of raging ILF boners I've seen for Seppuku, Dwarcraft, Dr. Scientist, Fairfield, and Montreal Assembly. Know what I mean?

Well from that list, three of those companies are part of the ILF community. So, you know, support your friends.

[Warpsmasher]

Current TC Electronic = Michael Bay
Source Audio = Guillermo Del Toro
Strymon = JJ Abrams
Boss = Mel Gibson

[rfurtkamp]

But I'm not young and have done this stuff a LONG time.

What do you mean? Like, you've seen enough come and go that this isn't something that matters? I'm on board with that, but my question's still there, I guess. It sounds like you're after the elusive "tone," which is cool; I'm on the other foot, where a pedal represents some idea bigger than the stuff it can do to mangle audio. I guess I just wonder why (and I don't know that you care about this--I know you're more than happy to use Boss, Roland, other big manufacturers) so many of us ILFers are borderline-obsessed with microbuilders. We feel like they "get us," or something, in a way that economy-scaled producers don't.

I could trip, fall, and get impaled on the number of raging ILF boners I've seen for Seppuku, Dwarcraft, Dr. Scientist, Fairfield, and Montreal Assembly. Know what I mean?

God damn it, work is slow.

I'm not after any elusive tone. I'm after a musical two-way conversation with the face of God, in whatever form it takes. The tools to get there are just tools. Could care less who or what made them.

None of the builders "get" me. Not even the small scale ones. I'm in that uncomfortable medium between noise and melody and am not afraid of either, but I have no desire to rechase or redo a moment in time.

I plug in, play, and let the moment take me. That's what I do. It's what I've done for a long, long time (well over twenty years and counting).

I don't know many writers who obsess over the maker of their ink, etc.

Seems like getting caught up in the screws instead of the process to me is the gist of it I suppose.

It's the sort of stuff I thought about when I was young and stoned and bored at 3 am a long, long time ago but the microbuilders and boutique stuff didn't exist. You used what was available in front of you, and couldn't just order the world on eBay.

[tuj]

The one thing the modular guys don't have is the understanding of the physical synthesis occurring with the guitar strings, the pickups, and the FUZZ.

Modular guys talk trash about each-other's filters. We talk trash about each other's dirt pedals.

[kbit]

The one thing the modular guys don't have is the understanding of the physical synthesis occurring with the guitar strings, the pickups, and the FUZZ.

Modular guys talk trash about each-other's filters. We talk trash about each other's dirt pedals.

But, like, every time you, like, trigger your analog oscillators there are like... minute differences in the sound from the time you played it before. Every time is its own unique event, man. CAN'T YOU FEEL IT? THATS PHYSICAL, BRO.

[neonblack]

Current TC Electronic = Michael Bay
Source Audio = Guillermo Del Toro
Strymon = JJ Abrams
Boss = Mel Gibson

??? = Stanley Kubrick
??? = David Fincher

[Eivind August]

Current TC Electronic = Michael Bay
Source Audio = Guillermo Del Toro
Strymon = JJ Abrams
Boss = Mel Gibson

??? = Stanley Kubrick
??? = David Fincher

MASF = Shinya Tsukamoto
LAL = Takashi Miike
Fuzzhugger = Terry Gilliam

[Warpsmasher]

Moog = Kubrick
Devi = Fincher
D.A.M. = Lars Von Trier
WMD = Werner Herzog
Korg = Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli
Dr. Sci = Romero
Dwarfcraft = Sam Raimi
Zvex = Tarantino

[Eivind August]

Hah, that is pretty spot on. I love these kinda abstractions, especially when they have this intuitive logic to them.

Now, who is Seppuku? Kenneth Anger?

[goroth]

Current TC Electronic = Michael Bay
Source Audio = Guillermo Del Toro
Strymon = JJ Abrams
Boss = Mel Gibson

Since when did Boss start hating Jewish dudes and making crap films?