Power Electronics/Death Industrial Advice

[Euro Trash Bazooka]

I assume everyone has their own reasons to create noise and record it. Developping atmospheres and record something that I'd want to listen to afterwards are some of mine, whatever I use to make music. Just because it's a vacuum cleaner doesn't mean I can't make anything but noise with it, there are plenty of sounds I can make, various settings on the machine, various parts made of various stuff I can use, etc.

Also, I like the Cathedral reverb. I've never tried the other ones.

[birthdeath]

I assume everyone has their own reasons to create noise and record it. Developping atmospheres and record something that I'd want to listen to afterwards are some of mine, whatever I use to make music. Just because it's a vacuum cleaner doesn't mean I can't make anything but noise with it, there are plenty of sounds I can make, various settings on the machine, various parts made of various stuff I can use, etc.

I could see how that might sound cool on recording,especially on a 4 track. ive never really liked the sounds of vacuums by themselves though.
I think it would be cool if someone put a piezo contact mic on the wand and turned it on and ran it through pedals, if the disk or whatever where wide enough

[Cementimental]

You don't need any of that stuff to make it not sound like a vacuum cleaner, recording (especially on tape) can be a tool/instrument/'effect' in itself

[jadderly]

If anyone has any idea what would be the best reverb pedal/unit for the kinda sounds I want it would be very appreciated.( right now im just using the one on my zoom
im thinking between alesis microverb 4,digitech supernatural or maybe ehx cathedral doesnt have to be between those though, just the one thatll work best

This is going to sound obvious, maybe you've already tried it, but anyway - is there a guitar megashop near you? They will usually let you test out new and used effects pedals. Of course you won't be able to plug a synth rig into them but just buy testing them out with an off the rack Fender guitar or something you will get a pretty good idea of what sounds they make, which ones sound better to you, what sounds more synthetic or natural, etc. Guitar stores usually also have a good selection of popular pedals and effects units used, which is always cheaper than buying a brand new pedal for $150 or whatever.

[birthdeath]

I went to guitar center yesterday and they didnt really have a great selection of reverbs. I saw some behringer ones and tested them but they seemed pretty limited(although I was still pretty surprised). I want a thick,murky,sludgy,cavernous sound. The Reverb Machine, even when on the cave mode was a little too digital sounding and not really deep enough. They had a few units and a TC electronic one too but I didnt test those.
I'm willing to spend $175 on the reverb when I have all the money saved for a new round of gear(halfway there) and also plan on getting a pitch shifter/delay,reverb of course, and probably a digidelay or some pedal that I can layer a bunch of tape loops sounds and then further mess with it using the pitch shifter.

[jadderly]

If you can gain access to a location with good reverb, that will probably beat any pedal on the market.

[birthdeath]

If you can gain access to a location with good reverb, that will probably beat any pedal on the market.

Oh, I was thinking of more of the kind of reverb you hear in dark ambient and a lot of PE. It makes it sound kinda spooky;that kind. I imagine having like so much that it almost blends all my inputs together in like a fog then I'll add some harsh electronic sounding painful vocals(mostly just sounds). But since my zoom 505ii doesnt have two inputs or two out puts like a unit or really good reverb would(one for synth,samples,tape loops,noise coming from another mixer, and another or more for my synth and other shit) Just gotta work with what I have till I've got everything saved up,though. So I'm thinking a noisier approach would be more achievable.
I've also got a homemade spring reverb from an amp, but I basically turned it into another noise-shaker box-contact mic thing(still can run shit through it tho) because it was kinda shitty and not what i was looking for.

[jadderly]

Believe it or not some old school dark ambient acts used location/field recordings of wind and random sounds...those recordings could be added into the mix of just about anything. Lustmord was one artist that did this, but field recordings are nothing new in this type of music...

[birthdeath]

Believe it or not some old school dark ambient acts used location/field recordings of wind and random sounds...those recordings could be added into the mix of just about anything. Lustmord was one artist that did this, but field recordings are nothing new in this type of music...

yeah i could see the usage of field recordings of wind and ive actually been doing that. i thought you ment playing into a big hall or something. and i would imagine that would kinda just echo

[Cementimental]

Oh, I was thinking of more of the kind of reverb you hear in dark ambient and a lot of PE. It makes it sound kinda spooky

So, just some standard utter cheesy reverb. A rackmount or desktop reverb unit of some kind might be better than pedal ones, because reverb pedals are for guitarists and thus are mostly boring and limited. Some Alessis reverbs can be picked up cheap on eBay etc, also the Zoom rackmount multi fx like RFX1000 or similar are cheap and have some decent reverb settings

For actual interesting/good/experimental reverb try things like as mentioned playing back and recording sounds in a real reverberating space (yeah a giant hall might be more like echo but that could be good, and in a way reverb is kind of just really short echo anyway, but even a tiled bathroom can make a good reverb chamber!) ...or since reverb is usually (except spring reverb) a digital effect just forget pedals and experiment with Convolution reverb in software. Can't be bothered to explain it now but long story short it's magic, you can kind of sample a real space and put any sound thru it for super realistic reverb as if it was being played in that space. One of Reaper's default verb plugins can load 'impulse response' samples, and you can download a lot of them free online, I've found forests, caves, Masonic temples, warehouses... Also you can load in samples that aren't intended to be a reverb impulse and make your own unnatural spaces/atmospheres. I made a dark ambient/drone track by playing sounds thru a riff from a death metal song, it sounded like some giant doom cathedral

Anyway I'm not explaining this so well, Google 'convolution reverb' and read up about it and if you don't get excited about it you prob shouldn't be doing reverb-centric electronic music :D

[Cementimental]

Oh, I was thinking of more of the kind of reverb you hear in dark ambient and a lot of PE. It makes it sound kinda spooky

So, just some standard utter cheesy reverb. A rackmount or desktop reverb unit of some kind might be better than pedal ones, stereo, higher quality sound, longer reverb etx. reverb pedals are for guitarists and thus are mostly boring and limited. Some Alessis reverbs can be picked up cheap on eBay etc, also the Zoom rackmount multi fx like RFX1000 or similar are cheap and have some decent reverb settings

For actual interesting/good/experimental reverb try things like as mentioned playing back and recording sounds in a real reverberating space (yeah a giant hall might be more like echo but that could be good, and in a way reverb is kind of just really short echo anyway, but even a tiled bathroom can make a good reverb chamber!) ...or since reverb is usually (except spring reverb) a digital effect just forget pedals and experiment with Convolution reverb in software. Can't be bothered to explain it now but long story short it's magic, you can kind of sample a real space and put any sound thru it for super realistic reverb as if it was being played in that space. One of Reaper's default verb plugins can load 'impulse response' samples, and you can download a lot of them free online, I've found forests, caves, Masonic temples, warehouses... Also you can load in samples that aren't intended to be a reverb impulse and make your own unnatural spaces/atmospheres. I made a dark ambient/drone track by playing sounds thru a riff from a death metal song, it sounded like some giant doom cathedral

Anyway I'm not explaining this so well, Google 'convolution reverb' and read up about it and if you don't get excited about it you prob shouldn't be doing reverb-centric electronic music :D

[birthdeath]

Oh, I was thinking of more of the kind of reverb you hear in dark ambient and a lot of PE. It makes it sound kinda spooky

So, just some standard utter cheesy reverb. A rackmount or desktop reverb unit of some kind might be better than pedal ones, because reverb pedals are for guitarists and thus are mostly boring and limited. Some Alessis reverbs can be picked up cheap on eBay etc, also the Zoom rackmount multi fx like RFX1000 or similar are cheap and have some decent reverb settings

For actual interesting/good/experimental reverb try things like as mentioned playing back and recording sounds in a real reverberating space (yeah a giant hall might be more like echo but that could be good, and in a way reverb is kind of just really short echo anyway, but even a tiled bathroom can make a good reverb chamber!) ...or since reverb is usually (except spring reverb) a digital effect just forget pedals and experiment with Convolution reverb in software. Can't be bothered to explain it now but long story short it's magic, you can kind of sample a real space and put any sound thru it for super realistic reverb as if it was being played in that space. One of Reaper's default verb plugins can load 'impulse response' samples, and you can download a lot of them free online, I've found forests, caves, Masonic temples, warehouses... Also you can load in samples that aren't intended to be a reverb impulse and make your own unnatural spaces/atmospheres. I made a dark ambient/drone track by playing sounds thru a riff from a death metal song, it sounded like some giant doom cathedral

Anyway I'm not explaining this so well, Google 'convolution reverb' and read up about it and if you don't get excited about it you prob shouldn't be doing reverb-centric electronic music :D

holy shit that sounds like fun!! Ill definitely do that to spice up and combine my samples. i field recorded a junkyard/construction site/idk last week. I can run my shit through that?

[Cementimental]

Read up on it to fully understand but basically you make reverb impulses by recording a sharp crack/pop (eg a hand clap, balloon popping or gunshot) in a reverberant space.. So if you can edit a single impact kind of sound out of your recording and there's not too much other background noise you might get good results, and pretty much any short sound will give you interesting/weird/droney results :)

[birthdeath]

you got the link to that song you made with it? i ve only found some(pretty cool actually) harsh noise stuff. i d just like to see an example of what it would sound like when you use it for the purposes that you or i would use it

[Cementimental]

Thanks.. I can't remember if that one's online and I'm away from computer at the moment so can't check/find it. Anyway it can sound like pretty much anything, just give it a go :)