26 Feb
2003
26 Feb
'03
4:55 p.m.
On Wed, Feb 26, 2003 at 08:35:58PM +0100, Frank Barknecht wrote:
So one day, I went to rehearse with them. It was very
unformal like "let's
jam a bit, have some fun." So I put on my saxophone, plugged the mike into
the distortion, the distortion into the wahwah or I plugged them the other
way around, don't remember.
Then I blew my heart out.
But there was not distrotion, and there was no wahwah. In fact, there
wasn't even a saxophone, there only was feedback, uncontrollable feedback.
Guitar effects on a microphone is very hard to manage without uncontrollable
feedback. But I saw it done - on a saxophone yet! - by a trio called
Spongehead (guitar/bass, sax, and drums). The sax player used wah, echo,
and an octave divider (which on a tenor or bari gave him some very
nice deep notes, allowing the sax to function as the bass player on
some songs!). I don't remember if he ever used distortion.
He played through a big guitar amp, i think.
Basically you want to:
1) use a very directional mic that mounts on the sax itself -
there are some made for this purpose. I don't know what kind of
pickup the Spongehead guy used, but it seemed to have a cable
coming from near the mouthpiece???
2) use as little distortion as possible to get the effect you want.
considering how "fuzzy" a saxophone can already sound, i'm not
sure there's much point in using a fuzz on it!
But it would be fun to try other effects like chorus, phase,
flange, tremolo ...
3) don't stand right in front of your amp :)
--
Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com