need advice for a "wall of guitars" experiment

[gae_layahoo.it]

hello,i'm looking for suggestions for an audio experiment i am about to make with my friends later this year (december the 29th). the experiment comprises 17 musicians that play electric guitar on an altered major C scale ( C - D - E - F - G - A - B flat). all the guitars will be open-tuned in the following fashion (from the lower E to the upper E) : "C C C G D D" some of the players will be playing "G D D C" ad libitum,therefore never touching the fretboard, while the others will be playing random melodic figures based on the altered C sacle. there will be no tempo: all of the musicians can play the notes at the speed they prefer. there are only three basic rules: -the "GDDC" secion of the ensemble must play the D's on both the D tuned strings (ie. they can't play D twice on the same string) -the musicians must play the guitar with continuous sustain,which means that once they've hit a string they will have to hit the next one before the first has stopped vibrating. -the guitars must be well tuned i'd also like to spread the players and their amps through the hall instead of having them postioned in a semicircle like a classic orchestra. the aim of this experiment is to create a "wall" of notes and harmonics. so...any other suggestions? sorry for my bad english. thanks

[Cowfingers]

crazy motha... :D will you be recording all this? i'd love to hear it. sorry i cant give any advice, but its too nuts for me. good luck :thu:

[Sylver]

No tempo, huh? Well, while you will likely have that wall of sound, it might come off more like a wall of noise. If it doesn't start geling, maybe you could try setting up a metronome at a fairly fast clip, say 120 bpm, then assign diferent groups different time divisions within that tempo. I really like the whole idea, but without some rhythmic boundries, you may end up with a wall of cacaphony. Just a thought. Oh, and btw, what kinds of sounds are you going to be using? Clean, distored, driven, modulated? It might have a big effect. You might want to stay away from delays and modulations as it might affect the blending. Hmmmmm, this kinda sounds like the "Trans Siberian Orchestra".

[gae_layahoo.it]

thank you for the advice! for this experiment i'll be using clean sounds and the spring-reverbs on the amps. about the tempo...well,i could work out different tempos for different sections of the "orchestra",that would be good. i'm not too sure about the placement of the amps,i have yet to figure out a way of placing the amps so that every player more or less can hear the others while retaining a sense of spaciousness. oh,and which way should i record this happening? stereo pair,one mic for each amp,other? mucho thanks.

[jeffbayson]

If you put too much distortion on any number of the guitars, all you will hear will be fuzz. Playing every note in that scale on only one guitar could sound like a total disaster with too much distortion. I agree that you might want some rhythmic boundaries. While we're on the subject of boundaries, you might want to consider more harmonic boundaries, as well. Removing one or more of the notes might help. In the scale you're using, the fourth, or the F, is the most dissonant note. Removing that might clean things up. You might also want to start with a melodic figure, and have players improvize off that figure, so things don't get too chaotic. Having six/seven guitar players crash in with entirely different ideas could be pretty messy. Extending that idea, you could also have a few melodic figures. You could start with one figure, and when things start getting wild, you could cue the next melodic figure for the next starting point. I saw a free jazz band do that once; they had hundreds of numbered flash cards. The bandleader would call a number, they would flip to the cards and change play the new figure on cue, as a launching pad for further improvisation. Also, since I'm a piano player, please forgive me for this paragraph... :) the scale you're using is C dominant, or mixolydian scale. While it's not incorrect to say that you're "altering" the C scale, technically a C altered scale refers to another scale (in jazz circles, anyway: C D# Eb E F# Ab Bb, if you're interested). Please, feel free to insult my scale snobbery. I deserve it. Hope this helps.

[GY]

First of all, I think you're going to have a difficult time getting 2 guitar players to agree that they're in tune, let alone 17! (just kidding) What mics do you have. How many tracks do you have? How many channels do you have? Do you have a snake? Most importantly, how big is the hall? I would experiment with a stereo pair and direct each guitar to its own track. This way, if the stereo pair doesn't work, you have the option of replacing individual parts you don't like, add artificial reverb and be done with it. A safety net.

[Soundcrafter]

What Cowfingers said...I want to hear it!

[bearded yeti]

Why don't you just do this with a sequencer first, so you'll know what to expect, and can possibly predict and prevent a forthcoming "wall of noise" before it happens?

[Franknputer]

What kind of guitars will you be using?

[waveyl]

Wicked Idea!!! :thu:

[D_dup3]

I've questions & a suggestion... There will be greater variety of sounds & frequencies if the guitarists are not all tuned the same or, at least, not all playing the same notes/voicings. BUT maybe that's contrary to what you seek...which leads me to the questions: What's the object of this? Is there anything definite that you're trying to accomplish (the fact that you have some guidelines leads me to think so) or are you just experimenting...&, if ao, to find out what? Please let us know what you're after...& what the result is!

[gae_layahoo.it]

lots of help here,thank you guys! well,i've already tried to layer some guitar parts on Pro Tools and the results were entrancing... and here it is,my aim is to create a hypnotic piece of music,something that can induce a trance-like state in both the listener and the performer...hey,i hope i didn't sound like a wanker there! the piece will last an hour,after that i'll make some sign and the guitarists will stop playing one by one. the guitars are varied,but for the majority they are fenders. i have a very important question: i'd like the listener to clearly hear the harmonics in the G D D C sequence.will the fine-tuning of the guitars enhance that or not?