In this amazing track posted earlier today, at the beginning of many of the phrases (starting at the linked time) there is a sound that is not really a note, it's kind of a crunchy distortion sound like "GHKGHGKH". I have never been able to reliably make that sound. Any tips?
Posted Dec 21, 2016, 6:49 AM UTC
The main melody line has 4 notes. On the 1st and 4th notes I hear what may be a rake. Especially on that first note. The 4th may just be an accented pick stroke.
A rake is where you mute all the strings with your left hand except for the one note you want to play. Then with your right hand you do an aggressive strum through all 6 strings. More information about how to rake here. I use this technique a lot and find it to be really powerful. Is that what you're talking about?
Also he is playing with a lot of gain. So he may also be intentionally letting the strings ring out and produce some noise for a brief moment before he clearly grabs the intended note.
sounds like he's standing on a wah pedal
I believe Zeppelin used the same technique: wah down for a treble boost.
It's muted strings man, just put your hand vet the strings while it's heavily distorted and ram the way pedal and play it at the same time it should give you something similar
Just sounds like noise (like pickup hum, very quietly vibrating open strings, hand movements) amplified by a high gain dist/fuzz like a Big Muff. Maybe some compression as well. He's letting the notes sustain for a bit at the end of the phrases. As the note dies out, the background noise will take over the signal. The fuzz/compression makes that noise way louder than it usually is.