Free Ring Modulator! (effect!) + Emmett's add'l comments
Cheapest Ring Modulator you can buy- a piece of paper! In music history, people like John Cage, were experimenting with placing "foreign" objects on an instrument to alter the attack or percussive sound of the instrument. ( See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepared_piano) Emmett at Stickfest told us , as we all listened with believable ears and leaned closer, of "genetically altered caterpillars" grown by SE who give their lives just to mute the bass strings. Then he relieved all the PETA crew in the crowd and said it was only a piece of weather stripping used to get the percussive tuned drum sound on the bass side! Greg in his Stick Book (Ch9,pg7) in detail discusses muting using electrical tape and other techniques.
A ring modulator gives the sum and the difference of two signals without either original signal creating mathematical not harmonically related sounds....(OK I got lost on that one)- they are a cool effect and Jan Hammer to Devo used them. One single tiny piece of paper slid under your frets at different places can create muted harmonics. For example, slide and weave a 1/2" folded strip of paper under your 17th fret and have the edge line up with the fret facing the bridge. Now play your 8th and 9th strings at the 5th
fret- you get the original slightly muted plus the harmonic. If you play the same 8th and 9ths strings now at the dot on the 7th fret, you get a real high harmonic almost all percussive and no original note. Have fun and experiment with different frets for the paper
strip and the notes, use some delay or a large hall reverb- you can get Ring Mod effects to high handrums for next to nuttin'!
>Emmett kindly wrote me with additional tips!
Thanks Dave for putting my trained caterpillars in the Sticknews spotlight. BTW, I achieve the ring modulator effect all over the board with the flimsiest strip of yarn, gossamer thin, placed at one of the highest frets. It's a sleazy, wheezy sound, much like an old Oberheim ring modulator I had in the late '70s, and which I dubbed "the blues box". Nothin' but 7ths, 5ths and 3rds, all flatted of course, as strong harmonics accompanying the actual notes I played. Couldn't go wrong.
Best, Emmett.