Anyone ever made a whole tune using guitar samples only?

I'm itching to start my next project and thoroughly enjoyed resampling my electric guitar through pedals and effects to make perc loops on my last track. You can get hats really easily and just general feedback drones sound awesome to me.

I realised it's interesting and fun to make a guitar make unconventional sounds, i.e. perc/pads/atmospheres/bass and wondered if anyone has ever done this on here as the basis for a track. I assmume so..

Watched this today and it's getting close to what I'm planning to do. Any tips or experience would be interesting to hear :)

CHEERS

I've used the guitar to write and perform songs, does that count? ;)

Yeah deffo!

I'm more sort of thinking in the sense of making a whole drum kit and all major elements of a ''electronic dance music'', whatever those key elements may be, using only a guitar as the sound source.

Nick Reinhart (of Tera Melos) has a bunch of solo releases with just his guitar and pedal effects that sounds like what you are talking about.

https://nickreinhart.bandcamp.com

I've never done that with a guitar, but I've been building drum kits out of junk/random samples for years. A lot of them have been built with human voice (or speech apps made to sound like human voice).

Years ago, I wrote a track made out of nothing but my body noises. This one is in stereo, but the original is 5.1 surround:

https://soundcloud.com/william-s-braintree/bodily-functions

Thanks a lot! Listening to the Reinhart thing now.

Braintree - will check that out too.

I think in general this is a really good method of producing tracks as it limits and constrains you in some ways..which I think is good in today's age of infinite sound design.

I remember a session I had a while ago where I was messing with just loads of effects and guitar and I made it almost 'speak' to me. It was really frightening in some ways but awe inspiring in others.

Thanks for interesting responses people :)

I made a track for WATMM compilation using just a guitar cable before, does that count ? https://worldsmostrecords.bandcamp.com/track/grounded

  On 5/31/2016 at 11:58 AM, mcbpete said:

I made a track for WATMM compilation using just a guitar cable before, does that count ? https://worldsmostrecords.bandcamp.com/track/grounded

Amazing! Will ensure to listen to this tonight :)

I think I just really enjoy making perc on a guitar..slapping strings, making hats and snares etc.

I once made a whole track using drill samples only, so I can only imagine you'd get better results with guitar samples, especially once you start experimenting, bowing it, tapping the body, and so on.

If you don't have a guitar, try a BBD instead. Karplus-Strong string synthesis is close enough. :)

A mate of mine uses an ebow ;

together with his guitar to make drone music.

Here's a youtube example of how it can be used with a bass guitar;

I think you can use it on any amplified string instrument.

yeah ebows are wicked, especially on fretless.. I need to play my fretless guitar more often!

They can also be used on acoustic steel stringed instruments, and, as a friend of mine discovered, thin rails such as those found in some dish racks!

I made this album using guitars a few years ago
https://rooftopaccess.bandcamp.com/album/we-are-never-too-close-to-ghosts

Ignore the cliche post-rock titles :P

It's 90% guitar, with exception of a bit of glockenspiel, synth bass and mellotron on a couple of tracks. Some of the most psychedelic sounds (eg. all of "Nobody Knows How Far We've Travelled Tonight") are actually highly processed guitar.

Thanks for responses people. That ebow sounds incredible in that video.

A guy I used to hang out and play with for a few years before he left town made his entire sound on live-sampling and processing his guitar in real time and it was pretty good. Can't really speak to the specifics of it though. Last I heard he'd cut the sampling out of the picture entirely and was just doing heavily processed guitar.

This is the stuff he was doing up until I lost track of him two or three years ago:

https://soundcloud.com/eat-cloud