The song I made can be found here: manwomanchild.bandcamp.com/tr... Support what I do on Patreon: / dhilowitz Find my FILM & INSTRUMENTAL music here: davidhilowitz.bandcamp.com Find my ROCK MUSIC here: manwomanchild.bandcamp.com
i was just about to comment this, right when i saw the pickups with the ductape all his other videos made so much more sense and i could see how it all started haha
@@MetalKeith666 i think, metal is far too gear oriented. like, you have to have humbuckers and only in brigde position, you have to have a tight boosted hi gain amp, you have to use jumbo frets to shred like dime, etc.. Metal loves Subgenres. If you wanna sound like death metal, your sound has not much room to wiggle. The guitar tone defines Metal and separates it from rock in all its own subgenres.
Its almost impossible because you have to make a jack input and connect it to pickup with hardware. Idk how he did or if its real but its not that simple bruv
@@Kasikerim that's not that difficult, since you can often just put the pick up in the sound hole, and if you do want the input to be on the side, it's pretty simple to drill a hole, get the components in, screw it in, and then put the strings on.
i did a similar thing with a Hello Kitty karaoke machine when I was a kid. I had a cheap squier tele and no amp so i plugged the guitar into this hot pink Hello Kitty karaoke machine i bought at goodwill for a few dollars. The cool thing about that machine was that it had a quarter inch input rather than just some built in wired mic. Also, there was an "Echo" knob which sounded amazing.
Yup, we had a karaoke machine as well, that was like a cheapie CD/DVD player, with some discs with lyrics. It had an echo knob as well. I actually recorded some stuff onto a bookshelf system that you could stack up to 4 tracks by bouncing tape to tape, backing down on the input level on each pass. You could go further, but it was reasonably listenable after 4 passes, but more than that it was mush. 😁
Holy shit I’m not the only one lol. I’ve used TWO karaoke machines so far, mainly as a bigger speaker for my orange crush mini. The second karaoke machine has several effects, and I can get a pretty cool chug sound if I pair it with the crush mini
as far as I know, this is similar to how the band Neutral Milk Hotel got that guitar sound on their albums, particularly the song Holland 1945 from In The aeroplane Over The Sea. They didn't use any traditional pedals, and instead just recorded an acoustic, overloaded the pre-amps and plugged straight into the mixer - and it sounds amazing. It's a great technique and I think it has such a unique sound, especially when used with an acoustic!
I think that's a big part of Jeff's tone. A combination of pre amp clipping and tape saturation. When he was performing live, I think he used a Soviet big muff and it got pretty close.
yeah, a green russian to be precise. Really unique sound. Think he used some sort of pedal (possibly the green russian big muff) to record avery island but I could be wrong.@@jeraldjoyce2995
hey btw, that song you played in combination with both devices, is it an actual existing song and if yes can you give me the name and if no, can you upload a full version? :D@@DavidHilowitzMusic
I had kind of a similar story. When I was 11, I was given a beat up 1960's Teisco electric guitar with no amplifier. I had a couple of random pieces of stereo equipment that I used as an amp, and eventually discovered distortion when I fed the output of one amp into the input of another. It sounded pretty gnarly, but I loved it!
We would get quarter inch input cable with RCA jacks plug into the back of a stereo if you use the phono input you can overdrive the circuit and get that tone
Genuinely thought you were gonna start playing the Better Call Saul theme at 4:15. Nifty tape deck honestly! Always really liked the look of mid 1970s tech.
:) one thing I love about your videos is not just your excellent musical knowledge... it's your masterful storytelling. Thanks for another great video.
Dude has been finding stuff in the trash since he was a kid, and made a career out of it! What an inspiration! Another reminder that real artists don't come from money. Art is borne out of need and wanting; it comes from longing. You can make a hell of a lot more with a little or nothing than if you had everything!
Lovely recollection; I’m envisioning a story 40 years from now where someone describes finding an abandoned Ableton Push in an alleyway as a kid and that’s what started it for them.
i got my first ableton license from a friend i met at a concert, and found a push 2 used at guitar center for half price, sold it back to ableton for 200 more than i paid on a trade in for push 3
Fun fact, the area under both curves on the distorted waveform is (almost) the same, the height is very different (which is part of what makes the sound interesting) but so is the phase of the zero-point and that kinda cancels out
The story part of this is very rock and roll. You knew what kind of sound you wanted, then did the experimentation to invent it for yourself. There's something really wonderful about that entire approach to music-making and to life in general. I'm mainly a percussionist. Anything that can resonate is a percussion instrument. Not gonna tell my poor-boy story, but if you know you're a musician at heart and you don't have a lot of money to spend on stuff, you find ways to make your music anyway. Great song too. I love everything about this.
If you have a cassette deck without a mic input you can wire a 3/4" jack to the tape head and get the same result. And if you have a cassette walkman you can do the same, then use the headphone out to go to an amp and you got yourself a distortion pedal 😁
Hey! Your story is imcredible and interesting! I am from Czechia and in/on every video I must have turn on subtitles to understand what anybody says but you are the first person which I understand without turn on subtitles - I enjoyed your video like as if I watched it in my native language. Thank you for made my day!
Everytime I watch one of your videos I am blown away with how aesthetically pleasing, curiousity driven, inspiring, and simple (the best kind of simple) they are. The videos really, at least it seems to me, are a piece of your mind/creativeness that you have tapped into so incredibely well. Thank you for doing what you do and inspiring myslef and others!
people like you are such an inspiration I really felt like I was supposed to make music like a formula to get success but people like you showed me there is sooo much freedom to music. Who cares if my music will be listened by 10 people at a peak as long as it was fun and I poured in my soul? Gear like this is so unconventional but sounds damn great. I love it.
My first "guitar amp" was also a radio shack stereo amp 😅 when I finally got a proper amp, it was just a head and we built a cab with old car speakers. I think these kinds of experiences are actually really beneficial because you learn a lot along the way, and it creates a lot of extra creative pathways in your brain instead of getting railroaded along the "proper" track
I can relate to this. When I was a kid I had just enough money to buy a 2nd hand guitar, but not enough for also an amp. So I ran the guitar through some weird record player preamp into the stereo. It sounded about the same.
Not only are you a fantastic musician but you're a fantastic storyteller. Every single video you make has me lost in your world and I love every chance I get to visit!
My early guitar journey was very similar. First guitar was an old Eko acoustic that my father found in a skip. I don’t remember what happened to it, but it’s no longer in my possession. My first electric was a Fender Tele that got traded for a step exercises machine, that I originally paid £10 for. I didn’t have an amp, of course, but saw that the old 70s tape deck my parents had, had a mic input, and it gave the exact distortion tone you speak of. At the time, it sounded amazing to my ears.
Thanks for the video, it's the second I watched now. Really interesting, with your sound experiments and the lesson's in sounds. And I like the music, also. Thank you!
David you must have been the most resourceful 12 year old kid. I really enjoyed watching this video. Really goes to show that expensive gear isn't everything. Creativity is much more important!
Your rock-oriented videos are always my favorite to watch. I've been holding on getting cheap analog trinkets to complement my in-the-box setup, but I wouldn't have the space and time to take care of them (apartment living obstacle)
If you go around looking for stuff in the trash you make some incredible finds! I have a piece of furniture I use for my gear. My keyboard to be specific
That is SO COOL! I have a similar story I don't quite remember what it was but I remember having this radio-like device that I ended up discovering produced a BEAUTIFUL crunchy sound, nostalgic!
I can definitely appreciate the origin story in the struggle thereof. I wish more musically based charities were easier accessible to people who have that need to create. Cool track too.
This is so cool. A friend of mine showed me how to get distortion from a stereo like this. We were about 16 and just learning to play guitar and were talking about starting a band (we actually did about 2 years later, lol). Neither one of us could afford a distortion pedal or amp at the time, so the stereo speakers and the distortion we got from that provided many hours of fun and practice until we got real amps. That was about 1986 and I was so surprised to find a video on the subject. I always wondered how it made that sound, haha. Thank you so much for making such a great and informative video...also, thanks for bringing back some awesome memories!
My favourite artist of all time, Phil Elverum, always used a tape deck as his distortion to achieve this crazy abrasive tone, you can hear it on the song "The Glow, Pt. 2" really well
Awesome video! My experience was similar, my parents gave me a guitar but no amp or pedals. So I would plug it in the mic input of the stereo. For extra distortion I would take the output and plug it back into the other mic input, making the signal run twice through the preamp. Playing with the balance knob would give extra weirdness!
I did experiments like that all the time as a teen, you brought back some fun memories with this video. My first "four track recorder" was made with two stereo cassette decks and one of those Realistic mixers.
That's real passion. I somewhat can relate to that story. When i was 15 and got my hands on a used Strat copy, i at first had no amp. My Granny's sorted out Tuberadio worked great for that purpose. I used the Phono Input, some old guy gave me that hint. Still remembering how i was, by try and error, sticking some wires in the holes of that input jack. During lockdown i restored that guitar and the Radio is still here. I just wouldn't run it anymore, the thing was built in the 1960s.
I love that story in the beginning!!!!!! This is how it for everyone! You feel like your dreams will never come true, but don't worry one thing leads to another!!!
7:16 I was hoping you would combine them in series (as in, in one signal path to a single track); that could be interesting and way crazier than layering the two tracks as you did. Btw, the tone of your childhood acoustic through the record player preamp was AWESOME! I want that now haha:D bangin lofi punk tone
This sounds great! And I love how the sound is produced. There's always something special to these kinds of approach. I always try to use the tools on my disposal "the wrong way" because it gives different results. In my case it means VST's, but I like to tinker with those. Putting drums through Amp SIms and whatnot. Many times the sound comes out kinda "basement" but I don't care as long as I like it.
Todas las grabaciones de bandas de rock en los 60s y 70s en Argentina de hicieron enchufando la guitarra directo a pequeños grabadores de cinta, era la única manera de conseguir distorsión porque no se podía importar amplificadores o pedales de guitarra. Manal, Almendra, Pappo's Blues, Los Gatos ❤
@@pulpero666 buenísimo. Pescado es de mis preferidas de las bandas del flaco. Me vuela la cabeza lo genio que fue haciendo tanto con tan pocos recursos. Saludos desde Cuba 🙌
For better distortion testing or anything saturation related, when plugging your distortion-device in to the amp, try plugging into the fx return (if your amp got one). That way you skip the preamp of the amplifier. Edit: this way you can connect anything with a preamp built into, in to the amp. I do it with my acoustic instruments as I don’t have a dedicated amp for them
love the story! It reminded me the time when I got my first bass guitar, not working, stringless, soviet bass guitar "Bass -1". I was nagging my 8th grade school teacher to sell it for me for months (bass was decoration in a class), when he finaly gave up and gave it to me! I remember taking pots from old tv, than build a pickup from old transformer and magnets (i build a winding machine from calculator and old fishing reel) and got 2 used bass strings at first.. I was so happy when i plugged it in and it was working!
This is why expensive effects pedals are actually a scam. They cost nothing to make and are extremely basic circuits with a lot of marketing behind them.
@@return2sender791 Can confirm. A Fuzz Face shouldn't cost as much as it does but try and make an analog double chorus like a Liquifier and you quickly realize why they cost as much as they do. Also someone had to come up with the circuit in the first place.
Man if I had knew you as children we would have been the best of friends. I wanted an upright bass at age 11-12 so I made one out of a plastic storage tote, a 2 by 4, weed whacker strings, and screws for the tuning pegs. I went on to make various little crazy projects with my friends, one of them being a talk box (easier to make than you may believe!). I still make homemade instruments to this day. Thank you for sharing this with us!
THANK YOU FOR THIS! I have an old stereo mixing console from goodwill i was hoping to use to record but never really could because of how old it is! But my god it worked so good as a pedal!!
First time seeing one of your videos. Subscribed! What a great story, and I really appreciate the "science" behind what's going on. I was a huge Realistic fan back in the 70's and 80's and my first full time job was my dream of working at Radio Shack lol, so that hit home even more.