Hi Sheriff,
I am a bit surprised that you have not had an opportunity to check out or try EBow or play glissando guitar.
Ebow is actually pretty mainstream stuff. It has been used by almost everyone starting with brave experimentalists like NEU and ending with pop electro bands like Depeche Mode and even rock bands like R.E.M.
Here’s a website for EBow: www.ebow.com

The demo sound clips are pretty lo-fi and old but they will give you the general idea of what an EBow sounds like.


Glissando is a different story. Easy to try, all you need is a steel rod and a delay line to play to. Used by many. Known by a few. Glissando Guitar was even used for some of the Apocalypse Now soundtrack. For the life of me I cannot recall which track exactly but right in the end there is this long track with what I call “A Star Trek heart beat bassline” and some weird pads. Very cool!
Anyway, the voice-like metallic sweeps in the background are done with glissando guitar.

Simply run your guitar through a good delay line with lots of feedback and bow the strings (either one or one of the first three) using a steel rod (a long screwdriver will do). Crank up the gain so the signal is not distorted and yet there is enough gain to get a decent “signal to noise”. It should be played very slowly and you have to kind of let the sound build up. Using delay is a must.
If you do everything right then you will end up with a very organic (non synthetic) and yet deep and somewhat metallic voice like texture. Almost like a lazy lead with slow
portamento rate. Impossible to emulate with a synth..
Even though a synth kind of has all of the components needed to get the glissando guitar sound right it is stil impossible due to the nature of the way the sound is controlled on a synth and the way the real guitar string responds.

Try it man, with your deep take on synthesis, sampling and writing this will be yet another thing to explore. A very lo-fi and yet rewarding sound source.


-ED-