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I'm a bit keen on the sound of a hammered dulcimer, as heard on a thousand old spy and detective themes... or Portishead's 'Sour Times', but I'm not so keen on forking out for an Earthquaker Afterneath. Does anyone know of any other way to get close to that sound? Maybe some iteration of trem pedals, deals and reverbs?

Sour Times... [url][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoSoZyiHZ6ourl]

I think thats a marxophone which is a kind of automatic dulcimer that uses keys with hammers that bounce to create tremolo.

Another example is alabama song by the doors.

I used to try bouncing a screw driver. Kind of worked. The plastic end, and seemed like the right weight to hold loosely.

My ehx hazarai mode on the multitap kind of gives the effect of reiterations, that only a dsp digital clean delay could do quickly. To me the afterneath is like a deluxe expanded version of some of the crazy "unintended" sounds the hazarai could do. The hazarai can do that fast delay to a point of being smeared verb, and on reverse mode, without feedback.

Otherwise, yes no way to create the attack sound easily. Find some hammers, it could be worth using a screwdriver. Maybe even dulcimer hammers. And learn to bounce them so they automatically create that trilling or flam in one stroke.

And i say use both effects at once. Or some long delay to sustain it. Marxophone is a sustained keyboard instrument, and not quite like just a manual dulcimer so that portishead song rings out a bit more, and that doors one has some polyphony to it.

Sorey for three replies instead of editing but THIS:

https://moonmilk.com/2010/02/18/instrum ... marxotar/

The Alabama tune - of course! Thanks for the input - it's always astonishing what you can pick up on this message board!

There was a tool made specifically for this a few years back called the Guitar Triller, which is a nylon dulcimer hammer, and it might be the easiest kind of thing to use, unless you really want it to just be in a pedal. Also, it’s cheap.

That's bonkers! I think I might be too lazy for anything complicated though...

Yeah. Definitely learned something new today.

I always thought Sour Times was a strange sounding Flamenco guitar technique. Never crossed my mind that it was a dulcimer type instrument.

And Alabama Song I thought was a treated Harpsichord or something, due to Ray Manzarek being a keyboard player, and the vaudeville sound of the tune. The rhythm and other instruments are like a 1920s Parisian ragtime jazz (or whatever that style of music is called that Tom Waits seems to be fond of).

I used to use a drumstick, heavy pen or light screwdriver to hammer strings on an open tuned guitar. That was more of a Sonic Youth treatment than mimicking a dulcimer.

The other thing that sounded closer to this was hammering an Autoharp instead of plucking it. I don’t think a tremolo pedal would sound close enough. That nylon dulcimer hammer isn’t any more expensive than a screwdriver at $12, and looks much more precise.

jorri wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 28, 2021 6:10 am

Sorey for three replies instead of editing but THIS:

https://moonmilk.com/2010/02/18/instrum ... marxotar/

So, in some of the “vaudeville” style bands and some Cajun bands, the percussion is often a washboard player. Some play washboard with spoons, but a popular substitute is to wear heavy leather work gloves that have had metal tips added to the fingers, so the player can tap and scratch at will.

Their fingers become little individual hammers like the device on the marxophone guitar. If I were ever to do that more often, I would look into one of those gloves.

Might create a new style playing every song with metal taps and strums. Of course strings and maybe fret boards would have a shorter lifetime depending on how hard you played!

fuzzjunkie wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 28, 2021 10:44 am

jorri wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 28, 2021 6:10 am

Sorey for three replies instead of editing but THIS:

https://moonmilk.com/2010/02/18/instrum ... marxotar/

So, in some of the “vaudeville” style bands and some Cajun bands, the percussion is often a washboard player. Some play washboard with spoons, but a popular substitute is to wear heavy leather work gloves that have had metal tips added to the fingers, so the player can tap and scratch at will.

Their fingers become little individual hammers like the device on the marxophone guitar. If I were ever to do that more often, I would look into one of those gloves.

Might create a new style playing every song with metal taps and strums. Of course strings and maybe fret boards would have a shorter lifetime depending on how hard you played!

Interesting. I think there has to be some kind of loose lever going on, when i used the screwdriver i held loosely so it had that bouncing roll. But glove for a more accurate sound without trem for sure. I wonder also, if anyone made those finger picks used for banjo etc in metal you could just flip those around? Something that came with a steel drum i have was those but rubber like the end of a beater! I mean even sewing thimbles could work.

Also, that triller, i had totally forgot i had seen that before! And what with Kaki King's third bridge gadget you could hone in on sonic youth's sound as a product haha. But thats cool too - the other part of a more dulcimer style sound?
Two guitar trillers and this: http://www.kakiking.com/passerelle with the guitar on lap

I had no idea this question was going go in such weird directions... I was kind of hoping for something like: 'Why not not run a tremolo pedal through backwards reverb and a delay?' or, even better: 'Yeah, Joyo's "Third Man" pedal will get you pretty close for ten quid'. That is sooo not what happened!

timiscott wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 30, 2021 1:19 am

I had no idea this question was going go in such weird directions... I was kind of hoping for something like: 'Why not not run a tremolo pedal through backwards reverb and a delay?' or, even better: 'Yeah, Joyo's "Third Man" pedal will get you pretty close for ten quid'. That is sooo not what happened!

I actually had not ever paid any attention to the Afterneath pedal, but after listening to Andy demoing a Portishead tune on it. Yeah, you should probably just bite the bullet and get one if that’s the sound you want.

A dulcimer doesn’t really sound like tremolo to me, and neither does the Afterneath. It sounds like a very short delay (60-90ms) with 6-8 repeats into a hall reverb. The repeats have to be at unity level with the straight signal.

Tremolo into delay and reverb sounds great though. You might prefer that for a “spy” sound.

Edit- the old Vox repeater did that staccato delay sound, but you didn’t have control over the delay time, I don’t think. Spacemen 3 used that a lot back in the day. Don’t know if Portishead stole that idea from them, but a quality digital delay should be able to do it as long as you have reverb. I think Portishead was particularly fond of Plate reverb and tape echo.

fuzzjunkie wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 28, 2021 10:37 am

And Alabama Song I thought was a treated Harpsichord or something, due to Ray Manzarek being a keyboard player, and the vaudeville sound of the tune. The rhythm and other instruments are like a 1920s Parisian ragtime jazz (or whatever that style of music is called that Tom Waits seems to be fond of).

FYI, Alabama Song is a cover of a song written by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. The song was written in the late 20s and was originally in German. There's some elements of foxtrot and dixieland in the melody, that's why it sounds the way it does. That song has been covered by a lot of people: off the top of my head, David Bowie, Nina Simone, The Young Gods...

I would try a EHX Superego with the attack set slow and a fast squarewave trem in the loop. Actually, I would love to try it out myself but my Superego is at a friends place in my old hometown...
Or maybe compressor => trem => volume pedal => acoustic simulator ?

Oh, and let me have a look at my Line6 M9. It has some sort of granular reverb that could do the trick...

Not certain but I’d guess an ADA flanger could be interesting