Sonic Youth buzzy sound
 

What makes that deep, monotone buzzy sound that resembles a robot, that they sometimes turn on and off during their more avant garde pieces?

it could be an octave fuzz, thurston uses both an octave up and 2 octave down fuzz pedal

I'm listening to the 30-min Cage piece from GB 20th C, and it's in that...but I remember it being on some songs from 1000 leaves as well, I think...you're probably right.

How do you distinguish between what Lee plays and what Thurston plays? I often wondered that. Does Lee play the more jangly, atonal parts?

I could be completely wronge, but I think most of the time Lee plays leed.

you can usually hear lee on the left channel and thurston on the right channel. But on SY's old stuff, it's harder to know who is playing what.

agree with Saturnine.
Lee's style is very different then Thurston's. well he plays more clean and with delays during the last years.Thurston pretty more distorted and without delays though. so 2 different styles 2 different techniques and so 2 different 'parts'.

to understand this I think could be useful listening well their side projects cause it makes everythng more clear. In my opinion Thurston's style tends to be contract, rhythmic, loud .....................Lee's style is more ethereal, dilatated, odd .........................two differents personal styles sound.

Even their guitars are pretty different modified. in fact they always play their own guitars.

agree with this?

Absolutely. The first song that reminds me of this is Disconnection Notice, where you can clearly hear the two different styles. Or Washing Machine.

yes
all washing machine has a completely stereo mix then.

I think so... but Kim plays guitar on half the songs and she's in both channels, so it kind of complicates things a bit... then again she plays such low tunings that you can easily distinguish it.

As a general rule, I think that's a good description, although the distinction between "rhythm" and "lead" guitar is not so clear with SY's music. One song with a pretty clear distinction would be "Bull in the Heather." I always liked Lee's lead on that one.

I would say Thurston's parts are more central to the structure of their songs, whereas Lee's parts add embellishment. In many cases, if you removed Lee's parts, you would still recognize the song, whereas that's probably not as true with Thurston.

lee and thurston shared their guitars during the early to mid 80's alot...


Lee likes to jump around like to get really into playing and its pretty lame, and when people say that its more textured, ethereal, dilated, whatever I just think of how bad the lead guitar is in Bull In the Heather and how cool Thurstons intro is .....

I mean they dont share gtr during the last years 15 or 20 for sure I think. in the beginning was different I know.

yeah, i knew you knew its just you said always so i dont want anyone to become confused...

but also recall the sweet intro for I love her all the time on the Gila Monster Jamboree, that was all thurston...

And also Thurston in that Milan '83 video doing the crazy drumstick slapping during Burning Spear...

Try an MXR Blue Box, set to about 2 O'Clock on effects, and tap the back of the neck with your fingers repeatedly. Works for me, though this probably isn't what SY does.

in terms of the deep buzzy sound during noise extrapolations...if you mean the sound mainly heard in the intro to i love you golden blue, then i have a sneaking suspicion that it isnt attributable to t or lee, and it is in fact a product of mr o'rourkes EMS synthi. however, i could be wrong, and it could be some kind of octave pedal.

Check the opening of "improvisation ajoutee." It's not the long sustained wah-wah buzz (although that could be the same kind of buzz with a wah-wah effect)--it's the shorter "buzzer" type buzz in the right channel at about the 50 second mark...that sound plays more prominently in other tracks, but I can't think of them right now.

or maybe it's not that buzz...however, it's a similar buzz....in the John Cage piece it seems more sustained, and like they can just turn it on and off--but in ajoutee it sounds more like it was obviously made by a guitar (but it's the same type of sound)

The 13-minute mark of John Cage Four6 has it....I think it might be some kind of feedback...sometimes it gets that squeaky high-pitched sound at the end