Wierd guitar effects

Hi, I write rock/indie/pop guitar stuff but I'd like to use wierd guitar sounds inthe riffs as well. Bands that immediately spring to mind are My Bloody Valentine, Blur, Sonic Youth, Radiohead and Liars.
I know about the Sonic Youth various tunings and screwdrivers and a lot of Radioheads guitar stuff but not how to recreate the layered My Bloody Valentine or Liars (from 'Drums Not Dead') sound. Any tricks and tips? Doesn't have to be any particular band, just fun to find out new ways to mess around.
I haven't many tricks myself apart from

1) The Horrible Seagull sound - your guitar goes out into the OUT of your wah-wah. Then your wah wah's IN goes out to your amp. This produces a horrible feedback squeal, but your wah kind of controls the volume, so if you keep it low, gradually bring it up while flicking your pick up toggle (with one of your pick-ups turned right down RATM style) you can produce these bird type sounds. Feel free to add delay pedal into the mix.

2)Delay Pedal Swell - This works for slow spacey stuff where you don't have to strum and have gaps in between each chord. Good for a break. Have your delay pedal set to 100% feedback with a short delay time, but have the delay off. Then hit a chord and turn the delay on. The delay will quickly rise to a crescendo at which point you hit the next chord and the moment before switching the delay off. This is kind of like when they use reverse reverb on songs to create a kind of backwards whoosh effect. If I had enough pedals I would add a gate and another delay to the mix. Then you could set the gate really high so the only the last bit of feedback gets through to the second delay which I would set with little feedback and slow delay. Althought that might not work, I'm rubbish at figuring these things out in my head.

They're both a bit lame, but what the hell - just for fun!
For reference I have my effects are a wah-wah. Boss DD-3, Marshall Drivemaster, Boss Tremolo/Pan and an Ibanez Flanger. I also have a Digitech Multi-FX with a whammy, but I can't be arsed to use it a lot of the time as its too fiddly.

I can't believe I don't see Audioslave or Rage Against the Machine. Morello is the king of wierd guitar sounds.

As for the Seagull thingy, I'll give that a try. What I do for a similar sound is just unplug my guitar while my wah is enguaged, and touch the end of the cable on one of my pots and rock the wah around. Something Morello does that I read about. It doesn't work great on all cables, I have Fender Californian cables with gold plted tips and the high pitched frequencies work, but when i rock the wah back, the sounds cuts out. With my cheapo cable, it works great in any wah position. I like to start toe up and rock the pedal forward, it makes this kinda chirping sound when the toe goes all the way down.

Cheers! Ah, I can't believe I didn't put Tom Morello either! He would be included - blew my mind when I first heard them on the 'No Nirvana' special on the Late Show. There'll be quite a few others I missed out on as well...I forgot to mention Robert Fripp, Phil Manzanera,Nick Zinner - Will be trying your tip out first thing in the morning, thanks.

Weird noises are what I live for. Here are a few worth trying out:

1) Use your pick to flip one string over the next highest one at the higher frets (about 10 and up). Fret both strings behind the point where they cross over, and make sure you're holding them tight in place. Then use your pick to play the spot where they cross over. It sounds a lot like a bell. This works best on the lower strings, with your neck pickup activated.

2) Point any type of remote control at your pickups and press some buttons.

3) If your neck pickup isn't set too low, just push your low E string downward so that it touches. Add a little reverb, and it sounds like a radar blip on a submarine.

4) Pull your high E string downwards (away from the neck) and then back towards yourself. I'm told if you have a scratch plate on your neck pickup, it makes a dolphin-like sound, but seeing as neither of my guitars have scratch plates, I can't verify this. Also, be careful not to break your string. :)

5) Mute the strings with your left hand (just by placing them across all of them without applying pressure), then get a golf ball and touch the unwound strings one at a time at different frets. It makes these cool computer beeps. It basically works on the same principle as a slide, but slides are near impossible to get to touch only one string at a time.

I didn't make those up, by the way. I got them from some website long ago whose name I cannot recall. I personally find that the coolest noises come from feedback plus certain settings with my pedals. One time I got my DS-1 and Big Muff to this point where certain notes sounded like my wah was on or something. It was awesome.

hahahz quite interesting. ^_^

Originally Posted by: elklanderccI can't believe I don't see Audioslave or Rage Against the Machine. Morello is the king of wierd guitar sounds.

As for the Seagull thingy, I'll give that a try. What I do for a similar sound is just unplug my guitar while my wah is enguaged, and touch the end of the cable on one of my pots and rock the wah around. Something Morello does that I read about. It doesn't work great on all cables, I have Fender Californian cables with gold plted tips and the high pitched frequencies work, but when i rock the wah back, the sounds cuts out. With my cheapo cable, it works great in any wah position. I like to start toe up and rock the pedal forward, it makes this kinda chirping sound when the toe goes all the way down.

Figured out why it doesn't work with all cables. The crappy one I used had rubber all the way up to the male connecter, while my Fender Califorians have that 2'' metal piece you can unscrew for fixing. If you only have cables with the metal piece, you can just use some tape (preferably electric) and tape up that metal piece. Also, you have to have your volume up for this to work fully. So if you try this and it doesn't work, try cranking your amp or putting on headphones and then crank the amp.