It’s fun and easy … plus you don’t need to have any guitar chops to play this one. The playing technique consists of slowly scraping a pick down the low E string from the top of the neck all the way to the nut. The pulsating sound comes from a unique Line 6 delay called Bubble Echo, which creates a sample-and-hold effect similar to what you’d get on a synth.

The setting combines a slightly crunchy amp sound with a bit of added distortion. Mutant Spaceship LandingĪll the effects and the amp sound for this one came from the Helix LT pedal. The decay on roomworksSE is over 11 seconds, which is much longer than you’d use for conventional music production but works here to create the cavernous space needed. Ambience comes from the amp’s Hall reverb and roomworksSE. Like the previous example, this sound features the THR30II with a similar high-gain setting, only this time using the amp’s built-in tremolo to provide pulsing modulation. As it did, I moved the whammy bar on my guitar slightly to make the pitch warble. Near the end, I hit a harmonic and let it ring out. There are also a couple of half-step chord changes, which add to the scary vibe. The audio clip below has me playing some power chords (root and fifth only, with no third) under which I’m adding pulsing bass notes on the (mostly open) low E string.

With this sound, it helps to play a part with some dissonant notes if you want it to sound really spooky. If you’re just using the amp alone, you can still get a close approximation with the settings shown below. Reverb is almost always helpful in creating a spooky sound, but because I wanted one with an even longer decay than what was available on the amp, I inserted Cubase’s roomworksSE plug-in. This sound utilizes a high-gain setting from the THR30II for distortion, along with the amp’s built-in Chorus and Echo/Rev effects. They all offer the same effects and architecture, so you can consider them interchangeable. Note that you can freely transfer any sounds you create in the Helix Native plug-in to and from Helix LT or other Helix pedals. (The line outputs of the THR30II and the Helix LT were connected to the inputs on my audio interface.) All the audio clips were recorded into Steinberg Cubase, with all the guitar parts tracked direct. My tools for creating these spooky sounds were a Yamaha THR30II Wireless desktop amplifier, a Line 6 Helix LT effects pedal, the Line 6 Helix Native plug-in, the Steinberg roomworksSE plug-in, and/or some combination thereof. If you want to get into the spirit of Halloween, here are 10 ways you can make your electric guitar sound scary. It’s that time of the year again, when ghosts, vampires and witches abound.

Play spooky sound