I have listen to Strands before but without reference to it being created on guitar. The soundscape , music is actually impossible for me to associate it with an instrument and I mean this in a good way. It is amazing what you did to the guitar to create this palette of sounds. Please if you feel to let us know the process especially as your don't use a computer where heavy manipulation of sounds with plugins etc seem more accessible for sculpting sonic creations.
Sorry it's taken a while to reply - partly life, partly I needed to listen to the Strands tracks to see what I can remember.......
I think I start from the place of 'what is a sound?' - I know the guitar can do so many things including chords etc - but I was in a band where we had no drums, so we tied up the strings to dampen the notes and used it percussively - most people never recognised the difference when listening to a tape, I suppose they were not expecting or listening for it...Like many acoustic guitarists who use the body of their guitar to provide the rhythm to the melody they are picking.
The usual part of the strings that are generally played are only part of the guitar that can be used ambiently - thinking about this whilst considering about what to write has given me a couple of new ideas I'd like to try out....
With the strings themselves I don't know how to play chords or tunes. Often I tune it to the sound I want - which may be a major chord, or I may tune some of them to almost the same note and others to an octave or two below.
I think one of the nicest sounds in ambient guitar is the glissando, as played by Daevid Allen etc in Gong, though I'm sure many others have done this as well. A good long screwdriver which you can caress the strings with and move the screwdriver up and down along the strings. Or you can screwdriver up by the pickups and use a guitar slide on the neck.
With the screwdriver you can gently change the angle you are 'bowing' and this can change the notes of each string different amounts. I find starting off with a dischord, drifting through a near chord and arriving at a full chord is very nice.
Once I have sound what do I want to do with it?
I love textures and atmospheres rather than notes in themselves (though I recognise and admire how a good musician can play notes to achieve both texture and atmosphere).
I have a Roland VS 2480 and a Korg D16 recording studios - each with its own collection of different effects, plus a TCM3000 and TC Fireworx.
Sometimes the effects are very simple - just extended reverb on its own to give a floaty sort of sound, especially if the strings are bowed (e or string bow).
The Fireworx is able to put together a matrix of effects - so I can put a number in line or have a couple in parallel - sliding around and through each other.
I will route my sound, if it is a simple set up through the Korg, M3000 and Fireworx to record directly onto the VS 2480.
Sometimes I route it through all of them, usually last being TCM3000 or Fireworx as they have the best quality, onto a minidisc player, then play that back through another set of effects onto the VS2480 (I can bounce back and forth between 2 minidisc players really mangling or subtly changing the sound each time - Sony MDS JB730 & Tascam MD350).
Strands 3 starts with a sound that rises and morphs into the start of the rhythm. This is all achieved by the pitch shift on the sony minidisc player I have - great for shifting sounds by 4 octaves or more and everything in between. I have used this to shift similar notes and sounds in and out of each other.
I used the TCM3000 for the delay on Strands 3 - either very near or at 100% repeat - which allowed the sound to form a beat that slowly lost its clarity - over which I would add other sounds from the guitar to shift the beat and pattern. I would play it quietly and get louder on each beat so that it appeared to come into the mix from the background.
Sometimes I use a very tight band pass EQ to get a specific sound - perhaps not the actual note, but that rasp of the string just above that hints at it.
The Korg also has a very easy copy and paste facility (so it I do use the computer in that sense) with which I can create drones and rhythmic sounds rather than beats and tempo.
I have to be honest and say that for most of the sounds I do not remember exactly what I did, which makes it very difficult to repeat the exact sounds. I don't mind this - I would find making copious notes as I record and play around distracting and disheartening.
I do try to archive many of the different parts that make up a track or album and there is a couple of sounds on Strands V I really like and am hoping to explore more fully at a later date.
Thinking all this through has also got my creativity going, something I've been trying to get in gear for a little while - but sometimes I have to take things in, whether food, nature, friends, fun etc rather than constantly sitting in the studio....
I hope this is interesting and am happy to discuss further.
Recent Posts
We plucked through very basic stuff and turned several pages forward to check something else only to see the notes printed out for a tune called Jingle Bells....tis the season. Ok. no big deal but it is because I was struggling to sight read page one, so jingles F'ing bells was way more advanced. 
