little "thing" that Nels Cline uses...
 

There is a video I saw of Nels Cline with the NCS where he has this little box or something that he uses to basically sing into his guitar. I'd post a link to the vid if I could, but my work has blocked YouTube. Has anybody seen this and/or know what it is?Can you buy it, or is it something he made?

i know that vid. im pretty sure that he doesnt ctually sing into the guitar but sings into it like a mic and it has some kinda effect in it. and he also uses it at the same time to scratch the guitar strings to make noise.
thats my guess
im probably wrong though

Haven't seen the vid, but maybe it's just some contact mic'd box or some pickups in a box... or something...

Both sound like good possibilities. I wish I could link to the vid.

I also wish I knew something about the technical side of music...

I think it's a dickfor.

I've recorded vocals with a bass guitar before.

What is a... OH WAIT! YOU ALMOST GOT ME!

so he definatly is using it through the guitar
so im outta ideas

cyber-high-five!

pysche!

like Richie Sambora's thing that he used on the best Modern Rock song ever, "Its My Life"?

wow thats really nice.
I want that

It's probably the voicebit of a megaphone. In fact, I'm pretty certain that it's either that or something very much like that.

I (used to) do something similar with a clarinet, where I'd hum into the clarinet to produce two tones, both of which would sound through the pickup while vibrating the strings sympathetically and as a slide. I was meant to record some of it at some point, but I got bored of 'weird' guitar and learnt how to play.

Edit: not that Cline can't play - most people doing weird things can't, he can. Ok? Ok.

Ah! I bet you are right on with this one!

this thing is called MEGAMOUTH

I trust you, since you seem to be a big fan...

Presumably a contraction of 'megaphone' & 'mouthpiece'. We both win. E-high five.

Aw, now come on. I knew you were still right all along. The little fella just seemed so proud of his answer, I wanted to make him feel like he told me something new.

But I e-fived him! Don't you try and challenge the sacred covenant of e-fives. Troublemaker, that's what you are.

He sure can! His disc of Coltrane covers is mind boggling!

Wassit called? I don't usually like guitar renditions of anything other than guitar music, but Coltrane works really well on electric (see also that cover that Eugene Chadborne did).

I am, and I have never denied that. It appears now, though, that even in my efforts to make peace, trouble ensues.

INTERSTELLER SPACE REVISITED oh my goodness. He gets his guitar to sound like Coltrane's sax... it's unreal.

Oh my goodness indeed. It is a great guitar rendition of Coltrane. Nothing like the travesty of Buckethead's cover of MD's Sketches of Spain. Not to sound like a jaded ex-lover, but I don't know what I ever saw in that guy.

Cline is the bomb diggity, no doubt. Word to your mother.

Nels Cline definitely did Coltrane proud. And I'm a huge Coltrane fan. But that disc straight up astounds me every time I listen to it. I've really done like compare/contrast each track, and I'm like "how the fuuuuuu????"

I saw him last night with Wilco...What is that thing on his table?

A mixer?

I often wonder how bored Nels must be playing most of the stuff off Wilco's recent album. The guy is a wealth of talent and obscured creativity, all you need to hear is his Interstellar Space stuff, which you all mentioned and the NCS material. Hopefully Wilco's next album will have a return to some more grimey, ballsier sounds.

I don't expect he's that bored. Personally, I'm more inclined towards improv, but playing set pieces is always a nice relief, and not too much effort.

There, I've empathised with Cline. Win.

His table has a EHX 16-second delay and Kaoss pad if he uses a similar setup at he did with The Singers.

Well, yeah of course its a break, and it pays his bills more so than his other projects, but artistically speaking the man has got to be somewhere else.

Hmm. While I'm a big detractor against that fucking Patton trap of playing four millions genres, I remember seeing Nmperign playing Tijuana brass with Damon and Naomi and being surprised that they're consummate professionals. To my mind, the worst improvisers are the ones that only listen to, and play, improv (Seymor Wright, I'm looking at you).

Ok, well said. My point isn't that the guy doesn't put his heart into it or that he isn't a professional. He is and probably does all the previous. My point is that given his abilities and the way in which HE chooses to express them, playing gig after gig of the same tired, drull set-list (even by most Wilco fans standards) has to wear on him. I mean Jeff Tweedy wrote those songs and has more emotional sentiment vested in them.

I have yet to listen to this. :)

I'm sure he really enjoy what he does, because he wouldn't do it if he was bored every night. He's got enough cred I feel that if he said, "Hey, I'm not doing this anymore, it's boring," people would say ok, whether they liked it or not, with a respect-the-man attitude. I've seen a few videos of him playing with Wilco and he seems to enjoy it.

Now I can see why people might think he would get bored; I might get bored playing with Wilco everynight, and I am nowhere near as good as Cline. Apparently though, he isn't, and I say good for him, to be able to go crazy-wild-jazz-improv-experimental-free-your-mind-pyschedelic, and still enjoy playing simple rock songs as well. He loves music, and he loves playing music. I really don't see him getting bored with anything.

Now come to think of it, and I've already admitted that I can get bored playing music, so I am just as guilty, I think getting bored with playing music (to an extent, of course) may be tied in with pride, and it may indicate that you don't enjoy the art of truly making music. For Nels to say "I'm bored with this, I could be doing so much more" would be somewhat arrogant, and from reading anything Nels writes or says, he is not an arrogant man. He's into music because he loves to play, and now he has a gig where he can play in front of people all of the time, and make what I would assume to be a decent living at it. My guess, and this is purely speculation, is that Nels would only be bored if he did not have a guitar in his hand.

Here is a clip of him playing thru his 'sing thing'

http://www.fender.com/freestuff/jazzmaster50th/

Here is another clip in HD

http://vimeo.com/2264687

Thanks!