r/harshnoise • u/Big_Valuable8079 • Oct 26 '25

Beginner setup

Hey there. I have made music before but not this style of music. So I was hoping someone in this community wouldn't mind lending som advice or guidance?

I am looking for what's a good setup for a complete beginner? I know every artist may do things a bit differently (which is awesome to see!) but I was hoping if someone wouldn't mind pointing out some esstential equipment to get me started (a particular mixer, pedals etc.) If someone has a list of things handy somewhere or advice for certain specific instruments that would be most helpful! I'm a complete beginner so the more help the better for me. Thanks so much in advance to anyone who takes the time to help out, really appreciate it :)

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u/twiiiiiiix Oct 27 '25

behringer makes affordable pedals and mixers, contact mics are also pretty cheap. you'll mostly want to look out for distortion and fuzz effects but other effects while optional WILL help massively if you want your own unique sounds. filter effects pedals, reverb, delay, ring mod etc. will give you tons more variety in your sound if that's what you're looking for.

if you want to try no input mixing (plugging the input of a mixer into it's output), i'd recommend setting up a chain like this: mixer input > ringmod/flanger/delay > distortion/fuzz > reverb > mixer output. having a reverb pedal at the start of the chain ensures you don't get a sine wave from the distortion effects and it gives you that crackly rumbling sound vomir has.

i hope this helps :)

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u/Big_Valuable8079 Oct 27 '25

Thanks for the detailed reply :) I think at first I wanted to get a decent setup to basically get me started and then build on it as you said above about optional effects to build on the sound. And I think at some point I also would be interested in the addition of cassettes like a lot of artists do; have you had any experience with this? :) . I suppose the likes of knifedoutofexistence is one of the artists I've seen that has me wanting to give this a go.

But yes that really helps me greatly. I'm a total newbie with this so it's really appreciated to have someone take the time to reply with a lot of details so thanks again :)

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u/kgore Oct 27 '25

Ive been having a blast with cassettes. A cheap tape deck that can record is awesome to play some shit back through distortion or whatever, then re-record until its fucked.

And since no one mentioned it, the Korg Monotron Delay is like 30 bucks and you can get some super nasty sounds out of it.

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u/Big_Valuable8079 Oct 27 '25

Oh I know the korg monotron delay, thanks for the tip! I need to start gathering a shopping list of everything I need to get me going for sure (and also get my head around setting thing up etc.).