Playing Devices Into The Pickups

[chuckjaywalk]

A few years ago, I used to have a Gristleism. It was a Throbbing Gristle branded variation on the Buddha Boxes. It had a bunch of loops that Genesis P. Orridge made and you could control the volume and pitch of the playback. I would play it into the pickups of my guitar and loop it with a Ditto to create a noise bed to play over. I've considered going a similar route, but I don't want to use other people's loops. Has anyone here used a micro cassette recorder or similar to record things and play it through their pickups? Any tips?

[tremolo3]

Does a guitar count?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9D9xNyCo48[/youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9D9xNyCo48

And yes, I've used a micro cassette recorder as well. No tips, just make sure your pickups are microphonic as hell

[Tall Walls]

Does a guitar count?

I used to do this using a Dean Markley soundhole pickup on a mic stand, but there was a prominent crackling whenever I'd move the guitar around in the magnetic field of the pickup. Eventually I gave it up as an unworkable concept, but apparently I was just using the wrong tool for the job.

For playing recordings through pickups, I'll lodge an earbud between the strings so it's pressing against the pickup. Works for my purposes, and you can use whatever device you like as the sound source.