My band is now a 4pc

[jgcable]

I am pretty stoked about it. Guitar, bass, drums, vocals. We had 2 guitars for the last 2 years. Having 2 guitars certainly fills up the room more but its a real drag when the rhythm guitar player just isn't that good. Well.... my band is now lean and mean. No slackers, no hackers. Just players. We did our first set as a 4pc on Sunday afternoon. At first I felt REALLY exposed during the guitar solo's and after a few songs I was loving it. I have always been a ham when it comes to soloing anyway. I am going to start experimenting with stereo and ping pong delays to add some girth and width to my tone.

[Chad]

Right on! I play guitar in a 3 piece and it can be fun. Less people means it's easier to play tighter, less schedules to work around, less chance for potential drama, easier to get a good mix, etc.

Thankfully, our bass player/vocalist is really good, so I don't even miss a rhythm guitar all that much when it comes time to solo. His bass provides a good underlayment. At times, I wish we had a second guitar player to play some harmony lines and so forth, but overall the 3 piece thing works fine.

Have fun with it.

[markD]

cool. i have always been in one guitar player bands. i find that the sound is just clearer, and it really gives room for the other players to shine - especially if you have a great bassist!! enjoy it man.

[xenophobe]

I've almost always been in 2 guitarist bands. I love the complexity of playing harmonies if I'm the second guitarist, and I love surfing between two guitarists when I'm playing bass. When two guitarists are playing heavy crunch and fast stuff, I love surfing the midrange with my bass so I cut through and contribute as opposed to ghosting.

[Newc]

My old band had "one-and-a-half" guitars. The singer could play, but didn't more often than did, which left a lot to be desired on many songs, but did work out quite well on others. He wasn't as technical-minded as I was, and I wasn't as "blues-minded" as he was, so it was an interesting mix when he actually did play. He also had a bit of a funky rhythm sense, which kinda fucked with the drummer's head, so he would lock on to what I was doing since my timing was fairly mechanical.

As for filling up the "empty space", it's easy to become "the keyboard player" that way - you know, the one guy who steps on everyone else's musical toes. A little ping-pong is good for solos, but if you try to fatten the rhythm, it's really going to be an even more noticeable dropout when you solo. It'll be the same as having two rhythm guitars, and one stops playing while the other does a solo. Been there, done that when I tried covering the singer's rhythm work that way. Once the solo came up, there was a noticeable loss in the mix.

The singer suggested doing it, and me and the drummer both tried to explain what would happen, but he insisted on doing it just before a gig. We went along with it, and sure enough, everyone mentioned that the rhythm was really beefy but thinned out whenever I took a solo.

The bassist could also add a boost to his rig so he can kinda-sorta cover the rhythm during solos.

[xenophobe]

As a bassist, nothing wrong with filling up the empty space if it's empty space worth filling. In metal bands, there's so much chugga chugga junt junt junt coming from guitars, bass easily gets lost not being able to compensate against the aggressive attack of modern high gain guitar tone. If you have good bass tone it's often far more complimentary using that empty space unless you're going into patterns that need the energy in a specific frequency... like thrash or mellower styles of metal. As a guitarist, I don't care, as long as the bass is following the drums or rhythm guitar I don't give a shit what they do.

[bombtek]

In a 4 PC band I was in way back when..the bassist ran thru 2 amps they an a/b y pedal...one would be his main that he would use for the entire set. The second he would use in conjunction with the first and mostly only during my solos.That
second almost always had THICK chorus dialed in with a pedal and at times he also stepped on an octave pedal to enhance it even more. With the tones coming out of that amp along with his usual tone from his main amp...we never missed a second guitar player to fill the void.

[Bert]

No rhythm player is definitely better than a bad or even mediocre rhythm player. GOOD rhythm players are tough to come by. They need to understand how to fit in the overall mix, not just how to riff & play chords. That's an unusual skill among guitarists! Keyboardists are usually better at that.

[MOSHWITZ]

In a 4 PC band I was in way back when..the bassist ran thru 2 amps they an a/b y pedal...one would be his main that he would use for the entire set. The second he would use in conjunction with the first and mostly only during my solos.That
second almost always had THICK chorus dialed in with a pedal and at times he also stepped on an octave pedal to enhance it even more. With the tones coming out of that amp along with his usual tone from his main amp...we never missed a second guitar player to fill the void.

\

This is exactly how we did it too..with the addition of an occasional distortion pedal also.,,, never missed the second guitarist then either.

MOSHON
DAVE

[jgcable]

My bass player plays through that Billy Sheehan stereo bass and a full Hartke stereo bass rig, 2 amps, 2 cabs, everything is in stereo. We run him stereo in the PA direct too. It sounds amazing. He has the Billy Sheehan distortion pedal on the high side mixed with the clean bottom end from the low side.

[leftykingv2]

Just more opportunity for you to shine with your Jackson brother!!!

[roodyrocker]

I've been in bands as the only guitarist as well as 2 guitar bands, which is currently. Assuming you have a good sound man you're not going to need to turn up the bass on top of a boosted guitar solo in a 2 guitar band. Sound man can turn up or down anything in the mix out front. Once our sound is dialed in, no one turns anything up onstage or else levels start spiraling out of control and the mix goes to hell quickly. If one of us is going to use a boost pedal for just slight boost the sound man knows about it ahead of time so its not a surprise to him. We've never had an issue with the rhythm dropping out during solos.

[jgcable]

I've been in bands as the only guitarist as well as 2 guitar bands, which is currently. Assuming you have a good sound man you're not going to need to turn up the bass on top of a boosted guitar solo in a 2 guitar band. Sound man can turn up or down anything in the mix out front. Once our sound is dialed in, no one turns anything up onstage or else levels start spiraling out of control and the mix goes to hell quickly. If one of us is going to use a boost pedal for just slight boost the sound man knows about it ahead of time so its not a surprise to him. We've never had an issue with the rhythm dropping out during solos.

We don't have a sound guy. Basically, we set up, do a sound check and make any changes after the sound check. I have really never had to touch the mixer after we are sound checked. We run about a 5000 watt system. I generally run boost for solo's and its generally pretty frikkin loud but that's so I could jump over the other guitar player who really didn't understand the slightest about dynamics live....(that's why he isn't in the band anymore + he was very busy with his family and work which always comes first). I am going to be dialing that boost down and instead adding some time based texture when needed.

[markD]

john, all i do during a lead these days is engage an mxr carbon copy with the "mod" switch engaged. it is set to run mostly dry (25%), with a tight delay (maybe 125ms) and short repeats (10%). just enough to give "air" to the sound. i have never had a problem being heard over the bass and drums in my band. one of the things to watch out for, and i see it all the time down here, is being one of those guys that goes from having a great sound when you are playing chords and riffs to having some echo/chorus laden turd-tone once the lead kicks in. sometimes even a little is too much. when setting up my lead tone, i thought of blackmore, roth, malmsteen, old dave murray....guys that used effects, but they didn't MAKE the sound like many of the hair metallers or shredders....

[jgcable]

john, all i do during a lead these days is engage an mxr carbon copy with the "mod" switch engaged. it is set to run mostly dry (25%), with a tight delay (maybe 125ms) and short repeats (10%). just enough to give "air" to the sound. i have never had a problem being heard over the bass and drums in my band. one of the things to watch out for, and i see it all the time down here, is being one of those guys that goes from having a great sound when you are playing chords and riffs to having some echo/chorus laden turd-tone once the lead kicks in. sometimes even a little is too much. when setting up my lead tone, i thought of blackmore, roth, malmsteen, old dave murray....guys that used effects, but they didn't MAKE the sound like many of the hair metallers or shredders....

I hear you Mark. My Boogie is a series 2 so its just a volume boost when I step on the switch. I notice that too with players around here. They have a great rhythm sound and terrible lead tone or a terrible rhythm sound and a fantastic lead tone. My rhythm and lead are basically the same. I have my delay on all the time. I never turn it off. Its very subtle and you can't really hear it until the music stops. I use a Wah pedal for 2 songs. I use a chorus for clean only and I have a Flanger for only 1 song (Bark at the Moon). I tend to go more for the Blackmore/Roth/Malmsteen live tone myself.