Right, well I'm in a vaguely new guitar and drum two-piece. We've played a few gigs which have gone down well generally, but our most common feedback from sound blokes and promoters and that is "that was really good, but you could do with a bassist or something."
Now, we don't really want a bassist for various long-winded reasons, but that's by the wayside really.
Basically, I need to beef up my guitar sound somehow, or introduce something else into the mix, and so I've been all guitar-geek and looked up what Laura-Mary from Blood Red Shoes uses pedals wise and the guitarists from other two-pieces as well, but I was just wondering if anyone else has any other advice?
Any advice at all would be ace :)
hm
cultivate a sense of mystery regarding the relationship between you and your drummer.
haha
or pretend you're siblings.
try your hardest
not to be the ting tings.
Agreed!
:)
i guess its to do with guitar sound?
and thats all down to personal taste...
now, having not ever been a two piece i can't really give good advice.
You could always investigate octave pedals and pitchshifters. To be honest i reckon constructive criticism is one thing - but if you want to keep your 2-piece identity, concentrate on the music and how it sounds can be worried over later
Good point
on the concentrating on the music front.
Cheers!
We've got about 13 songs written already and are sort of worrying about how it sounds now already, haha.
But yes, I am investigating pitchshifters. Whammy pedals especially...anybody know where I can get one cheap ish?
Add 1979 to your band name
Then just use ridiculously loud/distorted basslines, let the drummer sing and become the most awesome band ever
*Lightning Bolt
Haha
We have given this serious consideration.
Play through both a guitar amp and bass amp
or buy a baritone guitar
^Good advice on both counts.
you could consider
some sort of programmeed synth noises to fill out the bottom end of the mix, really depends on what type of sound you's are going for
turn your guitar up
it probably depends on what you sound like, but usually if you play louder it'll sound better.
like lightning bolt.
how many hands have you got?
http://www.atlasofpluckedinstruments.com/miscellany/multi%20neck%20guitar.jpg
just don't beef up your sound
why do you need to? possibly make a point of haing wirey guitar tones
or maybe beef it up by getting a drumkit with bigger drums, like timpani size
Most...
music needs something of a bass presence to tie the structure down. Listen to pretty much any piece of music with traditional song structure and it'll be the bass frequency that defines the structure of the song. If you just have electric guitar with no bass presence, it'll generally sound quite messy and unstructured, and not usually in a good way.
The easiest and most transparent way to do it is, as others have suggested, to split the guitar signal and run one to a bass amp with the bass EQ turned up a bit to compensate for the fact that you're not playing a bass guitar.
Get a Bass Amp
and then split your signal, that's what 2GS do, he's got an ampeg rig and an orange amp, Or you do a Jack White and use that amp that he does, i saw another band use that amp and it did sound amazing. Also get your drummer to use big drums.. you get a deeper tone then.
Failing that use an octave pedal. a la CKY.
get more band members
people are sick of two pieces
i know!
4 peices are just so much more refreshing!
I think...
... the Electro Harmonix Micro POG is just about the best bet as far as Octave Pedals go at the moment. It's about £100, has great tracking, can do an octave above or below on top of your dry signal (or you can blend the mix), or both at the same time for crazy organ sounds.
I think you have to run it from a power pack though if I remember correctly.
Yes you are right...
i have never heard a woman talk so passionately about effects pedals, i'm in love. Unless of course you are not a woman and then good suggestion. Digitech whammy is also good, you can do cool solo's with it too.
Yeah you can run it from a power pack.
sorry...
i think it works as part of a daisy chain.. the other guitarist in my band uses one.
i dont think her from BRS is a good person to be looking up to
maybe she's worked on it in the year or so since i last saw them, but when i used to see them i thought the guitar sound really didnt work.
but yeah, what everyone else says - bigger drums/octave pedal/preprogrammed bass
a sorta combination could be if you put some kind of trigger on the bass drum hooked up to a sampler with loads of sub bass or summat
whenever i've seen brs
i've been suitably impressed with the heaviness of the guitar.
Tune your guitar down a few tones?
As long as it doesn't affect your singing.
perhaps check out what the bloke
from Ladyfuzz used to do and other bands which, while not two pieces, generally only have two instrumentalists (e.g YYYs). I dunno if that's the type of advice you're looking for though.
from old live vids on mtv 2
i think zinner did quite a bit a looping (that riff off "Rich")... but then again he did have a beefy guitar sound too.
i think zinner tunes his guitar thus:
EBEBBE
but i'm not sure. he sure as fuck knows how to work distortion though....
A baritone guitar maybe?
that's probably a bit much though...
an octave pedal would probably sound too cheesy.
simple option might be to get a big muff distortion, you can get some pretty bassy sounds out of it.
get your drummer to play
drums and synthesizer bass at the same time like Micah of ex Giant Drag
Get a Hooky-style six-string bass
Check out The Dodos
They use various tunings, and a drummer that has a foot tambourine, some sort of weird echo box which carries vocal and horn acoutrements etc... to push their duo to create more sound than the USC marching band. Awesome!
This is all
top notch advice. Thanks very much everyone you've given me much to consider...hmmmmm.
Everyone here
has pretty much concentrated on the tone of your guitar, but without hearing what you're playing it's not altogether clear if that is the root of your problem. Like Mu-tron says, bass usually holds together the song but that's as much to do with it's role in the band as it's frequency.
Most bands without bass hold down the 'bass' parts with strong but simple rhythmic playing, and you might have to think about your arrangements. Maybe you ought to quiz people a bit more about what they think is missing. Or post a link here.
Failing that, just get a massive SVT. :)
Ahh yes...
...A link, I didn't even think to do that, haha, sorry.
Here we are...
www.myspace.com/candidatesuk
Any more advice based on our tracks would be lovely, cheers :)
The guy from Winnebago Deal
plays through a guitar amp and a bass amp and his sound is pretty mega.
You could octavise your guitar lines with a whammy or a pitchshifter of some kind.
A sound guy is bound to say you need a bassist though. You could always tell him to stick it.
I made a really nasty comment (my true opinion on 2 piece bands) on this thread
the other day, but it seems to have been deleted. Is that actually possible? Is that morally correct? What sort of forum is this?
Get a keyboard or sequencer
to do synth-bass parts
do a That Fucking Tank
split the signal and put it through a guitar amp and bass amp with a switch pedal so you can turn whichever signal off you want. i think the pedal he uses is a morley, but im probably wrong