Two guitars works great for us because they play off each other so well. If one is testifying the other is in a solid rhythm and it just fills the room with sound you can't get with just one guitar. I've heard two guitars sound like they were in competition with each other rather than pulling in the same direction and it sounds like two cats with their tails tied together thrown over a clothesline.
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Playing with one vs two guitar players?
- Thread starter 6stringvince
- Start date
I agree with the thought that it can be awesome with guys who know what they are doing.
My personal preference is to have as few members in a band as possible to get the sound you want. Much easier to keep three guys on the same page as opposed to five.
Cheers!
MJW
My personal preference is to have as few members in a band as possible to get the sound you want. Much easier to keep three guys on the same page as opposed to five.
Cheers!
MJW
I like playing in 2 guitar bands provided they work well together.
Complimentary voicings, cleaner/dirtier, middy/scooped, single coil/humbucker, rhythm/lead, different chord voicings, 2-3 string chords each, etc.
What I can't stand is same guitars, same tone, both banging out full bar chords, etc. If they're fighting each other or both doing the same thing, one of them isn't needed.
I'm in sort of a 1-1/2 guitar band now. 1 electric and singer plays acoustic on anything it works on. Lighter songs or to help fill out the sound under leads, etc. and lays out on stuff where an acoustic just doesn't fit, we're basically a 3 piece + frontman on those tunes. It's working, though I'm starting to work on getting the singer an electric to fill in some more rhythm and getting the lead player a wider pallete of tones and/or adding a Tele to his arsenal for a change from the Paul.
Complimentary voicings, cleaner/dirtier, middy/scooped, single coil/humbucker, rhythm/lead, different chord voicings, 2-3 string chords each, etc.
What I can't stand is same guitars, same tone, both banging out full bar chords, etc. If they're fighting each other or both doing the same thing, one of them isn't needed.
I'm in sort of a 1-1/2 guitar band now. 1 electric and singer plays acoustic on anything it works on. Lighter songs or to help fill out the sound under leads, etc. and lays out on stuff where an acoustic just doesn't fit, we're basically a 3 piece + frontman on those tunes. It's working, though I'm starting to work on getting the singer an electric to fill in some more rhythm and getting the lead player a wider pallete of tones and/or adding a Tele to his arsenal for a change from the Paul.
Thats my feeling as well. As few people as possible to create the sound we want.
My last band was a 5 piece: Guitar/Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Keys, Drums. The two guitarists worked well together and the band as a whole sounded great. However, aligning 5 peoples schedules for rehearsals and gigs was not the easiext thing to do.
Now I play in a 3 piece: Bass/Synth/Vocals, Guitar, Drums. Things are going well, sounding great, and since the drummer and I live together coordinating events has been a breeze.
Just make sure you bring two spare 1/4" cables, rather than one.
Seems to me that the dirty rhythm player should hear the recording before you remix his guitar.
The jam band I play in has two guitarists. The main thing that seems to affect their volume/tone is that their amps are not pointing at their ears though one does play a Strat and the other an LP. One guitarist plays keys as well so most of the time they mix very well.
Maybe if you tilted their amps back or raised them to ear level with a stand it would change how they set volume/tone.
One of the guitarists now puts his 1x12 on a riser so he's much better and controlling his volume.
My drummer and I founded this coverband and we don't like splitting money 5
ways if we can avoid it.
So we figure having a frontman who can play enough to at least add rhythm under leads is a good way to go. Another great asset to a band is a keys guy who can cover some rhythm guitar for non-keys songs.
It's nice to have a frontman who only sings/entertains, but that can open you up to a 5th member, or limit some song selection. It's fun to play bass in a 3-piece, lots of room to do stuff, but I still sometimes miss the fullness another instrument brings to some songs.
As far as writing original stuff, I'm actually better at coming up with 2 guitar parts that compliment each other than I am one that does it all, so that means 2-guitar band.
ways if we can avoid it.
So we figure having a frontman who can play enough to at least add rhythm under leads is a good way to go. Another great asset to a band is a keys guy who can cover some rhythm guitar for non-keys songs.It's nice to have a frontman who only sings/entertains, but that can open you up to a 5th member, or limit some song selection. It's fun to play bass in a 3-piece, lots of room to do stuff, but I still sometimes miss the fullness another instrument brings to some songs.
As far as writing original stuff, I'm actually better at coming up with 2 guitar parts that compliment each other than I am one that does it all, so that means 2-guitar band.
Playing in a band is a lot different than playing in the bedroom. The key is for each of them to simplify their sound and to differentiate. For example, one plays a Strat the other a Les Paul, one in a Marshall the other a Fender. For kicks, have them try low power tube amps (different ones), different guitars (LP/Strat, Strat/Tele, etc), kill off most of the effects and then try recording a tune. Even if they play within a similar range on the neck they'll probably slot better.
^ Very true! What a lot of bedroom players seem to want to do is to play the whole song - every instrument's part - by themselves on the guitar! They just don't know what not to play.
What you don't play is at least as important as what you do play......something that seems to get lost on a lot of people.
AC/DC is the best example of how to do two guitars right IMO. However in metal having the riffs doubled is cool too.
Mixing is it's own art form.
The simplest place to start is hard left and hard right panning. A bit of EQ tweaking can work wonders as every instrument needs it's own space to live, but it really comes down to what they are playing really.
There was one point where the band I was in had a great idea for a section of a song, one guitar doing a notey riff in the low end, while guitar two was doing a synchopated rhythm underneath. While jamming it out it sounded good to us. However, once we recorded it we quickly realized how mushy it sounded. The fix was to simply have guitar two just play the chords once and hold it, without the all of the crazy syncopation.
Sometimes the easiest fix is to simply mute one track for a passage. As the engineer, you can not be married to the parts. Your goal should be the song, not the individual instrumentation. So if the best thing for the song is for guitar 1 to shut up for a verse, mute that track during the verse.
The simplest place to start is hard left and hard right panning. A bit of EQ tweaking can work wonders as every instrument needs it's own space to live, but it really comes down to what they are playing really.
There was one point where the band I was in had a great idea for a section of a song, one guitar doing a notey riff in the low end, while guitar two was doing a synchopated rhythm underneath. While jamming it out it sounded good to us. However, once we recorded it we quickly realized how mushy it sounded. The fix was to simply have guitar two just play the chords once and hold it, without the all of the crazy syncopation.
Sometimes the easiest fix is to simply mute one track for a passage. As the engineer, you can not be married to the parts. Your goal should be the song, not the individual instrumentation. So if the best thing for the song is for guitar 1 to shut up for a verse, mute that track during the verse.
Totally agreed. My previous band had two guitarists: one swore by Fender, the other played a Gibson. One had a very funky rhythm style while the other was very jazzy. When one would solo the other would always play wonderful accompaniments underneath. Shame it didn't last longer than it did ...
I don't think it's a matter of tone, but rather where they are playing, as long as they don't play in the same frequency ranges there shouldn't be a problem IMO, Make one guy play with the higher end of the guitar, and the other guy on the low-mid end of the guitar, and the problem is fixed
This is an issue in my two guitar band now as well - I have been trying to communicate to the less experience guitarist that he needs to hold back and blend in more with his volume and add more texture vs solo - my response is that he thinks its too boring. His volume is also too high. So a lot of times there is mud and the bass is washed away. Oh and I forgot to mention that we also have a keyboardist who is great, but there are way too many cooks in the kitchen right now. I really have to hand it to bands like the Black Crowes, GD, Stones - its a skill to get everyone on the same page especially when a BL has not been defined, but thats another issue lol
Other than brief periods where my latest band experimented with second guitarists, I have always been in 3 piece bands. I just prefer it, mostly for mixing reasons. OK, it's also a better split at the end of the night. lol
That said, as long as everyone involved understands that YOU are the guy in charge of mixing and has absolutely no issues with you walking up to their amp and changing stuff, it's no problem. It is rare to find a guitar player who isn't on an ego trip though. In my band, I am in charge of EQ, period.
Floyd Eye - I agree there should be one person in charge of EQ. I respect the fact that you have established that in your band. I am in the process of doing that now and it aint pretty dealing with egos, but it has to be done for the band to get a better sound.
On top of that we never really defined our "roles" in the sound as well and I think that is important - I guess we should have done this from the beginning and it would have made it easier now - so i would just say for anyone else the sooner that is done the better because I am dealing with garbage right now in terms of having to become the guy that defines roles and sound.
On top of that we never really defined our "roles" in the sound as well and I think that is important - I guess we should have done this from the beginning and it would have made it easier now - so i would just say for anyone else the sooner that is done the better because I am dealing with garbage right now in terms of having to become the guy that defines roles and sound.
Well, in the beginning I had a few problems with (You guessed it) the guitar player, but my drummer has as much gigging experience as I do, so he knew the deal long before I got a hold of him. My guitarist/singer was never in a gigging band before he met me, so I had to school him completely.
The fact is that this is the first band I had where we had good sound equipment and I was tasked with running it, so it was a learning process for me as well. I got a lot of great info from guys here like Modulusman, Walter W. and a few other guys who's names escape me at the moment.
Really the proof was in the pudding so to speak. Once we went from sounding like a garage band to sounding like a professional, cohesive unit, thanks to what I was doing, my guitar player shut his mouth and just let me do my thing.
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