Recording Riffs in a Live Situation

!_Brian_!

Say your in a band and your the only guitarist. YOu come to the solo and lash into it with the bass covering the rythem but as theres only bass the overall pucnh of the band drops.

Anyhoo, is there any sort of contraption I could use, to say record the rythem riff once and then set it to loop a couple of times to back a solo? Some kind of stomp box type jobbie? Also some kind of function to record in advance and set it before starting the song.

Arragh my brain is melting, I've been typing this bloody post out for ages, cant get the words I want to say out so if youhave any idea of what i'm talkng about and know of such a yolk ny help would be much appreciated!

Beecher

Boss Loop Station http://www.bosscorp.co.jp/products/en/RC-20/

fitz

Line6 DL4 + practice.

Doctor J

Perhaps this isn't what you want to hear but I don't think the solution is a piece of electronics. Tell your bass player to put some mids in his tone, I'm guessing his tone is a big mid scoop, all lows and highs, great for adding a low end cloud into a sound but weak and lacking definition when the guitar isn't there to give a clue as to what notes are being played. There are plenty of one guitar bands (Black Sabbath, Led Zep, Pantera, Nirvana when they were good, etc,etc, etc) who didn't have the arse drop out of their sound when the guitar would play a lead. It suggests a fundamental problem with your band's overall sound which should be addressed first.

The problem with trying to use echo or loop devices is that your drummer is going to have to play to click live so that what you play live is in the same tempo as what you recorded, so it doens't sound like **** when you trigger it at a gig. If you have any tempo changes in songs it's going to get very messy. Now every gig you do is going to get very complicated and any spontenaity is compromised. Personally, I don't think it's worth it, I play guitar in a one guitar band too and when I go to do a solo it's an opportunity for us to introduce a different sound into the song, rather than constant guitar. The bassist needs to play with a good, clear tone and play with authority at those times and, to my ears, it's a great sound.

fitz

I have to disagree a bit there Doc.
It really depends on what the non-solo sections are like in terms of arrangement. The bass tone might be pristine, the guitar tone, or the contrast of guitar parts might be the cause. We can't really know without hearing the arrangements.

If they're a big wall of guitar, I can understand why there's a drop out, and one which isn't necessarily going to be remedied by any amount of toying with the bass tone (though I think that should definitely be a starting point).

Perhaps they want the constant guitar sound, perhaps to try and tackle the issue in the same way you have (which, personally I'd tend towards too, as it's a great opportunity to bring new direction and interaction between bass and guitar) would mean they compromise their vision of the song or arrangement.

It might be worthwhile to look at your songwriting and arrangements and see if what your trying to achieve will be better suited to having an extra guitarist?

punchdrunk

i can do this with my akai headrush,it's pretty easy to loop a rhythm and play over it with practise,

fish-head

I think you can buy rhythm guitarists pretty cheap these days.

david

+1 for the headrush vote... under €200 from the uk.. at has an awesome delay/echo on it too

punchdrunk

yeah at the moment i'm using a t-replica delay into a lofi loop junky into the headrush,it involves a bit of tap dancing alright but with practise you can get some sounds that are impossible otherwise,
i find that looping slower and more spare parts works best because for intricate stuff it can very quickly can become too much!
hours of fun

!_Brian_!

Cheers lads. Crisis might be solved tho by finding a singer and bass player in one! Its only a ****ty rock covers band (but I want rythm guitar) designed to make money so adding extra musicians (and there by diluting money made more) wasnt an option.

SysEx

Sack the bass player and get someone good on keys

(I'll get me coat ....)


Sorry!! Just spotted the date on the thread. By now you've probably already sacked the bass player

feylya

Dragging up old threads is not allowed.