playing in a band with no bass, some ideas on guitar sound...

seachto7

hi all,

playing a few covers in a band, just drums, electric guitar and semi acoustic,

it seems grand when you crank the guitar amp, but any ideas on how to fatten up the sound a bit. I put the bass and mids to 10 on the amp, and rolled off the treble, and this helps for sure. I am using a jazzmaster which is probably a bit too jangly for it, but it's not the worst. I was often thinking of how the black keys would get their sound. Would there be a basic way of getting close to it.
I am using a blues deluxe (fender) so was thinking of trying to pick up a solid state marshall and a humbucker axe which might help.

Another idea would be to split the semi acoustic signal, so have it not only going through the PA but through an amp too, and try and blend the sounds...

Any ideas...?

omen80

Yeah you could split the signal coming from the acoustic. Put a low pass eq on one of them at around 180Hz and then maybe a pitch shifter set to an octave down.
Or get a bass player!

zafo

Micropog and/or run the guitar through a bass amp. Normally I'd Baritone or downtuned guitar but I don't that'll work in this situation.

Ravelleman

I think big, lush reverb is important if you're playing without bass.

The Jezabels are a good example of a bass-less band. The guitarist plays a fat Tele, which still has lots of jangle but the way he uses reverb really fills out the sound.

I think your Jazzmaster would lend itself well to that type of sound.

Owen

Get a guitar synth, you can set it to track only the bottom E, or the bottom two strings and drop their pitch an octave or two - the synth can send out the guitar and synth signals separately so you can still play your guitar with effects, etc. You'll need to fit a MIDI pickup to your guitar, but other than that, it's a great bit of kit to have in your toolbox.

population

Played in a covers band for a few years where the keyboard player looked after the low end of things. Hell of a keyboard player and really with good midi sounds you could not really notice that the bass guitar was missing in the mix.

rcaz

The guy in the Black Keys, as far as I know, uses a Big Muff for distortion with the volume knob on his guitar rolled down. Big sound but not mental fuzzy muffness.

120_Minutes

A duo called local H had a novel way of being bass-less: the guitarist fitted half of a split p bass pickup under the bottom four strings of his guitar. he then fed that output through an octave divider into a bass amp.

seachto7

Interesting replies folks...

I often found with the big muff (even when I was in bands with a bass player) when I used it, the sound just got lost in the mix. I can't for the life of me dial in a good sound on it, or get it to cut through in a live situation.

Yeah, we just want to keep it as a 3 piece, and it seems to be grand even without the bass, but I wouldn't mind "fattening" up my sound. I'll try the reverb idea mentioned above. We are going to mess around with splitting the acoustic signal, and to bass up one of the signals......

Orando Broom

Listen to a band called Tweak Bird. Two piece. Great sound. The guy uses a baritone.

There are two Gibson baritones in Walton's for €1,200 a piece; get one of those. That's the quickest solution.

or

Hire a docile bass player that will do what he's told for cheap.

rcaz

seachto7 wrote: »

Interesting replies folks...

I often found with the big muff (even when I was in bands with a bass player) when I used it, the sound just got lost in the mix. I can't for the life of me dial in a good sound on it, or get it to cut through in a live situation.

Yeah that's always a problem with muffs, but rolling the volume knob back on your guitar will totally change the sound. Worth a shot if you had one lying around. Reverb might also swallow you up too though!

Is there that noticeable a 'gap' in the sound? Nothing to say anything needs to be fattened!