My band is a two guitarist band. I cover the rhythm the other guy does most of the lead playing. We do rock covers.
For quite a while the other guitarist used a Fender combo and reasonable sized pedalboard set up. I've always gone straight in to Marshall style amp (the amp has changed numerous times but always a higher gain Marshall style amp).
That blended quite well but he has recently changed to a Marshall JVM combo so he can cut down the size of the pedalboard.
Since doing that I think our sound hasn't been so balanced.
I guess the question is, any thoughts on how to better blend two quite similar gain tones? Whilst also having both cut through enough to be heard (as we only really do pub gigs where no backline is mic'd up and the sound is usually pretty bad anyway because you are crammed in a corner somewhere)...
I'm thinking back the gain off a bit generally for both of us as a start to keep things a bit clearer.
Comments
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
High gain amps but I always try to use an appropriate level of gain for the song. From the above, I'm definitely going to try less gain as a general starting point.
I will have a better listen to Malcolm and Izzy, but can definitely go brighter, roll back the mids and tighter on the bass.
Although, I think what you are all trying to tell me is that I should buy more amps to try. I think that's a good plan.
1) make sure it`s not a competition - you have tow be able to set and leave amps. Once one of you starts creeping up mid gig you`re in trouble.
2) Less gain (as above) gives more definition.
3) Solos need a fairly hefty volume boost to be heard, otherwise the pub sees the fingers moving and doesn`t actually hear anything. If you`re not mic`d up and don`t have a sound man to give you a tweak for solos through the PA, the volume jump has to come from the rig. A TS in front of a marshall can be all you need for a solo in a one guitar band, but for two guitars you need to get quite alot louder!
4) As 3. A high headroom amp is your friend in being able to get a a volume boost. For example, I had a 1958x for a while. Great with one guitar, lost with 2 as it didn`t have the headroom for a jump. I assume a JVM combo will be fine. An EQ / clean boost in the FX loop is prob the way forward for your co guitarist, if he`s not already doing that!
5) If you listen to recordings of two guitar band live, often the rhythm sound / level under the solo is much quieter than you expect. All points above taken into account!
Hope this helps.
Usually bands with two guitarists have one rhythm and one lead guitarist, with the first having a more or less flat EQ and the latter a more mid heavy EQ.
If you have two sounds with the same basic tone, for the listener the louder one dominates, even if it's only louder by a few dB, and the quieter one becomes buried in the mix. So the temptation is for the quieter guitarist to turn up a bit, until they're the one that's slightly louder and then suddenly it's the other way round. This leads to a volume war.
But if you've got two sounds with quite different EQ, both sounds are clearly audible even if they're not that closely matched for volume, so you can hear both players and neither feels that their sound is getting lost. This applies to much more than the guitars, too - eg don't use a mid-heavy bass sound with mid-heavy guitars - or for modern downtuned and scooped guitars with a huge amount of bass in the guitar sounds, *deliberately* use a mid-heavy bass sound...
In a two-guitar band, which has been working really well, if one guitarist changes his sound to be too much like the other one, the whole mix goes to crap unless the other guitarist then changes *his* sound. The worst one - which has happened to me - is when the other guitarist likes your sound better than his so he gets the same gear as you, so you change to something different, and he then follows so you have to change again! Very frustrating.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Most times I see guitarists using lots of gain from pedalboards and pedals which absolutely ruin the natural sound of the guitar and amp.
Other issue is that often each guitar player , being in close proximity to his own amp - sets up the amp so it sounds good on stage to him/her. Best to angle the speaker cabs inwards somewhat so you both hear each others sound , and make sure you walk out into the audience area when sound checking to hear the real off stage sound - it will be very different to what you hear standing on stage. Set it up so the audience is hearing the best sound - not you !
good luck
Pete
Feedback
Another option - is clean up sound to point where your marshall is a half decent pedal platform and will take a pedal with an alternative pronounced character voicing and not a marshall derivative ? ie a boogie rec style or mk series or diezel ( not sure what their lineage is - is it marshalls? )
He’s pretty much always played strats with single coils, I’ve always been LP style guitars with humbuckers.
I’ve got a great idea of what to try out now and it gives me an excuse to play around with settings on the amp I wouldn’t normally use!
I try to fill out the space between the bass and his sound, so it sounds a bit boomy sometimes, but it kind of works for a OAP punk band.
After a couple of months he got a Peavey 6505 and although on its own his guitar sound was better than before, we were both occupying very similar sonic space & we never sounded as good again.
I think what I'm saying is: buy an Orange!