General Music Chat

Its a great concept on paper but 2 basses and 3 guitars is the equivalent of a sonic nightmare.

If your band is playing in drop d or lower all the instruments sonically wind up taking up the same space, add it all together and you get a big ole bass hum. Basically everyone will have to learn to turn way down and give each other space. Lately Ive been doing a little sound work with a friend and we have really had to coach some of these younger bands to understand how to get a good sound. If all of your guys are diming out their amps, you will have a big headache, and theres no way to get a singers voice in the mix.

Southern groups were successful with this formula cause they understood dynamics and different sounds. Say a dirty Les Paul sound mixed with a clean Strat sound and then another guitar in between. Twin harmony leads sound good and a third guitarist can hold down the rythym. If the people in this are disciplined players it can work, but each of you has to be conscious of the overall sound. Listen to old Lynyrd Skynyrd live, Im talking back in the 70s. They sounded good and you could hear all the instruments. A lot of bands I saw back then didnt sound too good, but Skynyrd sounded good everytime I saw them. Another group to check out would be Thin Lizzy, they did a good job of meshing 2-3 guitars.

Now 2 bass players, I dont know how that would work. I play bass some myself and a few years ago one of my buddies who plays bass and I started a jam band and we both played bass. We were playing funk and R&B type material with a guitarist who played with a clean sharp sound and it gave us a lot of space. One of us would hold down the bottom while the other noodled around an octave or so higher. The low end still got noisy at times.

All I can say is try it and see how it works. I would imagine over time a few people will back out so you would have spares at all your instruments. If you are playing loud scooped out metal type material I cant see how this will work. If you want to make your guitar stand out in this mix, lower your gain and raise your mids and highs some to make it stand out.

Good Luck

Im not even going to try it, I see it as a nightmare myself. Our music genre has limited welcoming venues around here and most of them don't have a stage big enough for that many people...

I think a 3 piece is enough. It gives the guitarist more credibility when he can pull it off on his own.

My Idea of an all around good band lineup is a bass,drum,keyboard,and guitar. I just got a reply from a seasoned drummer who, like myself,wants to gig locally. We haven't gotten together yet but things look promising. Looks like my son Ry is back on bass so we already have a workable trio. The live music thing in my area seems to be improving.In our case,a guitar would be nice but not necessary.

Don't shoot your load before it's time. Too many guitar players shoot their load from the first note of the first song of the first set. Where do you go from there? When you have sex do you shoot your load at the beginning? Do you have anything left? Muddy Waters gave the best advice ever to musicians, if you got something SAVE IT. That's all. What could be better advice? You want to build up your songs and your sets of songs as you go along. You want anybody listening to your music to WANT TO KEEP LISTENING. That's what this music business is all about. It isn't how fast and loud you can play. It's how your music affects your listening audience. At the end of the song or set or show you want your audience to say "damn that was good." If you got something SAVE IT. Later...

My favorite bands have the least personnel. When you don't do the "wall of guitars" thing, a single guitarist (or other instrumentalist for that matter) has more room to play. There is more room for dynamics, tonal shape and general expression. More room to breathe. Yes, we have The Eagles, Lynyrd Skynyrd and a few spinoffs, but those bands had parts meticulously and sparingly worked out for each guitarist. They were complex harmonies that are played very cleanly. No disrespect meant here, but very very few bands have guitarists who are able to handle such an ensemble situation. It takes major command of your instrument, alot of restraint, and some finesse in playing in an orchestrated situation.

Many of the 3 or more guitar bands I have seen live were simply atrocious because all the guitarists were pretty much strumming the same crap together all the time. As you can imagine, it sounded like muddled horseshit.

My favorite bands have the least personnel. When you don't do the "wall of guitars" thing, a single guitarist (or other instrumentalist for that matter) has more room to play. There is more room for dynamics, tonal shape and general expression. More room to breathe. Yes, we have The Eagles, Lynyrd Skynyrd and a few spinoffs, but those bands had parts meticulously and sparingly worked out for each guitarist. They were complex harmonies that are played very cleanly. No disrespect meant here, but very very few bands have guitarists who are able to handle such an ensemble situation. It takes major command of your instrument, alot of restraint, and some finesse in playing in an orchestrated situation.

Many of the 3 or more guitar bands I have seen live were simply atrocious because all the guitarists were pretty much strumming the same crap together all the time. As you can imagine, it sounded like muddled horseshit.

Lmao! Muddled horseshit, that is s a good one. Yeah, you are right, I never thought about it, but they had to be good to play amongst each other like that. I was extremely fascinated by seeing Metallica play with the San Francisco Orchestra and everyone be on cue. Actually, it proved to me just how good Kirk Hammett really was, so as much as people knock him, he has more talent in his pinky than half of the shredders have out there. He was very in tune to what the conductor was saying and doing, and apparently must know an awful lot about music theory and construction (You can see it in clips from the making of it).

But back to the main subject, bands like The Eagles were great. They had some fairly complex pieces going on there, so many guitarists at once, and yet everyone of them was clearly heard. As where, as you said, Irminsul, bar bands tend to mesh everything together. I have seen that, even when they just have two guitarist, something just goes wrong. I saw a bar band redo "Wanted Dead or Alive" and wanted to drop dead it was so awful.

Too many guitarists without great music knowledge, restraint, ability to harmonize, remember their parts, play fluidly, and cleanly with one another, makes a bad band. The band must be able to do all of those things with that many guitarists to be good.

FastFret, considering you play heavier music, it is definitely not suggested. All of those guitars and basses going off at once will just blow the PA system and be nothing but racket. It is way too many for metal, I agree with two because it gets a full sound, but 3 guitarists... And two bassists... And whatever else... Just way too much.

So yeah, that is my take on it. I am not the most advanced on this, but this just comes from what I have heard and seen in person.

Peace out, GuitarAnatomy.

less is more. Later...

3 guitarists is too many f**k guitarists.

sounds like alot of fun....but having that many members in a band is a recipe for disaster...trying to get four people to be on time for jam and for gigs is hard enough...the more people who "jump on board" the harder it is to get anything done...and i was in a band of 8 at one stage

its great fun but its not going to last.....

its your call...

Assuming all the guitarists have talent, experience, creativity, and versitility, it still boils down to one thing;
Are they all trying to be 'the star,'
or,
Are they working together with each other?

depends on the size of the egos, depends on what the bass players are trying to do, I mean if one is holding the honest rhythm line, and the other bass player is trying two lead guitars and a rhythm guitar together it could work depends on the exact style of aggressive modern rock you want to play, but I'd have to agree with common consensus saying less is more for the most part

We have 2 guitarists, a sick a$$ drummer and a vocalist (missing a bassist right now). Plus I play guitar as well. So - 3 guitars can be done but it depends on the songs you write and if it is actually adding anything to the sound.

Also, the more layers, the more simple each guitarist has to play. Otherwise, it's just noise.

Ummm, a major consideration here is whether they are acoustic guitars or electric.
The electric sound can merge all 6 strings into a 'blob of sound.'
And, many electric guitarist use that sound to cover up slight mistakes.
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3 -4 acoustic guitars working in concert, (clean and together) can sound phenomenally excellent.
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And, now that I think of it . . .
To ask if it sounds good w/ 3 or more guitars is kind of a nonsensical, rhetorical question.
Those who can do it will say it sounds good, and those who can't (or who have difficulty doing it) will say it sounds bad.
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Yeah, it may be true that not many bands have the type of people needed to do it. I certainly have to agree with that.
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But, while it may be true that most bands dont have the experience to pull it off, it certainly doesn't mean 3 or more guitars playing on concert sounds bad.
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I guess what I'm saying is basically this: just because one does not know how to do a thing, it doesn't mean that the thing is crummy, eh?

All I have to say is if you watch the G3 with Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, and watch when they throw in Yngwie Malmsteen and Petrucci, it is just noise, lol. It is too f**k many at times, making a bunch of annoying sounds. Drives me nuts sometimes, except for when they do Hendrix together.