Thinking about doing a two piece band (bass drums)

[bbottom]

The drummer and my band and I kind of have the shits of trying out, accepting and then ultimately being let down by every guitar player that we've had come through the door.

So we've been kicking around the idea of just being a two piece.

With that being said I've been thinking of different ways to go about it in a way that would make it sound the most full. One of my ideas (the most expensive) is as follows;

I'll run my bass in stereo into two separate amps, one a bass and the other a guitar and the amps will be running into their own cabs (bass into bass guitar into guitar)

I have a good amount of effects so I don't see that as being a problem. However I was also thinking about picking up a looper to have running into the bass side. That way I would be able to "solo" over top of it.

Right now I have the bulk of the gear to pull something like this off but one of my main concerns is that it will be a overwhelming to pull that kind of thing off live. Especially since I'll be covering the vocals as well.

Anyway so what do you think of this idea and do you have any suggestions on another way that it could be pulled off?

[clockwork green]

Invest in some stout guitar speakers like EV's unless blowing them is part of your stage show. You could also choose to run them real quiet but what's the fun in that?

[bbottom]

I think that my biggest concern is the looper aspect of this idea. I've never used one and I'm not sure how well something like that would work live. Especially since I'd be playing with a real drummer and I wasn't sure if their was any kind of delay once you play the recorded riffs back

[Lumpy]

You have to practice with the looper to get your transitions tight (it's not that hard, just takes practice) and your drummer has to keep good time (ditto). Have to soundcheck to get the various volume levels consistent. Other than that, I think it's do-able but you'll have a lot on your plate. You'll probably want to write the songs so that complicated stuff doesn't all happen at the same time.

I'm interested in this idea too, so I've thought about it and tried it a little bit (never got to the point of singing, just getting the gear aspect straight). But I decided not to go the looper route, just the straight playing with two amps. Looper seemed too... gimmicky? Not punk rock enough? I dunno, it didn't fit into my arsenal.

This was for a project I have on a back burner now.

[VOLVO)))]

I think I may have posted my guitar/bass rig here a couple times...


Guitar amp >>>> guitar pedalboard <<<< ABY >>>> EHX POG - Octave down no dry output >>>> bass rig

I'll post a video if you'd like.

[Mr. Foxen]

I've done some two piece stuff, well, past tnese for the drummer, no drummer and a singer now. Basically, I have my bass wired so each pickup has its own output, and a fairly low powered guitar head cranked into a 4x12, no chance of blowing speakers because it jsut won't push that much bass, and a bass rig set pretty much to sound like a normal bass rig, the low is eqed right off the guitar rig, so its kind of thin alone when you expect a bass, but it means the lows are handled by the bass rig and control the phase weirdness you get from multiple low end sources, so its an overall really big tone but retains plenty of definition, even with pretty high gain. The two volumes on the bass mean I can control each rig's volume individually from my bass.

[eddiefive10]

Ive toying with the idea also, but using a short scale bass strung with baritone strings, run bass rig clean and guitar rig distorted.

[ryansummit]

im always tryin to fill gaps left by no bass
i ran a bass cab off the wet channel of the dtech whammy(octave down)into a bass combo and love that
thought putting its own delay would sound even cooler
can this be done with a bass into whammy(octave up)and the guitar cab off the wet channel

(sorry sunn, just read your setup again sounds like you were sayin basically the same thing)

[Hemisaurus]

I'm interested to know how the looper works out for you. I want to find a looper that can handle loops over 30 seconds, so you could play a full riff.

[moose23]

I'm planning on doing something like this over the winter. Still deciding whether I should use guitar or bass, either way it be two or three heads into as many cabs. If I'm going bass it will be Ibanez Standard Fuzz clone and HM2 on the upper/high mid registers into a Peavey Mace and 4x12. Then low mid/bass will be Dobsky fuzz into Sound City MK3. Mace may be swapped with Sound City and then Sansamp Oxford into solid state power amp for the low end, that'll depend on whether I go with guitar or bass, will be 1-3 15s for that section either way. There will always be the option of running the whole lot as a three way system too.

[grimniggzy]

Do it, its fun. You'll be able to make it work.

[Jake]

I'm interested to know how the looper works out for you. I want to find a looper that can handle loops over 30 seconds, so you could play a full riff.

TC Electronics Flashback has 40 seconds of looping. Nice selections of delays too.

[zachoff]

Do it, man!  You have the chops and the vox to pull it off for sure.

[zachoff]

I think that my biggest concern is the looper aspect of this idea. I've never used one and I'm not sure how well something like that would work live. Especially since I'd be playing with a real drummer and I wasn't sure if their was any kind of delay once you play the recorded riffs back

My guitar player uses a looper and it's pretty awesome with some practice.  He loops the rhythm and solos over the top.  If the drummer hears and plays with the looper it works... Even if the loop isn't perfect, and it won't be all the time in live situations.  He has an Akai Headrush and there's no delay at all.

[Hemisaurus]

I'm interested to know how the looper works out for you. I want to find a looper that can handle loops over 30 seconds, so you could play a full riff.

TC Electronics Flashback has 40 seconds of looping. Nice selections of delays too.

Neat

I'm scared by the double click to delete a loop, it's part pedal, part mouse

[Lumpy]

I'm interested to know how the looper works out for you. I want to find a looper that can handle loops over 30 seconds, so you could play a full riff.

Full riff? 30 seconds is an eternity.

As far as loops go, IMO you need to record your loops live, otherwise you might as well use a laptop, and just press play.

[bbottom]

I'm interested to know how the looper works out for you. I want to find a looper that can handle loops over 30 seconds, so you could play a full riff.

Well I spent a good part of my day at work looking online at Loopers. The Boss Rc-2 seems pretty simple to use and it can loop for some crazy amount of time.  Digitech also makes on called the soloman or something like that that seems pretty simple. I'm just a bit weird about buying anything digitech because anything that I've ever owned from them in the past has been total shit.

Do it, man!  You have the chops and the vox to pull it off for sure.

Thanks dude I appreciate that

My guitar player uses a looper and it's pretty awesome with some practice.  He loops the rhythm and solos over the top.  If the drummer hears and plays with the looper it works... Even if the loop isn't perfect, and it won't be all the time in live situations.  He has an Akai Headrush and there's no delay at all.

Well I'm about to head out to band practice now. This was going to be the guitar players last shot before the drummer and I made a decision on which route to take the band. Guitaro bailed on practice (it would be his second one) so he's fucking out. So tonight just the drummer and I are going to jam and come up with a workable game plan. 
Either way though I had better start writing my ass off.

[Hemisaurus]

Well I'm about to head out to band practice now. This was going to be the guitar players last shot before the drummer and I made a decision on which route to take the band. Guitaro bailed on practice (it would be his second one) so he's fucking out.

I always did the three strikes and your out, I thought it was the American way. Thanks for the pedal info.

[bbottom]

Well I'm about to head out to band practice now. This was going to be the guitar players last shot before the drummer and I made a decision on which route to take the band. Guitaro bailed on practice (it would be his second one) so he's fucking out.

I always did the three strikes and your out, I thought it was the American way. Thanks for the pedal info.

I'm usually pretty lenient about that stuff  but I had a feeling that the guy was going to be unreliable from the get go. He would never respond to emails or texts and didn't learn any of our originals or the one cover that we were working on.

Tonight went alright as a two piece. I'm going to go through the recordings now to see how they sound 

[Hemisaurus]

Well this was three in a row, after only attending two.

[bbottom]

Well this was three in a row, after only attending two.

Tru dat.


So I'm listening to these recordings and they don't sound bad, just a bit empty. I have a tendency to play multiple notes instead of letting stuff ring out. Which actually makes is sound more empty when their is no guitar player. So if we do end up going the two piece route I'm going to have to change my playing style to let stuff ring out more.

[zachoff]

Let stuff ring out, but play more chords too.  Fills up the sound a little more.

[bbottom]

I started to do more of that near the end. We were also working on a few of the songs that we had when we had a guitar player and trying to make them work.

They sound ok but it's going to take some tinkering (on my part) to really make them more full sounding

[VOLVO)))]

I habitually play power chords when I play bass. Lest it's super fast, I'm usually playing exactly what the guitar is, with fingers, and some embellishments.

[fallen]

Maybe you can bring the high strings in a bit, what does Matt Pike call it, let them whang out or ring out?

Like if you tuned to an open tuning A, E, A, E or just open on the highest string like B, E, A, E or a drop A string like B, E, B, F# so you keep a normal bottom two but fret the 2nd or 7th on the A string you get a big B fifth chord.

Depending on the songs you could treat the top couple of strings like a drone that you can add into key notes.