Three Piece Band Woes

[chromandre]

write on acoustic... I don't care for the aesthetic attached to it but I find it lends a lot of clarity for writing riffs.

[SecretMachine]

Wow. Thanks for everyone's input.

The general consensus it seems is basically to focus on the details, such as adding in interesting transitions and variations, making the drummer + bassist really lock in, and
for the bass to generally be more adventurous with their playing.

People are also suggesting loopers + glitch pedals. I think I'd be interested in going down this route (but I just sold my Ct5, feck), but how do you guys deal with "headroom" from your amp when you're running
a loop + your normal guitar sound into it? I'm running a VOX AC15 and while it's good and loud against a drummer, it's starting to break up. Maybe I should get a bigger amp? haha

What I tend to find is that if I write a bassline with a groove, the groove disappears when my bassist plays it haha, he's very uhh stiff and plays everything very super 8th note
"buh buh buh buh buhh".

Anyway, ultimately, I really like band, they're committed, they care, they play really well and they turn up on time, so that's a big thing. I'd just like to push it to the stage where we
sound as good as the bands I really love. haha

[coldbrightsunlight]

"What Would Tina Do?"

She was definitely the best part of that band.

At the very least a close second to Byrne because I live his singing so much. But yeah she's my all time bass hero.

What I tend to find is that if I write a bassline with a groove, the groove disappears when my bassist plays it haha, he's very uhh stiff and plays everything very super 8th note
"buh buh buh buh buhh".

Yeah that's tricky. Sounds like he just needs a bit of practice and maybe confidence?

Ultimately if you like the people and have fun it's better to get that band to sound as good as possible within your limits and tastes, rather than worrying about how things could be a little better if x.

Number one rule, practice practice practice.

Do you have a way to record your rehearsals? Might be good to record one and get people to go away and do a bit of homework listening to the recording and thinking how to improve things (if necessary).

[dubkitty]

this, too. i've always found that recording practices and/or shows brings everything into clearer focus. it's not unusual for things to sound very different when listening back compared to trying to listen-in-progress, where a lot of subtlety tends to get lost.

[JonnyAngle]

Maybe I should get a bigger amp?

Get moar amps, not a bigger one

Splitting your signal and sending different things to different amps is

[aen]

Maybe everybody just plays less.

That way when you all hit it together it's massive. Dynamics are all relative, and if youre working with enough watts to play with a rock drummer, your trio should be "technically too loud" at your loudest so...
Also having 1/3 of the band drop out completely REALLY raises tension, and that's essential for emotional payoff. Maybe think of it like writing a movie. Batman's not in every scene of The Dark Knight, after all.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Yeah that's a good tip too! You can create some really powerful effects by *gasp* using dynamics.

[Paul_C]

Agreed

If you watch what Muse do (maybe not the best example if you don't like Muse, and yes, I know they have a keyboard player filling things out a bit) then it might show how bass and drums can work fine without need for guitar (or minimal guitar) in places and then it all kicks in when the guitar joins them.

Here's my favourite song as an example: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbMKIwY2nPY[/youtube]

Another band from my youth who were great as a three-piece were The Jam, they had some great bass playing to fill things out, but there are different levels of playing to give some variety.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpAEonVeaAE[/youtube]

[D.o.S.]

basically, I feel like our band suffers from a lack of dynamics and too much repetition.

This way lies weakness friend.

Play the same thing louder. Then do it again. And again. And again.And again.

[frodog]

That's what we do. It gets old after a while. The amps grow and multiply, the room stays the same size.

[D.o.S.]

I suggest you try playing it again, and louder.

[frodog]

I did. See how it feels in a decade or two.

[D.o.S.]

please refer to my previous post for clarification.

[Dowi]

Maybe everybody just plays less.

That way when you all hit it together it's massive. Dynamics are all relative, and if youre working with enough watts to play with a rock drummer, your trio should be "technically too loud" at your loudest so...
Also having 1/3 of the band drop out completely REALLY raises tension, and that's essential for emotional payoff. Maybe think of it like writing a movie. Batman's not in every scene of The Dark Knight, after all.

I strongly support the "cut out" mode.
Dynamically speaking it's easier to hear variations with less things on the table, not to speak that to play with lower dynamics lets you work better on tone and "sound"(and when you really go on full-blast mode altogether you get a real blast).

Plus yeah, recording rehearsals it's a must for me.
Started doing it a few years back with the first ZOOM and never stopped since then, both during writing process and during pre-show rehearsals.

[SecretMachine]

I've been a big stickler for recording pretty much every band practice and every new song as I think it really helps, so yeah I completely agree with everyone with regards to that.

At the moment, my lack of dynamics is probably due to my setup and working out how to use it. I'm a long time Fender combo user, and I'm so used to basically getting a super clean
sound that now I've switched to my VOX AC15 I feel like perhaps I've lost abit of dynamics. It works well because as a three piece band, having a bit more crunch on tap is great,
but when your "clean" is saturating out quite early, I feel like you're just further distorting / thereby compressing the signal.

Currently I'm running a SSBS Mini as my main overdrive, it's pretty much nearly always on, into an Basic Audio Alter Destiny to provide "big muff" style leads, and also ARC Effects Soothsayer. The Soothsayer is a RAT clone
but I need to work how to intergrate it into my sound. I'm thinking I need to work more on getting my "clean" sound to be able to compete with the drums / bass, and then for the OD etc to be both additional
saturation and additional volume.

I mean, do you find playing shoegaze is generally a genre with a lack of dynamics anyway? Or am I way off base?