3 guitarists in a band?

[jordanky]

I'm in a three guitar band, although we are nothing like ANY of the stuff that's been mentioned (except maybe Blue Oyster Cult haha) and it is a shitload of fun. We do stuff influenced by guys like Tom Petty, Foo Fighters, Black Sabbath which seems like an odd mix but I don't know how else to describe us, haha.

The center guitar, which is also the lead vocalist is strictly rhythm. Then our other guitarist and myself both play rhythm and lead, we each have our own solos in various songs and it's cool being able to play harmonized solo sections without the rhythm guitar completely dropping out. As far as rhythm goes, all three of us are almost always doing different things. It's a bit much at first to get used to (I was the only guitarist in my previous band) but in the end, if done right, you can pull off some pretty neat stuff.

 

[AugmentedFourth]

Music starts @ 0:32

 

[SD83]

I'd love to be in a band with three guitarists and write songs for them... we struggle to find a decent second guitarist However, aside from Periphery (who were awesome) and Whitechapel (who had the worst sound ever and you could hardly hear any guitar), I only one local band with three guitarists and they sounded like shit. With 2 guitarists, if one is slightly off, most people won't notice. With 3, and 2 being slightly off, everything becomes a huge mess of noise.

 

[Dayn]

I guess it comes down to how you actually fill your sonic landscape. There's not just frequencies, but also timbre, rhythm and direction.

One of my songs has seven guitar tracks during the crescendo, not including the bass. Two rhythm guitars, panned left and right; two lead guitars, and when they harmonise they split slightly panned; and three clean guitars which play in a simple form of counterpoint for interesting harmony more than melody.

The rhythm guitars provide presence down low with the bass in the middle. The two lead guitars harmonise each other and complement up high. The three clean guitars are spaced left, centre, and right, and they often trade with call and response so it's not just a wall of sound; they're take up the mid and high spaces. But nothing treads on any other instrument's space.

Edit: Actually, it's really a lot like a moving sculpture.

 

[Dan_Vacant]

I always thought it would be cool for a death/thrash band to use three guitar players.

 

[rjnix_0329]

As has been mentioned here some, it is all about everyone taking a step back, realizing that what really matters is the final mix (live or recorded), and then finding their spot and making the most of it.

For three years or so I was the only guitarist in my band, so ANY guitar work that was going to be in a song was on my shoulders. When we brought in a second guitarist, I definitely had to let my ego go and let myself sit back in certain parts. The end result, though, is very worthwhile. I imagine it would be similar going from two to three guitarists.

As mentioned above, The Outlaws made their "Four Guitar Army" work by doing just that...everyone sat back in the mix a bit and found their niche.

 

[Veldar]

Why has no one mentioned Radiohead yet?

 

[amonb]

Why has no one mentioned Radiohead yet?

Exactly what I was thinking. Especially Pablo Honey, really showed off the three guitar thing in a great way...

 

[Bodes]

Pearl jam can pull it off.

With Iron Maiden, doesn't Adrian Smith tune to D standard to create extra range while others are in E standard?

 

[DLG]

Three guitarists makes a lot more sense to me than two drummers.

cult of luna have both

 

[whilstmyguitardjentlyweep]

My favourite 3-guitar band was oceansize. Definitely give them a listen for how to arrange atmospheres and musical space with three guitars.

At the end of "Women who love men who love drugs" they are all playing in syncopation - thats a good way to differentiate your three guitars, but i would probably advise against doing it all the time!

 

[ohoolahan]

believe it or not. even bad religion has 3 guitar player. mostly they are 2 because the third is manager of epiptaph records and hasn't the time to tour with them. but a few single shows are played with all three.

 

[xwmucradiox]

I was in a band in the mid 2000s that had three guitar players. Half the material was like Psyopus shred type stuff and the other half was Godspeed You! Black Emperor type post rock. The two styles would merge into one another in the set so there was no abrupt stylistic change. For the tech metal stuff the three guitar parts were almost always harmony of some sort except it was primarily half steps and minor thirds to be as dissonant as possible. When we moved to the post rock stuff everyone was looping parts and building with sparse single note lines. It sounded HUGE.

In terms of getting everyone tight it was just a matter of practicing. For the most part it was a little chaotic but that was kind of the point. If we were a flawless live band like BTBAM we would have been boring to watch.

Anyway here is a video:


The band eventually broke up and reunited with just a single guitarist (me), drummer and bassist for a few shows. I guess the result was a much tighter tech sound but less chaos.

 

[coffinwisdom]

Not entirely related to this but listen to Emperor they never had 3 guitarists but pretty much all of their songs feature two completely different rhythm riffs L and R to form one chaotic wall of sound. Lots of counterpoints and other musical terms that I have no idea what I'm talking about. Just watch this

3:25, 5:40, 6:40

 

[craigny]

I'm not sure why the notion of having more than two guitarists is so alien. I mean, bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Outlaws were doing it since the early 70's.

Not to mention tons of bands with one or two guitarists layer guitar tracks on albums so the recorded version of some stuff can seem like it has many guitarists playing.

Worked pretty well for bands like The Eagles and Maiden too.

 

[donray1527]

i look at it this way, when i record guitar, I have anywhere from 6-8 guitar tracks. If I want something close to that sound, i need at least 3 guitar players to fill up some space. Both of my current bands have 3 guitar players.

 

[donray1527]

Worked pretty well for bands like The Eagles and Maiden too.

The Eagles kick some major facking ass live too.

 

[ellengtrgrl]

I'm not sure why the notion of having more than two guitarists is so alien. I mean, bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Outlaws were doing it since the early 70's.

Not to mention tons of bands with one or two guitarists layer guitar tracks on albums so the recorded version of some stuff can seem like it has many guitarists playing.

Yep, ditto for Wishbone Ash, and Blue Oyster Cult on occasion. The secret is to have one guitar playing rhythm, and the other two guitar players playing parts that are melodic counterpoints of each other. I saw The Outlaws in the early 80s (shortly after I graduated high school), and at the time, they were doing the three guitar thing. I was cool to say the least. Henry Paul played straight rhythm guitar, and Hughie Thomasson, and the other guitarist (whose name escapes me - it was not Billy Jones [Billy Jones had left the band by that time]), played off of each other doing harmony leads, counterpoint rhythms to Henry Paul's straight rhythm playing, and they both did solos. They especially ripped on "Green Grass and High Tides."

Three guitars players in a band, when done right, is a thing of musical beauty.

 

[Señor Voorhees]

It's not terribly difficult to include three or more guitarists. Even my band, which writes pretty simple to play music, has rhythm and harmonized lead parts going at the same time. With two guitarists, we'd end up playing live with rhythm and main leads, so the third guitarist plays the harmonized leads. It's pretty convenient, and we all default to rhythm if there's no leads going on at all. It helps to be tight playing, but you can afford to have a little less than perfect playing when you perform live, so it doesn't get too garbled with 3 guitars playing the same rhythm parts. While recording, it's not uncommon for any one of our guitarists to record whole sections (or even complete songs) on their own, and we divvy it up live. Just because you're in a band with more than one guitarist doesn't mean each guitarist has to do anything other than perform the parts written for him. It all boils down to understanding your roles. You can either just be the guy who performs what others have written live, the guy who writes the music for others to play, or my favorite which is having a nice healthy balance of being the writer or performer. All of them are perfectly acceptable. All of them help out the band as a whole.

Not sure if this is entirely on topic. I suppose I'm just trying to show how 3+ guitarists might fit into a band.

 

[NaYoN]

We (Carthage) use 3 guitar players. What it usually ends up being is either harmonized leads + chords or 2 players playing the chords for heaviness and 1 player for the lead. Obviously we set up the EQ and stuff for it to work properly. It's not a huge deal and note extremely different from 2 guitar players, really.

We also have quite a bit of 3-part harmony stuff.

Audio in this video isn't great because no direct in but it might give you an idea (watch in HQ for better audio):





[don't judge my dumb facial expressions because I was really sick that day ]