So.. three guitarists?

[Necris]

 

[BenEllerGuitars]

Good stuff!

thank you!!!

 

[george galatis]

I'm pretty sure this is the video he was talking about where to him it sounded like a mess of noise.

mess? of noise?
dude you haven't listen to PERIPHERY wet?
they have an incredible balance in dynamics....what's wrong with you?

why not three guitars? there are tones of compositions for string quartets, trios, passacaglia counterpoint for two and three guitars and so on

I'm not the kind of person to make negative comments here, but if someone thinks this clip sounds like noise, they need to get their ears checked. That first part where they play Insomnia is flawless. The only thing bad about that video is it sounds like it was recorded on a cheap digital cam.

Anyways I was in a band with 3 guitarists momentarily and we had a few problems because one of the guitarists was having trouble keeping on beat. Keep in mind the more guitars you add the more precise you have to be with your playing or it's going to sound sloppy.

Oh, and Whitechapel is another good example of a band that has 3 guitarists and makes it sound good.

even Steve Vai plays with three guitarist on stage! (or strings now)

 

[Rashputin]

I would go so far as to say 3 guitars + bass & drums is the best line up. It opens up so many possibilities. I love the double tracking effect of two guitars chugging the same riff panned left and right with the third guitar doing more ambient stuff harmonizing. I always use three guitar tracks when I write stuff. To make it not sound mushy and indistinguishable its all about eq. Guitars need to have a bit more treble than most people find comfortable listening to it in a room setting. When recording you need to leave space for the bass and the drums to fill up the bottom register. A lot of metal bands use to much low mid in their guitar sounds, and they therefore end up fighting with the bass and drums for the same frequencies. The result is that something has to give..(often the bass guitar). To avoid this I started tweaking my live sounds a bit towartds the treble side for recording. I scooped out some low mid, and ended up with a true eureka moment.

My bands previous demo sounded like shit because we all cranked up the bass and low mid to sound bigger and meaner, but in fact we ended up recording almost useless guitar tracks, because they used up all the frequencies that should have been there for the bass and the drums.

Three guitars are great, but it takes som eheavy eqing.

 

[MSalonen]

Dude, guys, I didn't even state MY opinion at all.

I was just re-iterating what the OP was saying about that clip, not me. Calm down.

 

[moyersshred]

Maiden seems to do it fine but I have a feeling they just turn Janick down to 0 and let Dave and Adrien do the songs

lololol.

 

[moyersshred]

My band Arc (ARC (new song up NOW) on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads) has 3 guitarists in it. we DO have to be careful about how we shape our tones to get everything to cut through when we're practicing (lots of mids, not a lot of gain or bass... thats the key!).

a lot of the times we do layering, like where one guitar will be playing a riff, another guitar will be picking out a chord progression based on that riff, and another will be playing a melody over it. there are also a lot of parts in some of our songs where there will be a chord progression, and both of the other guitars will be playing different melodies over (one might be a simple trem picked thing changing notes on the beats, while the other is higher and busier). sounds pretty damn good to me!

arc=sex

 

[Dragonfly]

Dude, just switch stuff up, play guitar in some songs, play bass in some other (you can get some cool stuff with 2 basses aswell... )
Be creative, you can do a lot with more musicians,, just don't expect that ALL of you will be soloing all the time (except when you play Jazz )

But if I were in that position I would take both bass and guitar to the repitition and take whatever is needed at that moment.

 

[right_to_rage]

My band Arc (ARC (new song up NOW) on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads) has 3 guitarists in it. we DO have to be careful about how we shape our tones to get everything to cut through when we're practicing (lots of mids, not a lot of gain or bass... thats the key!).

a lot of the times we do layering, like where one guitar will be playing a riff, another guitar will be picking out a chord progression based on that riff, and another will be playing a melody over it. there are also a lot of parts in some of our songs where there will be a chord progression, and both of the other guitars will be playing different melodies over (one might be a simple trem picked thing changing notes on the beats, while the other is higher and busier). sounds pretty damn good to me!

You guys are very good, I'm enjoying this a lot. Added

 

[josh pelican]

I skimmed through this thread and decided it needed this quote from Alex Wade (Whitechapel). I apologize if it was already posted, but I don't think it was.

Ben is the lead guitarist and writes and performs all of the leads. Zach and I may have some little ambient type leads we add in but Ben performs all of the ripping shred solos.

It's pretty simple. Don't have all three guitarists playing the exact same riff at once.

 

[xwmucradiox]

I skimmed through this thread and decided it needed this quote from Alex Wade (Whitechapel). I apologize if it was already posted, but I don't think it was.



It's pretty simple. Don't have all three guitarists playing the exact same riff at once.

Having a three part harmony can be pretty badass though. I guess thats not exactly the same thing at once though.

 

[josh pelican]

A three part harmony could dfefinitely work. Hell, some riffs could potentially work out and just sound BEEFY; however, some riffs will sound like four dudes' nutsacks slapping together (and the sound of their groaning). No one likes that.