Anyone playing Modern Rock in a 2 guitar band?

[boogieslide]

We play modern rock covers and originals. Our singer can play rhythm guitar...quite well actually. He can sing very well (a talent not easily found). Put the 2 together and each suffer a little with some songs. He has been playing in spots that are easy enough and really need the 2nd guitar, but just doesn't want the duties.
So we are auditioning guitar players. This sucks!
We have found a lot of bedroom wankers that can't play with a band....can do it on their own, but not live with a band. Fair share of people with inadequate gear for the music or just something that sounds like poo. And some that just can't play.

I am a tone freak (or I wouldn't be here). I am not saying I have the best tone in town, but I think I know good tone when I hear it and bad tone when I hear it as well. It amazes me what people think is good. Maybe they are in denial??
I worked with a guy tonight that seemed to have potential. Line6 Spider half stack (step up from last guy, which I will get to) experience w/bands and playing out, good attitude. He came over to work out guitar parts and learn some songs so we could just hit it this weekend with the full band instead of me showing him everything during practice while they wait. His vibrato sucked, bends weren't too good, and a lot of times he would hit chords and slightly bend notes and it would sound out of tune. But a few tunes he hit pretty good. The amp was SS crap to my ears though. I don't think it will compliment our sound at all. Thin buzzy and fuzzy. I was hoping for a Vetta cuz I think tone wise they are pretty good.
The guy last week seemed to be able to play. He had some lead ability and played pretty clean and accurately. Definitely green to the whole band thing, but down to earth and realized his inexperienc and seemed eager to learn. Showed up with a 1x12 Peavey Valve King he just got. Seemed proud of it. Also had a Korg multi effect unit. The amp wasn't bad, but for 96% of our stuff it just didn't have the balls and *** kicking crunch we need. It is better suited for classic rock IMO. The guys seemed to like him enough to have him back for another shot, but our singer wants me to tell him to use my 2nd rig. My Avatar 4x12 and either my 5150 or Mesa DR. I wouldn't mind letting him do it. But telling him his new amp ain't cuttin it feels like calling his baby ugly.

Just venting I guess and looking for any thoughts, comments, opinions or experiences anyone has.
How much of an effort should go in on my part to shape someone coming into the band? Whether it is helping them play stuff right or helping them with their tone.

Thanks!

 

[Brewski]

How much of an effort should go in on my part to shape someone coming into the band? Whether it is helping them play stuff right or helping them with their tone.

I think that depends on what the goals of your band are, and how much you can personally take with regard to tone or licks. It sounds like your the main guitarist, and whether you get someone who is seasoned or not, you will need to spend enough time with him/her so that they will play off of you or support your work.

Also, it depends on the chemistry between you and the other guitarist. You could get a hot guitarist, but if you can't get along, it won't last long and you won't enjoy playing as much.

I had some great guys, with much more experience, give me some lessons and helped me get up to speed so I could support them. I am eternally thankful for having that opportunity through their help and patience. I just hope that I have an area of expertise where I can return the favor someday.

 

[ytse_jam]

i've got the same exact problem... i must say we aren't as professional as your band seems, we don't own very high-end instruments/accessories. However i'm aware of the fact that we could obtain a better sound in some occasions, and if there's one person in the band who absolutely don't care for the sound quality we express it is just one of the two guitarists (i'm the other). We're not playing original songs yet, we play a little bit of Iron Maiden, Metallica but also lighter genres as well. So, this guitarist started playing guitar only two years ago and i must say he learned very quickly, but he never cared about his sound, concentrating only on speed exercises. He hasn't got ear at all for his sound, as we say in italy . His tones are really bad, and he seems not able to understand the difference between a good tone and a bad one... well, guitar tone is a very subjective thing, but there are a few standard tones for a metal or hardrock player, you cannot play Metallica with a thin and trebly tone, you really hear in the mix that there's something wrong which is compromising the overall sound. He plays with a Marshall MG series combo and a Charvel Strat equipped with dimarzio's...well, i discovered i can get a fuller and better tone out from his marshall (one of the best solidstate combos Marshall has made in the last years in my opinion, far better than newest AVT2000) with my Fender Stratocaster with original single-coils, which is supposed to be the lightest-sounding guitar you can find! Another problem is that when we're playing some rhythm riffs together (specially higher gain ones), i'm doing my best to respect the original song or however to play in the way we agreed to re-arrange the song, while this other guitarist does not pay attention at all to all these things. So it happens that he finds himself (not noticing it or however not caring about it :? ) playing for example some palm mutes in 16ths when not required, or not playing them when he should. All this things make the overall band sound muddy, confused and unpleasant. In the end i would say that it is very hard to play hard rock or metal with two guitarists in the band if there isn't a perfect coordination between FIRST the two guitarist and THEN with the entire band.

 

[boogieslide]

Thanks for the responses.

I put the most recent ad up looking for a 2nd guitarist. I didn't say rhythm specifically and people that have answered stating they can and want to play lead I have taken the approach of its a 2 guitar band so we can split the duties.
Unless something changes, the options I have right now I think I would need to be more adament about doing all the leads and having them do the supporting rhythm work. For this type of music I am more than capable of playing the leads and feel I do so very well. I guess I have just tried to be open and not come off as cocky or whatever. But it is what it is and if I am better at it I will just have to find a way to as nicely and non arrogantly as possible tell these guys this is how I think it should be. The worst that can happen is they say no and look for something else where they can be the 'lead' guitarist.

 

[jayjaytuner]

Thanks for the responses.

I put the most recent ad up looking for a 2nd guitarist. I didn't say rhythm specifically and people that have answered stating they can and want to play lead I have taken the approach of its a 2 guitar band so we can split the duties.
Unless something changes, the options I have right now I think I would need to be more adament about doing all the leads and having them do the supporting rhythm work. For this type of music I am more than capable of playing the leads and feel I do so very well. I guess I have just tried to be open and not come off as cocky or whatever. But it is what it is and if I am better at it I will just have to find a way to as nicely and non arrogantly as possible tell these guys this is how I think it should be. The worst that can happen is they say no and look for something else where they can be the 'lead' guitarist.

where abouts in rochester are you located? and/or have band rehursal.
I live about 30 mins from henrietta

 

[paleamberglow]

i have kind of the same problem in regards to the other guitarist in my band not caring about his tone... well he cares about it but he is not very educated in these matters and his tone suffers. for one thing he has about 8 million pedals plugged in at any given moment (all in front of the amp , don't think he knows what the fx loop is for) so there is constant blaring white noise and he always turns up louder than everything else. he also has a problem playing at a consistent level (in regard to picking, etc) so he uses a compressor on everything. hes a great guy so i feel bad mentioning anything to him..

 

[boogieslide]

where abouts in rochester are you located? and/or have band rehursal.
I live about 30 mins from henrietta

I live in Webster and that is where we practice right now. We are moving it to our bass players house soon though.

After my ranting....do you think you want to try out?

 

[Elpelotero]

how about this one..........i got a dual rec. whenever they play it they insist on effects>tone...and well, wouldnt you know it, but i find a little pod going into my clean channel and then...........

 

[boogieslide]

Yeah, we had a guy come over to audition and I offered to let him use my 5150II. He brought over some small Boss floor processor plugged into the clean of the 5150 and used the Boss for distortion. I saw it coming to and specifically showed him how to control the lead channel and told him to use it.....he didn't and it sounded terrible. He sucked really bad too. It was an uncomfortable hour while we pulled him through the songs he had learned.
I think from now on I am going to ask interested people to provide some form of a clip of them playing. I could weed some of these people out. Once they get there I feel bad saying "could you leave, you suck" when they have taken the time to learn stuff and are trying.

 

[Cleekster]

What i do is when i first talk to somone i would say that you respect their choice of equipment(even if you don't)and that "We are a professional band with a professional sound" and if we feel that you're sound doesn't mesh with mine or/and doesn't work with the band would you have a problem plugging into my DR or even a 5150 or whatever extra amp is lying around and if he refuses i'd say "When can you buy a decent amp then"? you're tone just isn't cutting it and if they wanna walk so be it.


Of course the reality if it's MY band is that i'm a total ******* tone snob and i ALWAYS askon the phone what kind of amp they use and say that this band is based around the Mesa Recto tone and that i'm looking for someone with a similar quality of sound and a $200 Behringer modeling amp just ain't gonna cut it.

 

[3SpeedChicken]

I got lucky, I guess (guitarist coming in to a band). The band I auditioned for already had 6 tunes on their website. All guitars were done by the singer. I had a chance to hear their 'sound' before I came in. And the stuff on the site was easy to learn. Here's the site...

http://durham-music.com/our_music.html (remember...all of the guitar work was Brad's..the singer...)

But they wanted a strong lead to come in, as they wanted to go in a more diverse direction. I joined them about 6 months after the songs on that site were posted.

The singer is a guitar tone freak. As a guitarist, I dig the hell out of that. And he has come a long way as a guitarist since those songs were posted.

We just finished all of the musical instrument work for our new 11 song CD today. (No ****...spent 13 hours in the studio today). Vocals are all we have left to do.

The cool thing is....we both played solos, bounced ideas off each other, and ended up keeping tracks from both of us. This CD has a LOT of different sounds. And I'll say Brad has just as much a part in that as I do (as the 'lead guitarist').

Hopefully we will get a scratch mix of a song or 4 tomorrow night. I'll get something that includes both of us playing, and I'll post it up.

Back to the point of the thread. I think I was the 34th guy they tried out. But I was the first to nail their tones and notes, and had FUN doing it. You have to like being around the guys you are making music with. And you have to love the music they are creating.

Brad (the singer/guitarist/songwriter), is my hero. I love the ideas he comes up with. I come up with chops, and I become his hero. We work off of each other. And this new CD is just gonna be GOOD. MUCH better than what has already been posted on our site.

 

[Loko Evelia]

lol, brian... have you found that leather prada wallet you were lookin for?