I'm playing in a band and am the only guitarist. We have vocals, bass, drums and me on guitar. I use either a epiphone semi, SG or Firebird and have a epiphone 50watt amp head with a 4x12 speaker cab. The guitar sounds good but not 'full'. Im looking for a sound that will carry the guitar in the absence of a rhythm player. I switch from rhythm to lead ok but theres an empy feeling. I am looking for a guttsy british 'Who' style sound but dont know how to fully achieve it. How should i rig my amp - do i need certain pedals, what settings should i have my guitar? More gain?Less gain? I'm trying to do without effects too much.
Thanks
Dave
Could the answer be found in your bass player? In The Who, John Entwisle filled a lot of space with his bass guitar. Just a thought. 1/2 of that void the rhythm guitar leaves is yours, but the other half is the bass players.
"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard,
grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em."
-- The Webb Wilder Credo --
On the other hand, there's always the example of the White Stripes, who have a pretty full sound (even live, from what I've heard), with just drums and a single guitar.
I'm not as familiar with the Who's sound, but I think a big part of what's going to make a guitar part sound thicker or fuller is in the arrangement--which chords you play, what you do between chords, what you do in terms of lead fills or runs between chords, and so on. It might be worth analyzing the way you're arranging your songs to see what some of the factors could be.
That said, if you're playing heavy rock music, it would be worth looking at overdrive and fuzz pedals, or possible an octave pedal of some kind--Jack White uses the Digitech Whammy, Electro-Harmonix makes a very cool pedal called the Micro POG, which has two extra channels doubling what you play, an octave down and an octave up. That could make a big difference in filling out your sound.
I'm a single guitarist in a band right now too, so I think about this a lot--until we find a full-time drummer and bassist we're basically a two-piece, with a singer and an electric guitarist (me). Big influences on me are Jack White and especially John Squire of The Stone Roses. There's a case, like TR described, where the drummer and bassist make a huge difference. Squire used overdrive, fuzz, chorus, compression, flanger and delay effects to create a huge sound from just one guitar.
If you have the money and another output, you could get another cab and run it on the other side of the stage.
I can't wait for someone to say something worth quoting here...
I agree with the RN. the bass could step up further.
Townsend was a very rythmic player. perhaps you could work out licks around chords.
I think an overdrive and a nice delay would be a good addition. delay especially.
