Pedals for fattening sound

Coma

Coma

Well-known member
Second guitarist in my band quit and I need to fatten up my sound for live gigs. Esp solos sound thin now that there's no rhythm guitar to back things up. Even after playing for many years now, I never took much of an interest in effect pedals. But from what I've come to understand, a delay might be my friend? Anything else that might help? Any pointers on selection or tips and tricks are more than welcome. :confused:
 
Re: Pedals for fattening sound

Don't over use delay to fatten up your sound. Too much too often will just sound like mush.

The biggest thing to keeping things sounding full in a three piece is technique, you'll have to adjust your playing to compensate.
 
Re: Pedals for fattening sound

what type of music? whats your rig?

an eq pedal can be set for a mid boost to fatten single notes, a delay can make you solo seem less naked, an octave pedal can really thicken things up if used well. lots of options
 
Re: Pedals for fattening sound

Death/Thrash/Heavy metal. Rig is

Superstrat w/ EMG 89 -> Dunlop Crybaby Standard -> EVH 5153 + Orange 4x12 V30
 
Re: Pedals for fattening sound

A delay will help fill space. A boost pedal with bass/treble controls or a graphic EQ pedal can sculpt your tone.

Some guys use a chorus pedal with the width turned off, this gives a very short delay that isn't perceived as a separate repeat, just a denser, richer sound. If you have two amps you can feed the other amp from the second output of a chorus pedal for a broadening of your soundstage that's slightly three-dimensional even without swirl. You can also set the tone (and gain) controls on the two amps differently for better texture, that way you can have each one display its best qualities.
 
Re: Pedals for fattening sound

ditch the crybaby (or make it true bypass) for a bigger tone if you want to inmprove your sound through gear choice.
However, it is how you play that will make the biggest difference.
Less is more especially in a trio.
Try not to rely on effects, but aim instead to use more dynamics in both yours and your band members' playing.
Aim to make the band's sound greater than the sum of its parts.
Do not be afraid of using space to give dimension and gravity to the notes you do play.
Less things happening around you give you more freedom to explore nuances and subtleties.
Enjoy the ability to really say something with your notes and riffs without the clutter of another guitar crunching away over your frequencies.
It probably feels a bit bare and unforgiving initially, but once you get used to it, life will be good. You don't need the safety blanket of another guitar.
The old rule of "less is more" applies in all styles of music, death metal included.
 
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Re: Pedals for fattening sound

Actually a warm, fat wah would be a good idea anyways; for what you're playing you should have an Ibanez WD7 Demon. Extremely versatile. You can get all kinds of fat, warm tones from it. Used ones can go for around $50 or less. Aceman just bought one, ask him about it.
 
Re: Pedals for fattening sound

What gear is your bass player using? Adding a bit of dirt to the bass while you are soloing could help fill in the sound too.
 
Re: Pedals for fattening sound

+1 on the chorus.
Delay, in moderation. Or sparingly, based on your taste.
EQ
Fat-sounding overdrive. My favorite right now is the Fulltone OCD.
 
Re: Pedals for fattening sound

Matt42 said:
The biggest thing to keeping things sounding full in a three piece is technique, you'll have to adjust your playing to compensate.
Click to expand...

I'm glad someone gets this concept... in most bands I've been in, I've been the lead or only guitarist and over the years I've developed a number of techniques to aid in that. Technique IS a big one that gets overlooked. Just playing clean, clear notes that are in tune and having a solid picking hand can do awesome things to your sound.

Other things that help.

- Strings that are as heavy as you can get without adversely affecting performance. I use .010-.052.
- Back off the gain, bump the mids up, and go for more volume instead of more gain. You'll get a fuller, clearer sound.
- making sure the instrument is set up right for pickup height.
- making sure your caps and pots aren't thinning out your sound.
- Good speakers that transmit a nice full range of tones, not just concentrated in one frequency.

As far as the pedal from goes, I'd go for an EQ pedal or some sort of boost or drive pedal with EQ options. I just picked up a BB Preamp and I'm loving what it does for my sound. Great bass response and just enough compression to fatten things up nicely.
 
Re: Pedals for fattening sound

A good treble booster.

The name is misleading. It isn't adding treble as in making the sound thin. It does compression by clipping but as clean as possible so that you retain clarity. You can use it in front of regular distortion.
 
Re: Pedals for fattening sound

Perhaps your bass player could go a little heavier in the 80-160hz region...taking up some more space in the lower octave of your 6 string.
 
Re: Pedals for fattening sound

Everyone in here has a totally different response to this, and that's totally fine because there are a tonne of different ways to accomplish the same thing.

An EQ could work to fatten up the bass and mid frequencies. Actually even playing with the EQ on your amp could help a little bit.

A booster like the Xotic EP booster or TC Electronic Spark booster (full version, not the mini) could help you get a richer, fatter sound.

A chorus pedal has been a really common one for a long time, from what I understand, Dime used a flanger/doubletracker on at all times in his rig to make it sound like two guitarists playing. Keeley recently released a pedal called the 30 MS doubletracker that accomplishes the same effect without going overboard into chorus/warble land.

A simple delay could really help fatten your sound during a solo, and to give it more ambience so that your stage doesn't sound as 'empty' (as that seems to be the main issue you want to solve).

Finally, my last suggestion has nothing to do with you: Get your bass player to buy a fuzz or distortion pedal. When you look at a metalband like Motorhead, or even further back to Black Sabbath (you said metal so I'm giving metal examples), they still sound HUGE even when it's time for a guitar solo. This is largely because the bass guitar is just as heavy as the guitar, and in a lot of cases, the 'richness' of that band's sound is coming more from the bass than the guitar player. Get your bass player a rich, distorted low end and you'll never miss that second guitar player.
 
Re: Pedals for fattening sound

B2D said:
I'm glad someone gets this concept... in most bands I've been in, I've been the lead or only guitarist and over the years I've developed a number of techniques to aid in that. Technique IS a big one that gets overlooked. Just playing clean, clear notes that are in tune and having a solid picking hand can do awesome things to your sound.

Other things that help.

- Strings that are as heavy as you can get without adversely affecting performance. I use .010-.052.
- Back off the gain, bump the mids up, and go for more volume instead of more gain. You'll get a fuller, clearer sound.
- making sure the instrument is set up right for pickup height.
- making sure your caps and pots aren't thinning out your sound.
- Good speakers that transmit a nice full range of tones, not just concentrated in one frequency.

As far as the pedal from goes, I'd go for an EQ pedal or some sort of boost or drive pedal with EQ options. I just picked up a BB Preamp and I'm loving what it does for my sound. Great bass response and just enough compression to fatten things up nicely.
Click to expand...

Playing as the only guitarist in a 3 piece is a whole different animal technique wise. The country cover band I was in exploded a few years ago, i.e. the "lead" singer (he really only sang like 40% of the songs) went a bit crazy and fired everyone but me and him, and then I just went to play with the old drummer and bassist. We kept a pretty similar set list, but I had to adjust my playing on almost every song. I had to me more involved with the rhythm during verses, and had to learn how to play fills while maintaining the chord structure of the song. Same thing with solos. The first few times we played as a 3 piece, everything would fall apart on the solos. That forced me to learn to phrase my solos with the chord progression in mind, something I'd always heard about, but never tried.

We eventually added a second guitarist after about 9 months of rocking the power trio, and I'm really glad we did as it's opened up what we are able to do a lot. That being said, I improved more as a lead player in those 9 months or so than I think I had at any other point in my life.
 
Re: Pedals for fattening sound

Thanks for all the input so far. Just as a quick response to what some of you said, bass player is already playing with overdrive/fuzz on, as well as playing through an amp that has somewhat of an overdrive channel itself. We downtune to C anyway so there's plenty of bottom to go around.
I don't really think I want to go for an overdrive pedal, I already have more gain than I can make use of in the 5153. I will, however, swap the Orange Cab for a matching EVH as soon as I get the chance, as the two really don't work well together.
 
Re: Pedals for fattening sound

I play in a three piece setting most of the time myself. I use a Red Coral Dual Detune Pedal to fatten things up especially on rhythms. I also do something similar with my Eventide Pitchfactor where I slightly detune but that is a more expensive option.


http://digitech.com/en-US/products/red-coral
 
Re: Pedals for fattening sound

Cool thread. Being the only guitarist in my band, and we play very heavy hard rock, I:
-Use two cabs, one on each side of the stage
-Octave shapes in guitar melodies often
-Often use an analog delay set with a fairly close slapback, and then my digital delay over it
-Custom string set, w/ 9.5 on top since I'm playing leads, and 48 on the bottom (in between traditional 10s and 11s low e size)
-A dedicated buffer in my pedalboard!!! A row of TB pedals are great, but only with a nice buffer, otherwise your tone gets anemic
-Fair amount of mids
And I hit the strings like a mofo! Pretty heavy handed, and I didn't used to be. It came out of subconscious necessity.

edit- Chorus too... but only if the song permits. I honestly don't find it necessary after all of the above happens.
 
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Re: Pedals for fattening sound

Wow - opinions vary here. My take - I can't tell what you mean by "thin/thick"

If you mean a fatter sounding note, I'm thinking less treble. Turn the guitar tone known down, or do like EVH and get a Custom Custom.

If you mean a "thicker" not - a delay ABSOLUTELY works.
Simple thicker = set the delay to ~50ms with one repeat. Level is key here - it needs to be low enough you don't really hear the delay!
Alternate version = slight detune or chorus. By the way - chorus IS a slight delay.

You could do both…


As mentioned, as a solo guitar player, you'll get away with less BS type of shreddy stuff.
 
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