'thick/fat tone?

[Yan]

What is it really?  How do you get it?

I play in two average covers bands. One is a 4 piece with one guitarist. Said guitarist commented the band sounds thin during the solos and thought that thickening the bass tone with distortion would help. I added more distortion...  Not sure it helped.

Is there a good way to fill out a bands sound?

 

Any thoughts or advice would be very gratefully received ?

[steve-bbb]

Does said guitarist by any chance have his low end cranked right up and his mids slightly scooped (cos it sounds great when he is playing at home) ???

[Osiris]

Before adding any drive or distortion, try pushing the lower mids on the amp to help give the bass a bigger presence in the mix. It might not sound too sexy when it's just the bass on its own but once the rest of the band fires up it will fill a hole in the mix. 

Distortion can suck the low end from the bass (depending on what pedal you are using and how much distortion you are adding) so in this case it could actually be counterproductive. 

[Lozz196]

Yep, lower mids, and a touch of overdrive, not enough to make the notes distorted, but enough to make them not completely clean is a good way to start.

But to be honest in a one guitar band, as soon as solos kick in it will thin out - it`s a reduction of at least 3 or 4 strings going, all in the higher register where the ears pick out sounds easier. Our guitarist adds volume but also a tiny amount of delay when he solos to minimise the reduction from the guitar, and it works quite nicely.

[musicbassman]

Use an octaver during guitar solos?

I agree with Osiris that distortion can weaken or lose  the low frequencies seriously when playing live.

[TheGreek]

A good compressor?

[fleabag]

49 minutes ago, Yan said:

One is a 4 piece with one guitarist.

Do you mean a 3  piece plus a crooner, or do you mean 4 piece as in  guitar, bass , drums, and ...some other instrument ?

 

I was in a 3 piece ( git , bass, drums ) for a few years when i lived in Northampton, and we picked our tracks so that the sort of thin sound you mention when solos

kicked in was partly avoided. The other ways is your guitarists sound. Our git was well aware of this thinning out, and set his tone accordingly.

Being a grade 8 teacher, he knew what to do to fill the sound, rather than leave that to the bass, which is much harder to do

[fleabag]

Just another thought ..  one of my basses has a  monster pickup ( Schaller Bassbucker ) right up the body next to the end of the fretboard

That is a BIG sound, i can tell you. This can help a lot without having to resort to distortion, which is something i detest on bass, though peoples taste

in bass tones vary, obviously

[chris_b]

1 hour ago, Yan said:

I play in two average covers bands. One is a 4 piece with one guitarist. Said guitarist commented the band sounds thin during the solos and thought that thickening the bass tone with distortion would help. I added more distortion...  Not sure it helped.

If the band sounds "thin" when this guitarist is soloing then the problem (if it is a problem) is there when he isn't.

Last night I was playing in a trio and the guitarist stopped playing altogether when he was talking to the audience. The bass and drums just kept playing. Same when he was soloing. We sounded fine, the band sounded fine. It's called dynamics. If you feel you have to add some sort of sound effect because the chords have stopped then the sound and balance of the band wasn't right in the first place.

Sounds to me like the guitarist loses confidence when he hasn't got a "wall of sound" behind him or he doesn't understand how a band should sound.

[Skybone]

Push those mids up, and add a touch reverb.

[Jack]

Mids, overdrive, compression, chorus. All of that can help if the technique and the mix is right. If they're wrong then nothing will help IME.

[MoonBassAlpha]

Bass chords!!!!

[tonyquipment]

Split the signal into two amps. One that covers the sub low end and one that covers the low mid honk. Compress the sub and feed the mid through some drive or dirt. 

 

Now you have fat toanz 

[Yank]

I've played guitar in a 3 piece.  Maybe he has to look at fattening up his lead tone......but then again,  it's easier to point the finger at you!

[magee]

I'm totally with chris_b here - I always look to be in one guitar bands because I love the space and flexibility - as long as the singer/guitarist and I are listening properly and can follow each other we can go wherever we want. 

I have had guitarists complain about this emptiness loads in these bands and I think it's a non-issue. Listeners don't want a wall of sound all the time, they don't need the chords fully spelled out in order to hear what's going on. If there's a solo they'll be listening to that, or if there's a quiet empty bit they'll appreciate the dynamic change. If it sounds awful then it's not going to be just about there being no chords underneath the solo. 

I think chris_b is absolutely right that it's a comfort/confidence thing for the guitarist, who just needs encouragement to see things more from the listener's point of view. 

Though song choice is also important - trying to recreate a Phil Spector wall of sound production with a three piece is always going to have its limitations. 

 

[Cato]

I agree with the posters above.

A bit of space between the bass and the guitar is a beautiful thing, it lets the listener hear what's going on.

[dannybuoy]

It does depend on which overdrive distortion you use as well... I have a few to play with and found my favourites changed when trying them out in a band mix to beef up the sound during solos etc. I settled on a SolidgoldFX Beta for this purpose purely for the big bump in the low mids it has, it increases the presence of your bass but still leaving plenty of sonic space in the upper mids for the guitar to do it's thing.

[Japhet]

I don't like distortion or fuzz on bass but I've found that a bit of both with plenty of clean signal blended in can almost sound like a bit of rhythm guitar in the background.

[Marc S]

17 hours ago, Osiris said:

Before adding any drive or distortion, try pushing the lower mids on the amp to help give the bass a bigger presence in the mix. It might not sound too sexy when it's just the bass on its own but once the rest of the band fires up it will fill a hole in the mix. 

Distortion can suck the low end from the bass (depending on what pedal you are using and how much distortion you are adding) so in this case it could actually be counterproductive. 

Lots of good advice in several of the replies here. However, without actually hearing the band live, it's tricky to say exactly what the problem is...
Osiris is right in his advice here though, I've played and heard a few pedals that somehow seem to take some of the low end out of the bass sound
Also, there have been many occasions (depending on venue and the rest of the band mix...) where adding more of the low end makes the bass sound "muddy" or indistinct. I find that boosting the low mids is often the solution.
Perhaps try a Pre-amp pedal? Good luck anyhow - a bit of experimentation will help

[EssentialTension]

In my exerience, with some guitarists in some bands, it can help to encourage the guitarist, or other musicians, to stop calling it a 'solo' and to stop thinking of it as a 'solo'.

The 'instrumental interlude' should involve all members of the band - it's not all about one instrument with everyone else doing as they are told.

[Dan Dare]

Get a keyboard player. With up to ten notes at once on tap, they fill out the harmonic palette nicely...

[Dan Dare]

1 hour ago, EssentialTension said:

In my exerience, with some guitarists in some bands, it can help to encourage the guitarist, or other musicians, to stop calling it a 'solo' and to stop thinking of it as a 'solo'.

The 'instrumental interlude' should involve all members of the band - it's not all about one instrument with everyone else doing as they are told.

That sounds like a recipe for cacophony. Unless it's an arranged, multi-instrument break, the rest of the band should be providing back-up when someone takes a solo and staying out of his/her way. You wouldn't all noodle away whilst the singer was singing (well, you shouldn't, anyway).

[chris_b]

1 hour ago, Dan Dare said:

Get a keyboard player. With up to ten notes at once on tap, they fill out the harmonic palette nicely...

But the point is you don't want to fill out the sound. That's not how it's done.

Listen to any record and the levels don't go up or down during solos. Quiet sections aren't quiet. The arrangement will change so that less is played but the level remains the same. No one plugs in a pedal to fill the sound out on a record, so why do it on a gig?

If the OP's sound is thin during the solos then it will be thin in the rest of the song and the racket the guitarist is making is covering it up. Sort the band's sound out (maybe add some natural authority to the bass tone) and the guitar can play or not and the band sound will be good.

[Skol303]

21 hours ago, TheGreek said:

A good compressor?

This. Or any compressor for that matter.

Bass nearly always needs compression. I know that's heresy to some of you guys... but it's the truth.

It has nothing to do with trying to make up for lack of ability, as is often the misunderstanding. The difference in waveform/energy between the low E (or B) and upper G string is justification enough, based on the laws of acoustics. If you play bass and want a thick or even tone, then you need a compressor. Every single professional band/ studio uses them for good reason. And every one of your favourite bass players had their tone shaped by a compressor in every one of your favourite recordings.

Get one. Learn how to use it. Then rejoice!

Here endeth the sermon  

----------

PS: advanced tip…. if you want a really nice bass tone and don’t mind spending some money, then run your signal through a FET compressor and then into a tube optical LA-2A style compressor. That’s the magical combination that pretty much all of the pro audio community swears by. I attempt the same using software and the results are close enough for me. The fast FET compressor tames the peaks and the slower LA-2A style compressor evens it out and adds ‘cream’. Everyone from Bernard Edwards to Robert Trujillo was recorded this way.

Edited December 11, 2017 by Skol303

[EssentialTension]

2 hours ago, Dan Dare said:

That sounds like a recipe for cacophony. Unless it's an arranged, multi-instrument break, the rest of the band should be providing back-up when someone takes a solo and staying out of his/her way. You wouldn't all noodle away whilst the singer was singing (well, you shouldn't, anyway).

With some bands it is exactly a cacophony.

But of course it needs arranging. That's the point. Not the guitar or whatever instrument noodling all over it while the rest carry on and are expected to fill the gap he left.