This is a Question about energy kinda

[Stiles12]

I have been playing in a three piece for a while now and for the most part when we start to jam, it turns into funk. basically everytime. bass player loves to get his funk fingers poping and slaping (he is really sick at it). but when we go to play songs that require a lot of energy (for instance a DWD, or a chalkdust style of ending solo) in the solo section it lacks, we have a lot of dead air becuase we are only in a three piece. plus it seems like just playing majors modes and petatonics are not cutting it for the high volume energy section. we can play high volume in a four piece becuase another guitarist or piano player can take a rythm aproach to it. but everyone we play with never seems to make the cut of playing good enough to have fun, and we are always playing as a three piece.  
If anyone has any Idea what i am talking about or can help me, please post some shit. scales, modes, anything that could help me out please let me know, thanks a lot.

[Poster]

well, if you dont have one already, Id just recommend you band-aid the situation with a boomerang. when i was in a trio, id build up the loops to give do all sorts of crazy textures and then play them in reverse through a stereo pan box into the PA. if you fool with it long enough it pretty much can act as if somebody else is sitting there jamming with you. then again, it can sound like a burnt turd if your setup sucks or you screw up the timing while jamming live, that can kinda be a bummer. go on youtube and memorize some free lessons on modes that usually gets me on the right track to getting around any brick walls in a piece oh and try to get your bass player to not slap at all for like a month. get him out of his comfort zone or he will never progress-->

[gratephulphish123]

i use a loop pedal. i hate the thin three piece sound, so i just loop things and jam over em. it doesnt get as far out as i'd like but when i need a jam to progress i just shut the loop off and play as loud ad humanly possible

i cant give any advice on taming bass players, mine wont do anything i ask him to, regardless of how i ask. at this point i'm offering cash prizes for learning eyes of the world... d'oh

[Stiles12]

First, the kid who plays bass is amazing, he comes from a family of successful professional musicians, he can do it all, slap pop, walk, everything. really carries a lot of the load of us three. the problem is that the sound is just thin so let me get it out that he dosnt start the funk tones all the time, its a combination of us and trying to fill the gaps of dry time.

Tried it with the loop, but really dosnt sound good at all, if you miss the timing you are toast, even if the tempo changes just a tiny bit, three four five rotations around and it could be a whole second off. I set loops and play over them when playing by myself, using the whammy II to drop octaves and play bass notes, drumming on the guitar and slashing my pick through for a snare sound, but when you are playing with a live band, if you do set a loop as a rythm track the jam really never goes any where, their is time that is killed while you are setting the loop, and your timing has to be spot on to sync it with the drums.

listening to oysterhead it seems like trey even has a tough time getting going with solo's, while some sound real smooth, a lot of them sound thin, (I know i may see a lot of hate for that comment, but its true) maybe the answer is getting another person involved. even though it will put us back.

[Poster]

id try using a boomerang (and not a rc20 or anything like) as stacking is much easier on the rang. also, i wouldnt jump right into trying to play back chord progressions, as thats where your screwing yourself with the tempo. try using it to get more synth sounds out of your guitar, or use one with a nice keyboard. experiment with using effect after the rang too, and see what you can make it sound like. if you can manage to swell up some interesting effects,but its getting too repetitive try incorporating the half step it takes to turn off the loop into a start stop segment maybe, or even tap the reverse button to make it even weirder. either way it takes a long ass time to be able to use it and even then it can be a pain if your not paying attention. i remember switching out all of the pots of all my guitars a few years back because i couldnt stand hearing my coils pop when i pulled to pot to make them single coil. if you want a good example of what iam talking about go into the video section and watch the ghost in there closely. you can hear trey make the same mistake on his languedoc, but after a few moments you cant hear anything anyway.

[gratephulphish123]

it just takes practice to get the loop right, you gotta hit the pedal exactly on the one, i hit the first chord of the sequence along with the pedal to get the timing perfect, just try looping things and tapping a consistent tempo along with them to make sure they're not screwed up. if it's a problem that only pops up playing with a drummer i'd blame him for messing up the beat

[Poster]

oh and in case you guys had not heard, boomerang is coming out with a super looping unit sometime in early 08', it is supposed to be really expensive, but apparently, you can remove layers in real time and its true bypass ;0)

[strangedesign]

SWEET! Geuss I need to start saving...