Firstly: a caveat- I am not at all technically minded with a guitar. I have a Korean Squier Tele with quite a wiry, thin sound, except when I put it through a distortion pedal. It has two pickups (see image).
My band are finding it quite difficult to find bass players at the moment. I thought that there are quite a few two-piece guitar/drum bands which have a decent low-end kick despite not having any bass. For instance, '68 or Hella (or pretty much every decent grind band in existence- Pig Destroyer, Wormrot, Gridlink).
So, are there any cool tricks for how to get a fuller, bassier sound out of an electric guitar? I’m not looking for a bass replacement, as that’s impossible, but just adding more kick to the low-end with a simple guitar. Any thoughts?
I’d start with running the amp’s bass control at 10 and then set mids and treble to taste. You could also tune the guitar down a step or two and try that. I think they are the only free options.
If that’s not enough, then get a octave and or eq pedal and boost bass from there.
It can get very complicated from this point - buying a bass amp to run in parallel, signal splitting etc
Josh definitely uses an octave pedal, on tracks like Whether Terrified Or Unafraid, and This Life Is Old, New Borrowed And Blue. According to Equipboard, he uses a EHX Pog 2, which is pretty spenny, but there are lots of other options. I’ve got a Mooer Tender Octaver, which is great, but I think was discontinued because EHX took legal action. There sees to be a second version of it now; no idea how it stacks up.
Known a lot of bands to do this and tbh it always sounds pretty bad. Octaver for single note riffing, sure. But just splitting the signal into a bass amp or similar just sounds muddy and shite tbh.
The latest boss octave pedal (oc-5) has a setting where the lowest note in a chord will be a bass note but leave the higher notes unaffected. Might be worth a look.
Otherwise as others have said maybe try some drive/distortion pedals that allow you to push the lows a bit.
