I am curious how the guitar roles operate in Visual Kei are the positions of rhythmic and lead guitars always certain or do both guitarist switch the positions for different songs. I am just curious because I never have seen an explicit mention of lead or rhythmic guitarist in the scene.
The real question is is it needed? What extra does it bring and does a band without a rhythm guitar just not sound as good?
I’m sure that some level of those dynamics do exist in many bands, but in terms of everyday classification I usually just see them being referred to as “right or left”
What I noticed is that the guitarists who got the most solos (usually considered lead), usually played on the right side of the stage.
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even most bands with only one guitarist have compositions which frequently require a second guitarist. For studio recordings one would be enough but in live performances it can easily become akward
That depends on the band and what they want to present in their sound. You can have two different sounding guitars to use.
The rhythm guitar tends to be on a lower register and backs the rhythm section, adds extra smoothened “noise”
The most recent examples of altered sound is Nemophila when they lost Saki. The band sounded more bass heavy compared to the dual guitar set-up.
Also Kamijo, when he rolled with just a single guitarist after years of dual guitars. The songs with dual guitars didn’t sound right when performed with just a single guitarist, no change in tone when you expect one.
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Kinda varies by band, Dir En Grey, Kaoru and Die just alternate roles between songs but Kaoru seems to be the more technical and precise player.
Buck-Tick Imai is clearly the lead and Hidehiko plays Rhythm. Especially in songs like My Funny Valentine where Imai is purely doing fills and licks while Hidehiko is playing a steady progression.
I feel you can tell based on who plays what parts or primarily plays the solo. But not a fixed rule but rather and observation in bands overall.
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Think it’s the same with Uruha and Aoi.
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