Any Meshuggah or Fredrik Thordendal fans out there??

Alexander Almanza

New Member
I was scrolling through my IG feed and i found this. I was kind of blown away because they did a documentary for koloss and they were exclusively use the axe. Any ideas on what changed?
 

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It seems like silent stages are getting out of fashion, and more and more guitar players want cabs on stages, at least for "feel" and feedback.

Dunno. I just got rid of everything that produces the sound on stage (well, our drums are still acoustic), and feedback from sound guys and audience is overwhelmingly positive. But I'm playing in smaller venues then Meshuggah, obviously. :)
 
Koloss, I think the guitar and bass sounds was from Cubase’s Amprack vst. As far as I know they’ve never done an album with axe fx. Live has been axe fx for some time though, until recently.

Their last tour they were using both a Randall Satan and axe fx models, and then switched over to just the Fortin Meshuggah with the 33 pedal. The Violent Sleep of Reason was a ton of different amps, I don’t think even they know exactly which amps on which songs. First album in a long time with tube amps. Great sound though.
 
Hey man, I'm a HUGE Meshuggah fan! I love their tones on Kloss and VSOR!!! VSOR sounds better to my ears though because the tone sounds fuller, more raw, slightly muddier than Kloss but in a good way because it's a tight mud. Been working on capturing the tone on that album particularly the song 'By The Ton'. Some good s***!
 
Koloss, I think the guitar and bass sounds was from Cubase’s Amprack vst. As far as I know they’ve never done an album with axe fx. Live has been axe fx for some time though, until recently.

Yeah, they show Amprack in the Making of Koloss documentary. Wasn't a huge fan of the tones on that. I preferred the tones on the Nothing re-release which was Line 6 with custom IRs I think.
 
Yeah, they show Amprack in the Making of Koloss documentary. Wasn't a huge fan of the tones on that. I preferred the tones on the Nothing re-release which was Line 6 with custom IRs I think.

The Nothing re-release was probably their best line 6 tone in my opinion, it seemed to slowly get worse and worse after that. Koloss I didn’t really realise the tone was kind of odd until I compared it to the other albums.

I’ve always been a fan of the tone on their older albums, particularly Chaosphere and Destroy Erase Improve.
 
the palm mutes on DEI totally jump out and punch you in the chest. i don't recall any other metal album with the same effect. crazy how its mixed like that without getting muddy

It’s pretty tight and punchy for something from 1995. I have read the microphone used to mic up their cab, TLM193, had a big influence on their tone. Maybe worth looking into impulses with that mic.

Back when I went FRFR I remember there was one stock cab impulse with a similar kind of DEI sound. Someone once also posted a ton of meshuggah tone matches a few years ago, and included an impulse that was even more similar.


edit- I think the attached impulse is the one I'm talking about, but I don't have any speakers or headphones here I can test it on. I think the similar stock one had 'German' in the name, just going off memory.
 

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I thought they still use the Axe live. But who cares, when I saw them live on the recent tour the guitar sound was ... well the best I've ever heard, it was just perfect! On albums they always sound strange to me. Not bad, but not good either. I love their music, absolutely, but Meshuggah only really works for me live!
 
Big meshuggah and fredrik thordendal fan here. Why, just the other day i was trying to get their sound nailed. Couldn't do it though. had to conclude that my pickups are what's limiting me.
 
Here's the Koloss making-of documentary (with time-stamped link to the Axe-FX mention).


"We play through Axe-FX. To get a digital signal out via S/P-DIF. Then into Cubase. In Cubase we use a plugin (VST Amp Rack) where we set up pedals, amps, cabinets, effects and microphones manually. And it sounds just awesome. No need to use a traditional amplifier anymore."
 
This "Nail the Mix" video features engineer Tue Madsen demonstrating the mixing process for the guitar tones on TVSoR.




This interview with drummer Tomas Haake gives some good background on their approach to recording this album:
https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/new...al_amps_for_the_first_time_in_many_years.html

"...on their eighth album titled "The Violent Sleep of Reason," the group has once again redrawn the lines and shifted expectations. The 10 songs were recorded virtually live, which is an approach the band hasn't used for many, many years. Drummer Tomas Haake says, "It's something we had done but it's certainly been more than 20 years. Either it was the "None" EP from '93 or "Destroy Erase Improve" from '95 that was the last time we recorded live in that fashion where we recorded several instruments simultaneously. We wanted to old-school it and get back to that..."

"It's all live takes and yeah, that makes for a difference in sound and in vibe also. Because you have the human flaws if you will that are in there now [laughs] and they're audible. To a certain degree, it makes it a little sloppier if you want to use that word but at the same time it brings an energy that was inherent in all the music we grew up listening to like the British Wave and the Bay Area thrash and all of that."

By recording live, did it change the way you approached the drums?
"It didn't change so much how we approached the drum recording as much as it did the guitar and bass. This is also the first album in many years where we actually used amps and miked cabinets like old school. So the guitar setup was five cabinets with five heads: Orange, Marshall, Mesa Boogie and different heads for each cabinet and each cabinet miked so we could pick and choose and change the guitar tone a little bit depending on whether it's a sludgier song or a faster paced one. So there's actually a little bit of difference in the guitar sound throughout the album, which is something we haven't done in a very long time."

On the earlier albums, the guitars and bass weren't recorded with amps?

"On "Koloss," "obZen," and "Catch 33," on those albums it's the same sound for each song pretty much. You've got the exact same guitar setting and tone on everything. This is a little different in that sense too."
 
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