Fredrik Thordendal (born February 11, 1970) is a Swedish lead-guitarist of the metal band Meshuggah. Thordendal began his career when he formed Metallien, a heavily Metallica-influenced band, in his hometown Umeå in 1985. The band later changed their name to Meshuggah and released their first LP Psykisk Testbild in 1989.[2] Beginning as a thrash metal band, Meshuggahs music gradually evolved into a more progressive sound. Various members of the band coined the term Djent in reference to a commonly-utilised technique of playing heavily muted, extended powerchords found within Meshuggahs music.[3] Thordendal has been widely recognized[4][5] in the metal community for his work with Meshuggah. Under the name Fredrik Thordendals Special Defects, Thordendal released a solo album in 1997 titled Sol Niger Within with Ultimate Audio Entertainment. The album was remixed and re-released by Ultimate Audio Entertainment and Relapse Records in 1999 under the title Sol Niger Within version 3.33. The re-release contains two bonus tracks but omits several parts of the original version. Thordendal also featured on several tracks for drummer Morgan Ågrens Mats/Morgan Band. As a guitarist, Thordendal draws attention with his clean, complex lead-playing, inspired by jazz fusion guitarist Allan Holdsworth, and complex rhythm-playing featuring prominent polymetric passages. These characteristics are augmented by his use of seven and eight-string guitars. He has a large contribution to songwriting, as well as providing backing vocals for some songs during live performances. He also writes the basslines and performs electric bass in the studio, Dick Lövgren covering these parts during live performances. Fredrik has been quoted as stating that Metallica and Tool as influences on Meshuggah. Interestingly, Meshuggah supported Tool during their U.S. tour in the fall of 2002, where drummer Tomas Haake even guest appearing, playing Triad with the band. Fredrik praises jazz fusion guitarist Wayne Krantzs work with Keith Carlock and Tim Lefebvre, stating that these guys are the most inspiring band I’ve heard in a very long time. He has also stated that he listens to Massive Attack and Cult of Luna. In an interview with Guitar World in 2011 Fredrik states My dad always listened to jazz, and I guess that influenced me to learn about improvisation. An improvised solo sounds so much better than a written one. For me, there’s not much thinking going on at all, only a reaction to what I’m being told from the inside. And no, I have not had any formal training. When I record my leads, they are usually based on feel and totally ignorant to all laws of music theory. This, of course, is because I just play whatever comes out. There are no rules. But on certain songs, I do have to figure out what scales I need to use to follow chord changes. Since I’m not very good with all the scales, I sometimes have to write parts down and plan things ahead. I usually improvise the first part, then insert the written part and continue to improvise until the end of the solo. It’s a very confusing way to do it, but I do whatever it takes to make it sound like I know what I’m doing. Fredrik utilizes a unique device for his leads, referred to as the MIDI breath controller. He states I was mainly interested in using it as a dynamics controller. I wanted to start a note at a lower volume and then bring it up, like a saxophonist does. But I’ve since found that is more or less impossible with a guitar. Since the controller didn’t produce the sound I was after, I had to find other ways of using it. It turned out that the only thing that sounded cool was when I blew every single note with it, which generated this weird staccato sound. The first breath controller we made—the one I used on “Future Breed Machine” and “Sublevels” from Destroy Erase Improve—could only control the volume. So Johan Haake and I tried all kinds of things to get closer to what I originally wanted, like adding control over frequencies and distortion. I am really pleased with how the “Missing Time” solo turned out from Sol Niger Within Version 3.33 [the remix CD of the debut album from his side project Fredrik Thordendal’s Special Defects]. But I never thought we got close enough, so I sort of gave up on it. A couple of years ago it was for sale to the public, but not any more. Guitars[edit] Thordendals current main guitars are Ibanez Custom 8-String M8M which feature RG-shaped or Iceman-shaped alder bodies with 5-piece maple/Bubinga neck-thru necks (29.4 {746.76 mm}), rosewood fingerboards (no inlays), fixed bridge (actually an Ibanez FX-Edge fixed tremolo), one volume, one tone, and one Lundgren Model 8 pickup. The fixed bridge on one of his 8 strings has since been replaced with a Kahler tremolo system. Thordendal also owns a 7-string acoustic guitar, also made by Ibanez. For some time he also used Nevborn guitars. This company made Meshuggah their first 8 string guitars: however these guitars suffered from intonation problems, causing Thordendal to abandon the company and switch to exclusively using Ibanez guitars. On the current North American tour promoting Koloss, he has been using a custom Firebird type body 8 string, called the Stoneman. Tuning: For early Meshuggah releases, Fredrik tuned his 7 strings in B♭ tuning (one half step below standard tuning). He followed suit when he started using 8 string guitars, tuning them down to F tuning (F, B♭, E♭, A♭, D♭,G♭, B♭, E♭). It was explained in an interview that they tuned their guitars this way because in the early days of Meshuggah, before Jens Kidman adopted his signature vocal style, it was easier for him to sing in the key of E♭ or B♭. Occasionally Thordendal deviates from his standard tuning: on the songs Glints Collide, Organic Shadows, Perpetual Black Second, and Stengah he tunes the low F string of his 8 string guitar a half step lower to E, he also tunes it to E♭ on Nebulous and even to D on Obsidian. On Spasm he tunes it even lower from that, down to B♭ (B♭, B♭, E♭, A♭, D♭, G♭, B♭, E♭), making the 8th string an octave below the 7th. Guitar Strings, Dunlop: String gauges: .070 - .052 - .046 - .036 - .026 - .016 - .011 - .009. Guitar Picks: Jim Dunlop Nylon 1mm https://youtube/watch?v=EVr0fxahC-o
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 06:58:20 +0000
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