Fredrik Thordendal

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Fredrik Thordendal bigraphy, stories - Swedish musician

Fredrik Thordendal : biography

February 11, 1970 –

Fredrik Thordendal (born February 11, 1970) is a Swedish lead-guitarist of the metal band Meshuggah.

He, along with Meshuggah’s rhythm guitarist Mårten Hagström were rated #35 by Guitar World in the top 100 greatest heavy metal guitarists of all-time.http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=18446

Discography

Meshuggah

  • Psykisk Testbild (EP, 1989)
  • Contradictions Collapse (1991)
  • None (EP, 1994)
  • Selfcaged (USA version) (1995)
  • Selfcaged (1995)
  • Destroy Erase Improve (1995)
  • Chaosphere (1998)
  • Nothing (2002)
  • I (EP, 2004)
  • Catch Thirty-Three (2005)
  • Nothing – Re-issue (2006)
  • obZen (2008)
  • Alive (Live Album, 2010)
  • Koloss (March 2012)

Fredrik Thordendal’s Special Defects

  • Sol Niger Within (1997)
  • Untitled (TBA)

The Devin Townsend Project

  • Deconstruction (2011) (guest guitarist on "Deconstruction")

Gojira

  • Untitled Sea Shepard EP (TBA) (guest guitarist on "Of Blood and Salt")

Scarve

  • Irradiant (guest solo guitarist on "Asphyxiate")

Equipment

Guitars

Thordendal’s 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" ), 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 new Firebird type body 8 string.

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, Bb , Eb, Ab, Db,Gb, Bb, Eb). 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 Eb or Bb. Occasionally Thordendal deviates from his "standard" tuning: on the songs "Glints Collide", "Nebulous", "Organic Shadows", "Perpetual Black Second", and "Stengah" he tunes the low F string of his 8 string guitar a half step lower to E. On "Spasm" he tunes it even lower from that, down to Bb (Bb, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Bb, Eb), 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

Amplifiers and Effects

    • Line 6 Vetta II Head Units
    • Fractal Audio Systems Axe-FX Ultra (obZen tour)
    • DAR Forza Quattro
    • Behringer FCB1010 (MIDI controller for the Axe-FX)
    • "33" MIDI Breath Controller (built by Johan Haake, the brother of drummer Tomas Haake)
    • Clavia Nord Modular G2 Engine (effects processor for the "33" breath controller)
    • Digitech Digidelay
    • Digitech GNX4 Guitar Effects Processor
    • Unknown Pedal (probably a MIDI controller that controls parameters of the Vetta Head Units)
    • T.C. Electronics Pre-Amp

Amplifiers and Effects used in the past