Fredrik Thordendal

Infobox musical artist
Name = Fredrik Thordendal


Img_capt = Fredrik Thordendal performing live at Mondo, Stockholm, Sweden during May 2005.
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Background = non_vocal_instrumentalist
Birth_name = Fredrik Thordendal
Alias =
Born = birth date and age|1970|2|11
Died =
Origin = Sweden
Instrument = Guitar, Bass guitar, Synthesizer
Genre = Avant-garde metal
Jazz fusion
Occupation = Musician, Guitarist
Years_active =
Label =
Associated_acts = Meshuggah
Fredrik Thordendal's Special Defects
URL =
Notable_instruments = Custom Nevborn and Ibanez 8- and 7-strings

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

Under the name "Fredrik Thordendal's 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 Ågren's Mats/Morgan Band.

As a guitarist, Thordendal draws attention with his clean, jazz-influenced lead-playing and complex rhythm-playing, augmented by his use of low-tuned eight-string guitars. Most notable is the similarity between his solos and those of renowned jazz guitarist Allan Holdsworth. He also contributes to the songwriting for Meshuggah, as well as providing backing vocals in live performances.

Thordendal is also a producer of some note, having produced all of Meshuggah's recent material and also releases for various other bands, Switzerland's Fragment among them.

Thordendal has featured in numerous side-projects, such as XXX Atomic Toejam with Petter Marklund. The project released a 7" two-track single "Celebration" under the name Sepülchre Inc., then took the moniker XXX Atomic Toejam and issued an MCD entitled "A Gathering Of The Tribes For The First / Last Human Be-In" on Cold Meat Industry and also featured a track on the "Karmanik Collection" compilation. A full-length album was long announced, but never surfaced. Thordendal also played bass for Petter Marklund's solo project Memorandum and together with Marklund remixed tracks on the 1995 compilation album "Ars Moriendi".

Thordendal features in the Darkane track "Psychic Pain" from the album Insanity, performing lead guitar. Thordendal also contributed to the song "Asphyxiate" which can be found on Scarve's album Irradiant.

Equipment

Guitars:
Fredrik Thordendal uses a selection of custom 8-String and 7-String guitars made by Nevborn and Ibanez (although he has been seen using a range of different guitars). Thordendal's current main guitars are Ibanez Custom 8-String which feature alder (one features a flame-maple top with a transparent grey finish) bodies with 3-piece maple bolt-on/neck-thru necks (30" {750mm}), rosewood fingerboards (no inlays), Ibanez-licensed floating tremolos (a piezo bridge system is incorporated into one of his 8-stringed Ibanez's), one volume knob, and one Lundgren Model 8 pickup. Fredrik is also one of the few that endorse Lundgren Pickups using either the Model 7 or the Model 8 pickups accordingly. Asides from the fact that his guitars utilize 7 or 8 strings, the scale lengths of the neck of his Ibanez Custom 8-String guitars also baritone using a scale length of 30" (750mm) whilst a few of his 7 strings have 27" (675mm) scale necks and one of his Nevborn Custom 8-Stringed guitars has a 29" (725mm) scale. Thordendal also has one Ibanez 7-string acoustic.

*Amplifiers and Effects used Live:
**Line 6 Vetta II Head Units
**33 MIDI Breath Controller (built by Johan Haake)
**Clavia Nord G2 Engine
**Digitech Delay Pedal
**2 Unknown Pedals (probably MIDI controllers that control parameters of the Vetta Head Units)
**T.C. Electronics Pre-Amp

*Other Amplifiers and Effects used:
**Marshall Valvestate 8200
**Mesa/Boogie .50 Caliber+
**Mesa Engineering Dual-Rectifier
**Marshall JCM800
**Marshall 1960A cab
**Line 6 POD Pro
**Rocktron Juice Extractor
**T.C. Electronics Chorus & Flanger
**Homemade "Les Amp" Head Unit
**Homemade 1x12" Cabinet
**Yamaha Breath Controller
**Volume Unit (Yamaha BC controls amount of volume that the unit will allow through)
**ADA Rackmount Delay

Discography

With 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)

olo

*"Sol Niger Within" (1997)

External links

* [http://www.meshuggah.net Official Meshuggah Website]
* [http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=9813014 Meshuggah] at MySpace
* [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:wvfixq8gld0e~T0 Meshuggah] at Allmusic
*musicbrainz artist|id=cf8b3b8c-118e-4136-8d1d-c37091173413|name=Meshuggah
* [http://guitargeek.com/chat/showthread.php?s=b6ef83628030af173669c1f4af2562ef&postid=97821 Thordendal's pedals explained]