How Jordan Fish Rewired Modern Metal’s DNA

When Bring Me The Horizon dropped Sempiternal in 2013, the metal world felt a seismic shift. The raw, scrappy deathcore of their early days was replaced by something massive, atmospheric, and dangerously catchy, layered with intricate electronics. This wasn’t just a band changing its style; it was a blueprint for a new era of metal. The primary architect of that blueprint? Jordan Fish.

His arrival didn’t just add a keyboard player to the lineup. It introduced a producer, a sound designer, and a songwriter who understood how to weave the textures of electronic music into the fabric of heavy rock. For any producer trying to make modern metal that sounds current, understanding Jordan Fish’s approach isn’t just useful—it’s essential.

Let’s break down some of the production concepts he championed and how you can apply them to your own tracks.

Profile: The Architect of BMTH’s New Sound

Before joining BMTH, Jordan Fish was in an electronic rock band called Worship, which gives you a hint at his creative headspace. When he officially joined Bring Me The Horizon, he became a core writing member alongside frontman Oli Sykes. His influence was immediate.

He brought a producer’s mindset to the writing room, building songs from synth textures, samples, and rhythmic loops, rather than just guitar riffs. This flipped the traditional metal writing process on its head. Albums like Sempiternal, That’s the Spirit, and the genre-bending amo are masterclasses in this hybrid approach.

Fish’s impact is in the details: the pulsating synth arps that drive verses, the massive sub-drops that hit harder than any 8-string, and the cinematic pads that give choruses their epic scale. He treated the sampler and the synthesizer as primary instruments, proving that “heavy” could come from a laptop just as easily as it could from a cranked amp.

Deconstructing the Jordan Fish Production Playbook

So how do you bring that electronic-infused power into your own productions? It’s about more than just throwing a synth pad over some chugs. It’s about a fundamental approach to layering, sound design, and arrangement.

It’s All About the Layers: Synths & Guitars Coexisting

One of the biggest challenges in modern metal production is making synths and guitars play nicely without turning your mix into a muddy mess. The Jordan Fish approach treats this like solving a puzzle, giving each element its own space to dominate.

• High-End Ear Candy: Guitars own the midrange. Don’t fight them there. Instead, use synths for high-frequency elements. Think short, plucky arpeggios or bright, shimmering lead lines that dance on top of the rhythm guitars. A classic tool for this is Xfer Serum—use its powerful wavetable engine to craft a thin, cutting patch, then drench it in a rhythmic delay (like an eighth or sixteenth note) using something like Soundtoys’ EchoBoy to add movement.
• The Power of the Sub: A chunky guitar riff is great, but for that chest-caving, modern low-end, nothing beats a dedicated sub-bass synth. During a heavy chorus or a massive breakdown, layer a simple sine or square wave synth underneath your bass guitar. Program it to follow the kick drum pattern or the root notes of the riff. This adds a clean, powerful fundamental that you can feel. You can even filter out everything above 80-100Hz on the synth so it doesn’t interfere with the bass guitar’s character.
• Atmospheric Pads for Width and Depth: This is key for creating that cinematic scale. Find a lush, evolving pad sound (Arturia’s Pigments or Native Instruments’ Kontakt are great for this). Pan it wide, and tuck it just underneath the main instruments. A genius trick here is to use automation to swell the pad’s volume just before a chorus hits—it creates a sense of anticipation and makes the chorus feel like an explosion of sound.

Sound Design as a Riff

In many BMTH tracks, the synth isn’t just a supporting layer; it is the main riff. Think of the iconic opening to “Can You Feel My Heart.” That pulsating, filtered lead is the central hook of the entire song.

This requires a shift in thinking. Don’t just look for melodic presets. Start creating rhythmic, percussive synth patches. A great way to do this is with aggressive processing:

• Distortion is Your Friend: Don’t be afraid to abuse your synths. Run a seemingly tame pad or lead through a distortion plugin like Soundtoys’ Decapitator or FabFilter Saturn 2. This adds harmonic complexity and grit, helping the synth feel like it belongs in a heavy track.
• Sidechain Everything: To get that modern, pumping electronic feel, set up a sidechain compressor on your synth pads and rhythmic layers. Key it to the kick drum (and sometimes the snare). Every time the kick hits, the synth will duck in volume, creating that signature rhythmic pulse and making the drums punch through harder. This is a core technique in electronic music and a must-know for modern metal. Want to go deeper? Our metal compression hub page covers tricks like this and more.
• Creative Filtering: Use an auto-filter (like the one built into most DAWs or a dedicated one like Soundtoys’ FilterFreak) on your synth loops. Automate the cutoff frequency to rise over 4 or 8 bars to build tension into a new section. This simple move creates incredible energy and is a staple in electronic and modern metal arrangements. This kind of surgical frequency work is just as important as knowing how to do proper metal guitar EQ.

Get The Gear: Tools for the Jordan Fish Vibe

While the ideas are more important than the tools, having the right plugins in your arsenal makes getting these sounds much easier.

Synths & Samplers

• Xfer Serum: The undisputed king of modern electronic sound design. Its visual workflow makes it easy to create everything from aggressive leads to evolving pads.
• Native Instruments Massive X / Kontakt: Massive is a classic for a reason, and Kontakt is the industry-standard sampler for cinematic textures, pianos, and orchestral elements that can add another dimension to your tracks.

Essential Processing Plugins

• Soundtoys 5 Bundle: Decapitator, EchoBoy, and FilterFreak are modern classics for a reason. They offer incredible sound with an analog vibe.
• FabFilter Saturn 2: A multi-band distortion and saturation beast. Perfect for adding subtle warmth or completely destroying a synth lead in a controlled way.
• Cableguys ShaperBox 2: An all-in-one tool for creating complex rhythmic filtering, panning, and volume modulation. It’s a shortcut to getting those intricate, pumping synth lines.

It’s Not Just What You Use, It’s How You Use It

Learning about these techniques is one thing. Watching them being applied in a real-world mix session by a pro is a whole other level of education. Jordan Fish’s work with BMTH proved how vital a producer’s ear for arrangement and texture is to the final sound of a record.

These are the exact kinds of challenges that get tackled every month inside Nail The Mix. You get to see world-class producers—some of whom you can find on our list of instructors—mix real songs from bands like Gojira, Lamb of God, and Periphery from scratch. They blend synths, layer samples, and use compression and EQ in creative ways to make everything hit with maximum impact.

If you’re ready to see how these modern techniques are used to shape the biggest records in metal, check out the entire Nail The Mix sessions catalog and see what you’ve been missing.