Obscura Tech Death Rhythms: Fredrik Nordström’s Guitar Tone Formula

Nailing the rhythm guitars in a tech death track is absolutely vital. They’re the bedrock, the driving force, the complex, chugging foundation that everything else builds upon. Get them wrong, and the whole mix can fall apart. Get them right, and you’ve got a recipe for sonic annihilation. We got a chance to peek behind the curtain as legendary producer Fredrik Nordström (At The Gates, In Flames, Dimmu Borgir) walked through his approach to mixing Obscura’s rhythm guitars, and let me tell you, it’s a masterclass in focused, effective processing.

Fredrik’s known for his crushing metal tones, and for Obscura, he brought out the big guns. This isn’t about slapping on a million plugins; it’s about smart choices that enhance an already killer performance. Ready to dive into how he crafts that signature tech death guitar sound? Let’s go! And if you want to see Fredrik break down his entire mix for Obscura’s “The Anticosmic Overload,” you can check out his full session on Nail The Mix.

The Foundation: Amp Choice and Raw Tone

Before a single plugin is loaded, the source tone is king. For these Obscura rhythm tracks, Fredrik turned to a beast of an amp: the Engl Savage 120 Mark II. He even mentioned this particular white model was brand new, the first of its kind, shipped directly to him thanks to his close cooperation with Engl. It quickly became one of his favorite amps, and hearing the raw power it delivers, it’s easy to see why. A great amp tone is your best starting point, always.

Sculpting the Beast: Fredrik’s EQ Chain for Obscura

Once you’ve got a solid DI or amped tone, EQ is where the real shaping begins. Fredrik’s approach here is about enhancing what’s good, controlling what’s problematic, and ensuring the guitars have presence without harshness. For more in-depth strategies on carving out space in your metal mixes, check out our EQ Strategies for Mixing Modern Metal guide.

Boosting the Lows and Clearing Mud

To give the guitars that essential tech death heft, Fredrik starts by pushing up 250 Hz. This adds a nice sense of body and power to the low end. However, too much low-mid information can quickly muddy up a mix, especially with fast, intricate riffing. To counteract this, he makes a subtle cut of about 2 dB around 400 Hz. This little tweak helps to keep the bottom end tight and defined.

Adding Presence and Attack

To make the guitars cut through a dense mix and highlight the articulation in the playing, midrange and high-mid presence is key. Fredrik dials in a 3 dB boost around 3 kHz with a relatively wide Q. He emphasizes trying to “open it up a lot” with this boost, aiming for general presence rather than making one specific frequency poke out aggressively.

Further up, to add that aggressive bite and pick attack, he implements a significant boost of around 5-6 dB at approximately 5 kHz. This is where that top-end clarity and sizzle comes from, helping those intricate rhythms slice through.

Taming the Low-End Boom: Multiband Compression Tactics

Even with careful EQ, distorted guitars, especially in lower tunings, can have unruly low-end frequencies that “boom” or resonate inconsistently. Fredrik employs a multiband compressor to keep this in check. For a deeper dive into how compression can shape your metal tracks, our Metal Compression Secrets hub page has you covered.

Fredrik’s not looking for heavy-handed compression here. The goal is control.

• He sets the crossover for the low band around 200 Hz, targeting the area where the bass energy in the guitars tends to build up. You can often see these peaks in the waveform.
• He uses a fast attack and fast release on this low band, essentially making it act like a limiter for just those problematic low frequencies.
• The gain reduction is minimal, just 1-2 dB, enough to catch the peaks without squashing the life out of the tone.

This technique isn’t new for Fredrik; he started doing it years ago, back in the ’90s, to combat the “homie base” (as he calls it) from heavily scooped death metal tones played through Marshall cabinets that weren’t heavily built and would resonate excessively. He’d even compress the bass on guitars while recording to get rid of this.

An interesting point came up regarding using the multiband compressor in stereo versus multi-mono. Fredrik’s take? For such a small amount of reduction (2 dB), it’s not a game-changer. Joel Wanasek chimed in that since width in a mix often comes from top-end frequencies, compressing the low end in stereo versus dual mono isn’t likely to make a significant difference in perceived width, especially with tightly recorded guitars.

The Secret Weapon: Soothe for Midrange Control

After those aggressive EQ boosts, especially in the upper midrange, things can sometimes get a bit “nasty” or resonant. This is where a dynamic resonance suppressor like Oeksound Soothe2 comes into play. Fredrik uses Soothe to gently tame any harshness or specific frequencies that might have become over-emphasized by the preceding EQ. It’s like having an intelligent, super-precise multiband compressor that listens to the signal and ducks problematic resonances dynamically. This helps to smooth out the guitar tone, making it sit better in the mix without sacrificing the aggression gained from the EQ.

Beyond Plugins: Recording Wisdom and Workflow Hacks

Fredrik also dropped some golden nuggets about the recording process and general workflow that contribute massively to the final product.

“Do It Now”: Capturing Clean Recordings

This one’s a classic piece of advice but bears repeating: aim to get it right at the source. Fredrik recounted a Canadian producer visiting his studio who said, “Why do stuff later when you can do it now?” That mantra stuck. If there are unwanted noises, string squeaks, or excessive pick buzz, address them during recording as much as possible. Of course, some cleanup is inevitable, like editing out noise between takes, which is standard practice.

Quick Volume Adjustments: Clip Gain for Dynamics

For making parts of the rhythm guitar quieter to let leads shine through, Fredrik often opts for clip gain in Pro Tools rather than writing automation. He showed how he lowered the rhythm guitar volume by a few dB during a lead section simply by adjusting the clip gain. It’s often much faster for these kinds of simple level adjustments.

This led to a classic studio anecdote: 99.99% of guitar players want their solos louder, often louder than the lead vocals! Fredrik mentioned that in over 30 years of recording and mixing, only once did a band ask him to turn a solo down. Incredible, right?

Gear Corner: Fredrik’s Recommendations for Tech Death

When it comes to specific gear for capturing that tech death sound, Fredrik had a few preferences:

Guitars: Pickups and Weight Matter

• Pickups: For all kinds of metal, Fredrik is a big fan of EMG 81s. He considers it a classic pickup that just works. While he’s tried others, like Fishman Fluence (which he noted can be awesome but often require more tweaking to get right), the EMG 81 remains a reliable go-to.
• Guitar Weight: If you’re tuning down, which is common in tech death, overly light guitars might not be ideal. Some weight in the guitar body can contribute to better tuning stability and sustain.
• Ergonomics: He mentioned that a Flying V can be surprisingly comfortable for recording while sitting down, as you can rest the V between your legs. No specific brands were singled out beyond the pickup preference.

Basses: Achieving “Tractor Bass” Tone

For bass, Fredrik looks for a solid, powerful tone he calls “tractor bass.”

• Brands: Warwick basses are generally very good sounding, as are higher-range Ibanez basses. He even noted that some lower-range Ibanez models can sound really good.
• Distortion: A key characteristic he aims for is distortion that’s in the bass tone itself, rather than feeling like a separate layer of fuzz sitting on top. He’s not a fan of pedals that create that “on-top” distortion.

Bringing It All Together with Nail The Mix

So, crafting those brutal yet articulate Obscura-style tech death rhythm guitars involves a thoughtful combination of:

• A powerful amp tone as your starting point (like the Engl Savage 120 Mark II).
• Strategic EQ to add weight (250Hz), clear mud (400Hz), and inject presence and attack (3kHz, ~5kHz).
• Subtle multiband compression to control low-end boom (below ~200Hz, fast attack/release).
• Using tools like Soothe2 to tame any resulting harshness from aggressive EQ.
• Prioritizing clean recordings and using efficient workflow tricks like clip gain.
• Choosing the right gear, like guitars with EMG 81s and basses that deliver that “tractor” low end.

These are fantastic insights you can apply to your own productions. But imagine seeing Fredrik Nordström actually dial in these settings, explain his thought process in real-time, and show you how these guitars sit in the full Obscura mix.

That’s exactly what Nail The Mix offers. Each month, you get the raw multitracks from a killer song and watch the original producer mix it from scratch, explaining every single decision. You get to see how pros like Fredrik Nordström tackle challenges, choose plugins, and craft album-ready tones. If you’re serious about elevating your metal mixing skills beyond presets and guesswork, it’s an invaluable resource. Learn how to build these tones from the ground up, directly from the source, and truly Unlock Your Sound. Don’t miss out on Fredrik’s full Obscura mixing session – dive into the details and see how a master crafts a tech death masterpiece right here.