Rig Rundown with Fredrik Åkesson Opeth

It's time for the first "Rig Rundown" as promised.  First up is Fredrik Åkesson, lead guitarist in the Swedish progressive metal band Opeth. The RR was recorded in Stockholm November 15, 2014 during soundcheck. Fredrik guides us through the rig he´s currently using, which is based on the PRS guitars and Marshall JVM 410HJS, an amplifier I will return to for a review later on.

Fredrik Åkesson is not only one of our most talented guitarist, he is also extremely careful about his tone. This becomes clear when you hear him play live. Every little detail is perfect and he knows his rig inside and out.

The actual rig is designed by Göran "LEO" Elmquist at Sound Of Silence in Stockholm. It is interesting to see how Frederik and Göran has created an advanced but controllable switching system for Frederik's very diverse playing and at the same time been able to secure tonality, ie the minimun loss of tone. The same challenges most guitarists face every day, mostly by long cables and signal chains that suck tone.

Those of you who knows your Opeth stuff may notice some new gadgets in the rig. In addition to the Marshall JVM Joe Satriani model there is a thing called Box of Doom and a Piezo system for acoustic sounds.

Follow Fredrik around his rig anno 2014 and enjoy some totally stunning solos recorded during soundcheck at Münchenbryggeriet 15/11 2014.

Enough said! Zombies....Please enjoy:

There will be more "Rig Rundowns" in the future and I will return as I said with a review of the Marshall JVM 410HJS, an amplifier that is not unimportant in this context. Not at all the same as the first JVM series, even if they look identical.

Thanks to Fredrik Åkesson and Darren Edwards for giving me the opportunity to do this "Rig Rundown".

Stay Zombied...

// The Guitar Zombie