Fredrik Åkesson has long been associated with single-cut guitars. His time with Arch Enemy and Krux saw him rock ESP Eclipse models and when he teamed up with Åkerfeldt he joined the PRS squad. (He was even honored with a signature SE single-cut in 2011.) And one of his favorite studio tools (as noted in our 2014 interview on Pale Communion), is a 1955 Les Paul Junior with P-90s. His current No. 1 is this PRS single-cut—a P245 that is favored because it allows him to blend in piezo tones for the band’s acoustic or quieter sections while still blowing smoke through the humbuckers during their heaviest parts. All of his guitars are strung up with DR Veritas strings, gauged .010–.052.
Here’s another PRS P245 for Fredrik Åkesson who goes with this one on the band’s brutish songs because it has their \m/ (Metal) pickup in the bridge position.
For the low-tuned (D–A–D–F–A–E) ripper “Reverie / Harlequin Forest” off Ghost Reveries, Fredrik Åkesson rides this longer-scaled (25") PRS P22.
“Nepenthe” from Heritage contains jazz-fusion elements, so Fredrik Åkesson plays this PRS Mark Tremonti signature with a recessed trem so he can unleash his inner Allan Holdsworth. He used to swap out the stock pickups for Seymour Duncans (JB in the bridge here), but this is the only guitar that doesn’t have the originals in it.
Fredrik Åkesson’s above PRS P24 is now a touring backup but still receives plenty of studio action as he loves how it sounds as a lead instrument.
Founding singer/guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt spends most of the night on this custom white PRS P24 with a vintage (fatter) profile neck. He uses Thomastik-Infeld Power-Brights (.010–.045) and Dunlop Nylon 1 mm picks.
Mikael Åkerfeldt’s newest PRS P24 is this bodacious green one.
And for “Sorceress” (tuned A–A–D–G–B–E), Mikael Åkerfeldt employs this PRS McCarty model.
If you’ve seen Fredrik Åkesson with Opeth, you’ve seen him shadowed by stacks of traditional, 100-watt tube heads like a Blackstar Series One 100 or a Marshall JVM410H. For recent fly gigs, the guitar tandem needed a smaller, lighter solution and the Synergy tube modules lent themselves as the perfect guinea pigs. Those shows went well so they’ve since adopted them into their touring rigs where they’re constantly fine-tuning the module pairings. Currently, Fredrik is going with the Steve Vai module and the Soldano SLO module.
Mikael Åkerfeldt’s current module setup includes a Friedman Dirty Shirley matched with a Soldano SLO.
The brain of Fredrik Åkesson’s stomp station is a MusicomLab EFX-LE loop switcher. For pedals, he has the Strymon Volante, TC Electronic Flashback 2, Xotic EP Booster, One Control Tiger Lily Tremolo, Olsson Amps Fuzztner, MXR Phase 95, Boss OC-2 Octave, DryBell Vibe Machine, and a Dunlop 95Q Cry Baby Wah. As for the non-noisemakers, he has a Dunlop DVP3 Volume pedal to harnesses dynamics, a TC PolyTune 2 Mini keeps everything in check, an ISP Technologies Decimator X squelches extra noise, and a Decibel Eleven Hot Stone powers all the fun.
Mikael Åkerfeldt takes a simpler approach for his colors with a Fractal Audio AX8 doing most of the heavy lifting aside from a Electro-Harmonix Small Stone phaser and a TC Electronic BodyRez pickup enhancer.
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D'Addario XT Strings:https://www.daddario.com/XTRR
Guitarists are used to coveting cranky, old gear, but if you’re not a rack user, the H3000 might not be for you! If you ever see one of these in a studio, be sure to take some time to check it out, and maybe give the plugin a try.When it debuted in 1987, the H3000 was marketed as an “intelligent pitch-changer” that could generate stereo harmonies in a user-specified key. This was heady stuff in the ’80s! But while diatonic harmonizing grabbed the headlines, subtler uses of this pitch-shifter cemented its legacy. Patch 231 MICROPITCHSHIFT, for example, is a big reason the H3000 persists in racks everywhere. It’s essentially a pair of very short, single-repeat delays: The left side is pitched slightly up while the right side is pitched slightly down (default is ±9 cents). The resulting tripling/thickening effect has long been a mix-engineer staple for pop vocals, and it’s also my first call when I want a stereo chorus for guitar.
The second-gen H3000S, introduced the following year, cemented the device’s guitar bona fides. Early-adopter Steve Vai was such a proponent of the first edition that Eventide asked him to contribute 48 signature sounds for the new model (patches 700-747). Still-later revisions like the H3000B and H3000D/SE added even more functionality, but these days it’s not too important which model you have. Comprehensive EPROM chips containing every patch from all generations of H3000 (plus the later H3500) are readily available for a modest cost, and are a fairly straightforward install.
In addition to pitch-shifting, there are excellent modulation effects and reverbs (like patch 211 CANYON), plus presets inspired by other classic Eventide boxes, like the patch 513 INSTANT PHASER. A comprehensive accounting of the H3000’s capabilities would be tedious, but suffice to say that even the stock presets get deliciously far afield. There are pitch-shifting reverbs that sound like fever-dream ancestors of Strymon’s “shimmer” effect. There are backwards-guitar simulators, multiple extraterrestrial voices, peculiar foreshadows of the EarthQuaker Devices Arpanoid and Rainbow Machine (check out patch 208 BIZARRMONIZER), and even button-triggered Foley effects that require no input signal (including a siren, helicopter, tank, submarine, ocean waves, thunder, and wind). If you’re ever without your deck of Oblique Strategies cards, the H3000’s singular knob makes a pretty good substitute. (Spin the big wheel and find out what you’ve won!)
“If you’re ever without your deck of Oblique Strategies cards, the H3000’s singular knob makes a pretty good substitute.”
But there’s another, more pedestrian reason I tend to reach for the H3000 and its rackmount relatives in the studio: I like to do certain types of processing after the mic. It’s easy to overlook, but guitar speakers are signal processors in their own right. They roll off high and low end, they distort when pushed, and the cabinets in which they’re mounted introduce resonances. While this type of de facto processing often flatters the guitar itself, it isn’t always advantageous for effects.
Effects loops allow time-based effects to be placed after preamp distortion, but I like to go one further. By miking the amp first and then sending signal to effects in parallel, I can get full bandwidth from the airy reverbs and radical pitched-up effects the H3000 can offer—and I can get it in stereo, printed to its own track, allowing the wet/dry balance to be revisited later, if needed. If a sound needs to be reproduced live, that’s a problem for later. (Something evocative enough can usually be extracted from a pedal-form descendant like the Eventide H90.)
Like most vintage gear, the H3000 has some endearing quirks. Even as it knowingly preserves glitches from earlier Eventide harmonizers (patch 217 DUAL H910s), it betrays its age with a few idiosyncrasies of its own. Extreme pitch-shifting exhibits a lot of aliasing (think: bit-crusher sounds), and the analog Murata filter modules impart a hint of warmth that many plug-in versions don’t quite capture. (They also have a habit of leaking black goo all over the motherboard!) It’s all part of the charm of the unit, beloved by its adherents. (Well, maybe not the leaking goo!)
In 2025, many guitarists won’t be eager to care for what is essentially an expensive, cranky, decades-old computer. Even the excitement of occasional tantalum capacitor explosions is unlikely to win them over! Fortunately, some great software emulations exist—Eventide’s own plugin even models the behavior of the Murata filters. But hardware offers the full hands-on experience, so next time you spot an old H3000 in a rack somewhere—and you’ve got the time—fire it up, wait for the distinctive “click” of its relays, spin the knob, and start digging.
