An Exclusive Interview with Adam D., Ola Englund, Keith Merrow and Andy James About Their Guitar Tones, Studio Setups and More
Earlier this week Toontrack released the Metal Guitar Gods 3 EZmix Pack, an expansion pack for their popular EZmix software featuring tones handcrafted by Ola Englund (The Haunted), Keith Merrow (Conquering Dystopia, himself), Adam Dutkiewicz (Killswitch Engage) and renowned instrumentalist Andy James. If you want your home or professional studio recordings to sound like the pros, well, you need Metal Guitar Gods 3. It’s all a part of Toontrack’s ongoing Metal Month promotion throughout November.
To elaborate on what Metal Guitar Gods 3 has in store for players, MetalSucks and Toontrack have teamed up to ask all four guitarists about their tone, recording setups, influences and more. Their answers follow below!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW9mJCGiNm8
A quick gear rundown, please!
Ola: Washburn Solar guitars, Randall Satan amps and cabs, Seymour Duncan delay, Dunlop guitar picks and GHS strings!
Keith: Schecter KM signature guitars into a Kemper Profiler. I make my own profiles of the various amps I have in my studio. In my live/clinic rig, I use a Kemper with their new foot controller, a Line 6 G90 wireless guitar unit, a Sennheiser wireless IEM unit, and a Jamhub for in-ear monitor mixes.
Adam: Using Caparison guitars, with both Fishman Fluence and EMG 81 pickups for most tones we do for Killswitch. After that, we use Laney and Mesa cabinets, loaded with either Celestion V30s or Creambacks. We use a variety of heads in the studio, but live we are using the Laney Tony Iommi heads right now, which sound pretty dang sick.
Andy: Live I use a Blackstar HT Metal 100 head and pro series cabs and I use a DV mark multiamp for all my effects. Pedal board has a Custom audio Wah, Digitech drop tune and a boss NS-2 and Shure wireless system.
What’s your recording setup like?
Ola: I have an iMac coupled with an Apogee Quartet. I’m using Logic Pro X for DAW
Keith: I’m always changing it up, but here are some of the hardware/software recording tools I regularly use…
Guitars: A bunch of Schecter guitars. Mainly my signature guitars.
Amps/Effects:
Kemper Profiler
Two Notes Torpedo Studio digital loadbox and cab IR loader
Two Notes Reload for capturing DI and reamping
Modded block letter 5150
Rhodes Gemini
Alien Evolution
PRS Archon
Driftwood Purple Nightmare
Revv Generator 120
Hesu 2×12 cab
Modded Randall ISO cab
Seymour Duncan pickups and pedals
Recording/Mixing/DAW:
Universal Audio Apollo Quad recording interface, full suite of UA plugins
Event Opal monitors
Tannoy Reveal monitors
KRK sub
Presonus Monitor Station
Presonus Studio One Pro DAW
Toontrack Superior and EZdrummer 2, with the complete library of samples
Toontrack EZmix 2
Peterson Strobe Tuner
ReadyAcoustics and Yamaha bass traps and diffusers
Adam: Very simple… I’m running Pro Tools 11 on a MacBook Pro. Connected via Thunderbolt is an external process card, which connects to the Avid I/O. Neve, API, and Avalon preamps, Urei and Summit compression, and a small slew of mics.
Andy: I’ve used various things in the past. Right now for ease I just use the kemper with my live rig profiled as a recording set up. But when it comes to the final product it’s normally amp set up in the studio and just play around with it. I also sometimes just use a DI and the Toontrack plugins when I’m on the road to get any ideas down.
If you had to name one guitarist that influenced you the most starting out, who would you choose?
Ola: Definitely Dimebag Darrell. And still to this day he’s my main influence and cannot be topped. He had it all, the rhythm chops, the riffs, the soul, everything.
Keith: Most definitely Tony Iommi. When I was a kid, my dad used to jam Sabbath all the time. When I first heard the low tuned, distorted guitars and those riffs, I wanted to be a guitar player.
Adam: For metal guitar tones, I always was more influenced by engineers… most notably Colin Richardson’s work on the Carcass record Heartwork. I chased that tone for YEARS.
Andy: Slash was reason I started playing guitar; I was obsessed with Appetite for Destruction as a kid growing up.
…and what guitarists do you think stand out today?
Ola: A guy like Tosin Abasi definitely stands out because he’s doing something completely different.
Keith: Man, there are so many! But some of my faves that come to mind are Wes Hauch, Jeff Loomis and Nick Johnston.
Adam: There are too many to mention. Most bands coming out today can play circles around my lazy ass.
Andy: I have a few favorite guitarists that I like right now: Paul Wardingham, Per Nilsson, Emil Werstler and Jason Hook. Kind of a mixture, but it depends on what I’m in the mood for.
If you could put together a dream-team of musicians to form a band with, who would they be?
Ola: I would love to play in a band together with Russell Allen on vocals, Krimh on drums and Steve DiGiorgio on bass. We would make the sickest death metal with power metal vocals!
Keith: For me, Conquering Dystopia is that band. Jeff Loomis, Alex Webster, and Alex Rudinger. Best guys, favorite players!
Adam: I already kind of have! I got Shannon from The Black Dahlia Murder to play drums, and George from “Cannibal Corpse” to sing. Now I just need Les Claypool to play brutal bass and Jeff Loomis to play guitar.
Andy: That’s a tough question. Erm, maybe the guys in my band Wearing Scars to be honest with you. We have a good chemistry. I think I like to hear other guys in bands do their thing without me coming in and ruining it, haha!
Walk us through a typical day ”in the life of.”
Ola: A usual day when I’m not on the road: I take my kids to daycare, put on a large pot of coffee, sit in front of the computer and either riff out or try to write a song. Then at 4am I pick up my kids from daycare and then I just spend all my time with them. Living the dream!
Keith: I wake up around 7am and immediately head to the coffee pot, take a shower, and then start my workday around 8am. I work from my home studio. During the day, I am the Media Production Manager for Seymour Duncan. I’m usually working on audio and video projects for them, but also spend a lot of time talking with the artists on the Duncan roster. I have a lot of cool projects going with artists, and that keeps me very busy throughout the day. I finish my Duncan workday around 5pm, and then I work on various side projects. I’m working on a couple albums at the same time right now, and I usually write music or work on video demos for other companies in the evenings (or the weekends). I have dinner with my wife and son, then like to fall asleep in my home theater room binge-watching Netflix. I travel quite a bit throughout the year to do clinics and things like that, but what I’ve described is my average day. I couldn’t ask for a better life, honestly!
Adam: Lots of coffee. Maybe a jog? Lots of staring at a screen and moving a mouse. Lots of saying “do it again.” Then some beer drinking and maybe some yelling at my television, which will most likely be playing a sporting event of sorts.
Andy: Get up, coffee from the local shop, come back, grab a guitar and practice, record ideas for songs or film some videos for andyjamesguitaracademy.com, go for a 5 or 10 mile walk and then either catch up on Netflix or go down to the pub.
