NIGHTMARE TOYS

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

THE AXEMAN SERIES : CRYOSPHERE

 



1.Tell us your name and the band you play for 


G: My name is Glen, and I play rhythm guitar in the band, Cryosphere  


E: My name is Emil, and i play lead guitar in Cryosphere. 


A: My name is Asger, and I play bass in Cryosphere
 
2.Who made you want to pick up the guitar 


 G: No one really, it just sort of happened. The instrument was available for use in the house I grew up in.

E: I never really listened to music until I was around 15, where I, among other bands, started listening a lot to Muse and Dream Theater. I was very inspired by Matthew Bellamy from Muse. So I guess that is where it started. 


A: Came to me in my teens, I’d played drums and piano for some time and wanted a more rocking kind of instrument to play on. It was that same time where I listened to rockbands as The Beatles, Coldplay, Dizzy Mizz Lizzy, Led Zeppelin, Red hot chilli peppers, Nirvana, Foo fighters, Kings of leon, Blink 182, Papa roach, Muse, Metallica and more. Then I progressed into Killswitch engage, Bullet for my valentine and a lot of J-rock bands I don’t remember the name of anymore.  It has only been a year so far on bass-guitar.
 
3.Are you self taught or did you take lessons? 


G: I am self taught. 


E: I have taken many lessons, spread out at a couple of different guitar teachers through the years.  ​A: completely self taught. I started on dvds, then progressed to just reading tabs and notes, learning by playing music to music.  


4. Can you read music, Can you read tab? 


G: Yes, and yes. 


E: I can not read music sheets, I have had some training in reading them at music class, but that is long forgotten. 
I can however read tabs.

A Both, but I need to read up on notes again. 

5.Do you feel like you have your own sound / tone ?
G: I absolutely do yes. You will as a musician be able to hear that I am influenced by other players, but they act as the ice on top of the ocean. My unique tone, is in my fingers - you won’t hear the same thing anywhere else. 


E:  I am not that much into sound so I mostly use what I have heard from others is good and what I usually think sounds good myself. I also look a lot at what some of the more successful guitarists uses in their setup. However I am very much into technique and I like trying to make things more technically difficult in order to challenge myself, as well as mixing different techniques. 


 A: Yes definitely. I like two kinds of tones, a Nolly (Periphery) distorted tone with a lot of clank and an almost clean mid/treble tone like Eugene (Jinjer). I have a lot of pedals which make it possible for me to mix both tones into my liking and using my treble knob on my bass I can go from clean, to dirty and to fully distorted nasty sounds. The rest of the tone is shaped by my playing.  My own most recent discovery is mixing two pedals together using a splitter and a merge box. My Dark Glass Alpha Omega which I dial in as a clean sub bass which is later heavily multiband compressed by a TC electronics mini compressor and my Dark Glass B7K ultra which is multiband compressed in the mid and treble frequencies. This allows me to have a modern and diverse sound on the fly. I can go from clean, dirty to all hell and aggressive with just my treble knob. But what I really want is a Line6 Helix Guitar Processor.
6.Tell us about your guitar ( brand ,model . year , color )
G: My main axe is actually one I bought recently, it is an Ibanez RGDIX7MPB, it’s a seven string made in 2018 and has the color named, surreal blue burst. Sick axe. 


 E: I have an ESP eclipse 1 CTM (vintage black) from 2007 that I am very fond of - it is in the iron cross format (James Hetfield inspired). It is not because I am a huge metallica fan, even though I enjoy metallica, but more because I bought it like that and I think it looks cool and unique. Otherwise I usually play a type of 7-string schecter. 


A: I had a B.C. Rich John Moyer Signature HAVOC Traben 5-String Bass Guitar which was too mellow for me and didn’t intonate that well for my weird tuning A-D-A-D-G Now I have a Cort A5 Plus SCMS OPN I just bought this year. It is a singlecut, neck through, multiscale neck with an ash back body with a swamp ash top. This bass guitar get’s the job done with my tuning, but hisses and hums alot. Luckily I'm quite good with my hands, so I will apply copper tape to the chambers and in the pickup holes and ground it, aswell as
making a black top plate as the kind of 5 string Dingwall (Nolly Signature) I wish for, just so I can apply copper tape underneath that. 
 
7.What about pickups? Passive or active ?

 Tell us about them
G: I use the Dimarzio Fusion Edge, which came stock with my Ibanez 7 string. They are high output passive pickups. I enjoy the Dimarzio pickups because they don’t sound too compressed, and they add insane clarity to each individual note that I am playing.

E. My ESP uses passive EMG 81/60 pickups, so just the standard without any modifications, which is a sound I really like.   A: My bass uses 2x Bartolini MK-1 humbuckers and has a passive emulator which I never use. The passive mode does not have enough spank. They hiss and hums alot, but the setup with two active humbuckers gives me a lot of control for the sound spectre. 
8.Lets get into amplification, Same drill brand , model , speakers etc
G:  My amplifier is a Bugera 6262 infinium, it’s a high gain amp with an insane cleantone. My cab is a somewhat experimental, but actually really great sounding Marshall 8412, with a mixture of 2x12” Marshall Celestions and 2x10” Vintage Celestion G10’s.
E: I use a mesa boogie dual rectifier top and an Engl 4x12 straight cabinet.

A: I go directly into my pedals as described above as both have preamps and the B7K has a great cab sim. Dark Glass alpha omega and Dark Glass microtubes B7K Ultra V2 mixed togeter.
 
9.Do you have a pedal board? Tell us about that badboy 


G: Yes I do have a board, and it is simple but beautiful. It consists of 5 pedals, the first on is a TC Polytune 3 for tuning of course, next up is a TC Dark Matter distortion which I use in a quite unconventional way, I use it to cut the level of distortion while still maintaining clarity of the tone, so this is on for the more quiet parts. Next is an Ibanez TS mini, absolute beast of a pedal which I use for the obvious reason; tone boost. Then I have a TC Sentry noise gate pedal, to get rid of all the unwanted noise, and as a feature of the Sentry, I get to choose which frequencies I want the noise gone from. Last, but not least is my TC Flashback 2, this is a delay pedal and it has endless possibilities, I am still learning new things from it. If you need a delay, get the TC flashback. 


E:  Yes I have a pedalboard, it consists of a Boss chromatic tuner, an Ibanez TS Mini, a Boss NS-2 noise gate, a Boss CS3 compression pedal, and a Boss DD3 delay pedal. Sometimes I use a MXR M116 fullbore metal pedal if needed when playing live. 


A: I go into a Behringer MicroHD HD400 humdestroyer, then a Boss FV-500-H Volume pedal which side chains to a tc electronic PolyTune, then it goes to a Behringer BLE400 enhancer which enhances the weak peaks, now to a Darkglass Super Symmetry Compressor which gives me a the ability to tap clearly on my bass, then Klark Teknik DS20 which splits the signal and runs to my Darkglass Alpha-Omega and my Darkglass Microtubes B7K v2 Bass Overdrive, alpha omega for clean subs and B7K for distorted sounds, then it goes to Millenium SML 21, 2 Channel Signalmerge Box which merges the two pedals and runs to my tc electronic SpectraComp Bass Compressor which can be used as a multiband compressor to compress low, mid and high differently, and lastly my tc electronic Sentry noise suppressor.  All of this gear later goes to a rack limiter and compressor for a stabile and most controlled bass sound I can get with my current gear. 


10.Now tell us your Dream Rig in detail…. 

 ​G: I believe I just did.  
E: I have often been thinking about getting a chorus pedal or an acoustic simulator, but I will have to do a bit more experimenting with that. Otherwise I am satisfied with what I have. 
 ​A: Easy, NG3 Darkglass 10th Anniversary Limited Edition Dingwall based bass and a Line6 Helix Guitar Processor, done, now I go play! :D  With that I can easily control every aspect of my sound. 

12. Is tone more important or is technique? 


G: Technique, no question! No matter the tone, if you don’t have the technique, it’s just not gonna cut it. 


E: I definitely think that technique is most important, but tone is very important as well as many parts can be hard to hear if the tone is bad.   ​A: Technique is more important, but good gear pleases my ear and therefore I play better and with more enthusiasm.  


13. Name your top 5 guitarist 


G:
1. Rob Arnold
2. Tosin Abasi
3. Guthrie Govan
4. Trent Hafdahl
5. JB Brubaker
 
E: Not in any specific order:
● John Petrucci 

● Synyster Gates 
● Oli Herbert 
● John Benjamin Brubaker 
● Angel Vivaldi 


A:  1. Adam “nolly” Getgood 
2. Eugene Kostyuk
3. Tosin Abasi
4. Mark Tremonti
 5. Steve Vai 


14.Who is the most overrated guitarist 


G: I’m not going to trash talk other musicians.


E: Like Glen i don’t really want to pick an overrated guitarist, as I have a lot of respect for people who has made it far in music. It is very hard work and takes a long time, so I believe that everyone has earned their place. 


A: That’s a discussion that need quite a lot of beer and invested listeners. You may disagree with me totally and I will not get offended, but my understanding of greatness is subjective to sound from technique, technique in general and execution. 

15.Who would you like a one hour private sit down lessons with anyone dead or alive? 


 G: Rob Arnold. He is my main influence, and luckily he is still alive - so it could happen. 


E: I would have to say John Petrucci as i am amazed by his techniques and his work morale. 

  
A: Eugene Kostyuk, he really knows when to fill up space and when not to. Also I’m really impressed with his playing style, which I find most difficult.



 

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