Peter Tägtgren

Peter Tägtgren’s Abyss Studio has recorded some of the most influential metal music of the last 30 years — including his own projects Pain and Hypocrisy.

Peter Tägtgren is one of metal’s foremost producers, engineers, musicians and innovators. As a recording artist, he is best known for his role in death metal duo Hypocrisy and the genre‑defying solo project Pain, formed in 1991 and 1996 respectively, but Tägtgren has also been involved in other endeavours like the supergroup Bloodbath, Lock Up and the Abyss. As the original composer and multi‑instrumentalist, he defined the sound of Lindemann, the eponymous project fronted by Rammstein’s lead vocalist.

Tägtgren’s credits as producer and engineer are extensive, including Immortal, Celtic Frost, Children Of Bodom, Sabaton, Enslaved, Dimmu Borgir, Amon Amarth, Amorphis, Possessed, Rotting Christ, Candlemass, Carach Angren, Borknagar, Dark Funeral, Marduk, Kampfar, Belphegor, Gorgoroth, Joe Lynn Turner and many others. Most were recorded at his own Abyss Studio in Pärlby, Sweden, where Tägtgren’s brother Tommy also produced highlights such as Shining’s Within Deep Dark Chambers (2000), Livets Ändhållplats (2001) and III: Angst — Självdestruktivitetens Emissarie (2002).

These days, Tommy Tägtgren is no longer active as a producer, and Peter Tägtgren prefers to focus on his work with Pain and Hypocrisy. “I actually stopped doing bands because there wasn’t enough time. I had three bands going at that time. So, I kind of closed Abyss down for the public, and I’m just doing my own stuff in there. But actually, a couple of months ago, a friend of mine, who has a blues band, asked me to record his album. So, that’s a little bit different because it’s not the stuff I normally do. It just felt refreshing to do that. I learn a lot by producing other kinds of music. And you always bring that with you when you do your own stuff, or if you’re producing other bands.

“Nowadays, you can always go out on YouTube and get some pointers here and there on how to put a microphone in front of a cabinet or something like that. In the past, there was nothing like that. You just did it. Especially if you were living away from all the other people, you couldn’t go and spy on people when they were recording or anything. So, it took a lot longer than if you would start today.”

Into The Abyss

The technological shortcuts we rely on today were also absent when Tägtgren started out. “In the past, when you didn’t have a computer, you really relied on the musicians to play as good as possible, because there was no way you could edit in the ’90s. I pushed the musicians to play as good as possible to get the best sound, because if you play the drums badly, it’s going to sound bad no matter what you do. The same goes for guitars as well. So, that was my main focus — just to get people to perform better and better all the time.”

Through the years, he has accumulated quite a bit of equipment at Abyss. “It’s not all computerised for me because I really like to use the outboard stuff that I bought over the time of my studio’s existence. So, there’s a lot of cool stuff that I need to run through just to get a good sound, a good character. My favourite would probably be some preamps: Neve 1081s. And also, I have some UREI 1176s and 78s — older stuff. It really does something to the sound when you run through these things. And the same thing with microphones. I got this Goodfly microphone now for vocals. It’s a tube microphone. It’s really good. It’s based on a U47. That’s what I put my vocals on for the album [Pain’s I Am], actually.

“What I use for guitars is either hot‑rodded Marshall 800s, or I have another one that’s really cool that I really like. It’s based on the 5150 Block Letter. It’s also hot‑rodded, which I use frequently. And I bought the new Meshuggah amp and also the signature amp from Vogg from Decapitated. But I haven’t had time yet to check them because I was still working with the Pain stuff, and I already had the sounds done for that. So, that’s going to be cool to check out for maybe the next Hypocrisy album. With drums, we have a Pearl set, like the crème de la crème. You can tune it any bad way you want, but it still sounds very good. And for those, I use Sennheiser 441s on the toms and also on snare. With the kick,...