If you’ve ever heard a Humanity’s Last Breath track and thought, “What… what is that sound?” you’re not alone.
It’s not just a guitar. It’s not just a synth. It’s some kind of terrifying, futuristic, “cyborg” sound that’s heavier than a black hole. And the man behind it is Buster Odeholm.
For years, producers have been trying to figure out his secrets. Is it a special plugin? A weird, custom 9-string guitar? Magic?
Nope. It’s a process. And for the first time ever, he’s showing all of it in his new URM Academy course, “How It’s Done.”
We dove into the webinar and course materials to pull out the core philosophies of how he actually builds these insane tracks. And spoiler alert: it’s probably not what you think.
The New Template: Artist + Producer
First off, you need to understand who Buster is. He’s not just a producer who sits behind a console, and he’s not just an artist who tours. He’s both, at the highest level.
He’s in three active, successful bands (Humanity’s Last Breath, Vildhjarta, Thrown) and is an in-demand producer and mixer for other bands.
He is the new “template” for the modern producer. He didn’t come up by making coffee at a big studio. He built his career from a home studio, with gear you probably already have. His work as an artist made bands want to hire him as a producer, and his work as a producer makes him a better artist.
So, how does he do it? It boils down to four main pillars.
Pillar 1: Burn the Rulebook. All of It.
This is the big one. The metal production world is full of “gatekeepers” and unwritten rules:
- “Triggers are cheating.”
- “Clipping a DI is bad.”
- “You can’t use amp sims on a pro record.”
- “Don’t use too much EQ.”
- “Tuning vocals is bad.”
Buster Odeholm completely disregards all of it.
His signature sound is built on things you’re “never supposed to do.” He’ll clip the hell out of a DI on the way in. He treats guitars like synths and synths like guitars.
Here’s a mind-blowing example: Buster Odeholm’s guitar playing isn’t even “playing” in the traditional sense. He’ll record one measure at a time, or even just a single “skid” noise with his whammy pedal. Then, he’ll literally cut and paste a synth note onto his guitar’s DI track so that the synth runs through the same amp sim (whether that’s Neural Amp Modeler or something else).
What you think is a guitar is actually a combination of a DI, a whammy pedal, and a synth, all chopped, edited, and glued together.
His “no rules” approach starts before he even picks up the guitar. He doesn’t start with a riff. He starts with a vibe. He’ll get a synth pack from his sound design guys with directions like “make it sound like the Dune soundtrack” and build a whole atmosphere. Then he’ll start adding riffs on top.
This is a complete “no-rules” approach to songwriting and production.
Pillar 2: Build a Foundation That Slams
Here’s the paradox: Buster’s music is an absolute whirlwind of chaos, but his mixes are slamming. They’re not just a wall of mud. How?
It’s not a mixing trick. It’s his arrangement.
His core philosophy is “if everything is big, then nothing is big.”
Think about it. If a song is 100% “full” with a million notes, blast beats, and orchestra pads all at once, you have no room to make anything sound truly massive.
Buster builds his tracks on a simple, open foundation. He’ll start with simple drums and a guitar. Then, he layers the complex, dense, and “weird” sounds (the accents) on top.
His bass and kick drum work is a perfect example. In many metal genres, the bass and kick are just a constant, grinding machine. Buster does the opposite. He wants the bass and kick to play as little as possible.
Why? So that when they do come in on a heavy part, it’s an “event.” It hits you like a ton of bricks because he’s deliberately given them space to be powerful.
He even records his bass in passes—he’ll tune his bass to get the best-sounding A notes, record those, then re-tune his bass to get the best-sounding C# notes and record those. He’s not “playing a bassline”; he’s building a perfect, foundational low-end, one note at a time.
Pillar 3: Your Gear is (Probably) Good Enough
This is the part that will make gear-heads mad. Buster’s entire, insane sound is not coming from a $200,000 recording console or a rack of vintage preamps.
He uses gear that is probably the same as what you have right now.
The webinar tells a story that proves this point. For the course, they filmed in a very nice, expensive studio in Stockholm. It had the big board, the expensive mics, all of it.
So what did Buster do? He brought his own Focusrite 18i20 interface, set it up next to the drum kit, and plugged all the mics directly into that. He completely bypassed the studio’s fancy gear to record the exact same way he does in his rehearsal space.
His point? The variable is creativity and skill, not gear. Your computer is the most flexible tool you have. Getting excited about skill building is more important than getting excited about buying a new plugin.
However, this pillar also includes “knowing your limits.” Buster knows he’s not the best drum-micing engineer in the world. So, he brought in his friend Jacob Herman to help mic the drums perfectly. The “make the most of what you have” rule also means knowing when to bring in an expert to fill a gap in your own skillset.
Pillar 4: Maintain Insane Control (From Start to Finish)
Buster controls his projects from the very first idea all the way to the final master. And there’s a very good reason for it.
Only Buster knows what his vision is.
If he got a mix 95% of the way there and handed it off to a “traditional” mastering engineer, what would that engineer do? They would “fix” all of Buster’s “mistakes.”
They would hear the clipped DIs and the “weird” synth noises and try to “subdue” them. They would try to “fix” the “rules” he broke. And it would ruin the track.
Buster’s mastering chain is aggressive and extreme, but also incredibly simple (a compressor, two instances of Saturn, and a limiter). Why? Because he’s been mixing into that chain from the very beginning.
The final “master” isn’t a separate step; it’s the result of his entire process. Every decision he made in the arrangement, the sound design, and the mix was all building toward that one final, controlled, and chaotic sound.
The Verdict: Are You Ready to Be a Cyborg?
Buster’s “How It’s Done” course is more than just a “how-to.” It’s a complete “permission slip” to break every rule you’ve ever heard about metal production.
It’s a look inside the mind of a “cyborg” producer who seamlessly blends the organic (the performance) with the machine (the computer) to create something entirely new.
If you’re tired of the old-school rules and want to learn how to build your own unique sound from the ground up, this is the playbook you’ve been waiting for.
