The Guitar Plugged · Guitarist Index
Tosin Abasi
Animals as Leaders
2007–present
Progressive · Metal · Fusion
Extended-range guitar reinvented as a percussion and harmony instrument at once.
Main guitar
Abasi Concepts Larada 8-string
Signature sound
Ultra-tight modern high gain with pristine clean harmonic detail
Era
2007–present
Influence
87 / 100
Genre
Progressive / Metal / Fusion
Why they matter
Extended-range guitar reinvented as a percussion and harmony instrument at once.
Abasi treats the eight-string guitar as a genuinely different instrument rather than a metal guitar with extra low notes. His technique combines thumping — a slap-derived right-hand attack borrowed from bass — with tapping, classical fingerstyle and conventional picking, often within a single bar.
Animals as Leaders write instrumental music that is rhythmically brutal and harmonically sophisticated at the same time, drawing on jazz voicings and West African rhythmic thinking as much as on metal.
He also builds guitars now, which is the logical endpoint of a player whose ideas outran the available hardware.
The sound
Ultra-tight modern high gain with pristine clean harmonic detail
CAFO
Extremely tight modern high gain with the low string controlled enough to avoid mud.
Tempting Time
The thumping sections need a tone with fast transient response and no compression smear.
The Woven Web
Clean and distorted layers coexisting, with the nylon-string passages left completely dry.
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Style & technique
How you recognise the playing
Thumping technique
Slap-derived right-hand thumb attack producing a percussive, bass-like transient.
Extended-range harmony
Eight-string voicings that combine bass, chord and melody in one part.
Polyrhythmic composition
Layered rhythmic cycles that resolve against each other rather than a fixed grid.
Classical fingerstyle passages
Nylon-string-derived right-hand work inside heavy arrangements.
The rig
Instruments, amplification and effects
- Abasi Concepts Larada 8
- Ibanez TAM100 (earlier)
- Nylon-string classical
- Fractal Axe-Fx III
- Neural DSP Abasi plugin
- Mesa/Boogie power
- All in-the-box — modelling, delay, reverb, pitch shifting
- Fishman Fluence Abasi signature
Essential listening
Where to start
- 012009
CAFO
Animals as Leaders · Animals as Leaders
- 022009
Tempting Time
Animals as Leaders · Animals as Leaders
- 032014
The Woven Web
Animals as Leaders · The Joy of Motion
- 042014
Physical Education
Animals as Leaders · The Joy of Motion
Career landmarks
The moments that mattered
2009
Animals as Leaders (2009)
An instrumental eight-string debut that redefined what extended-range guitar could be used for.
Abasi Concepts
A guitar company built to make instruments his technique actually requires.
The legacy
Lineage
Influenced by
Influenced
Modern progressive metal and djent broadly
Tim Henson
Adjacent players
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