Fortin Meshuggah

The Fortin Meshuggah is a two-channel preamp/distortion pedal from Fortin Amps, released in 2025 and built in the USA. It puts the preamp and gain structure of the Fortin Meshuggah amp, a limited-edition 50W tube head designed for the band Meshuggah in 2016, into a pedalboard format¹². Fortin describes it as more than a distortion: a specialized preamp designed to handle the massive harmonic demands of extended-range guitars, tuned to keep a low F string articulate even under extreme gain³.

It was designed by Mike Fortin in direct collaboration with Meshuggah's Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström, the two guitarists the original amp was built for³⁴. It carries a built-in Fortin Zuul noise gate, a three-band active EQ, and two footswitchable channels, and it lists at $349.99 USD³.

The Meshuggah amp's preamp in a pedal

The pedal traces back to late 2016, when Fortin was tasked with creating an amp for Thordendal and Hagström that could cover the diverse tones used on the album The Violent Sleep of Reason. The result was the Meshuggah Signature 50W Amplifier: a limited-edition, point-to-point handwired 50W tube head, built with New Old Stock parts and custom Heyboer transformers, with a gain structure designed specifically for 8-string articulation²¹. MusicRadar's Jonathan Horsley calls it one of the most legendary and hard-to-find guitar amps, a 50-watt single-channel fire-breather you now have to hunt secondhand⁴.

To meet the demand of the modern in-the-box and pedalboard player, Fortin released the Meshuggah Preamp in 2025, shrinking the circuit of the 50W head into a portable format¹. Guitar World's reviewer notes the pedal, as the name suggests, is based on the preamp and gain structure of Meshuggah's amps⁶, and Guitar Pedal X describes it as based on the signature Blackout Amp⁷.

The pedal features two foot-switchable gain stages, Red and Green, which Fortin describes as covering everything from crushing rhythm to searing lead tones². The channel layout has a quirk worth knowing: Gain 1 and Gain 2 both apply to Red Channel 1, while only Gain 2 impacts Channel 2⁷. Guitar World's reviewer confirms that on the Green channel, only Gain 2 is operative⁶.

Controls

The EQ is a hugely responsive 3-band active design: as Fortin puts it, you don't just cut frequencies, you can add them³. Gearnews describes it as highly interactive, allowing precise frequency sculpting with both cut and boost capabilities⁸.

Lo and Hi gain modes

A Lo/Hi toggle switch selects between two gain modes. Fortin says the two modes make the tone range from a chug to a harsh fuzz³. Guitar World's reviewer found Lo voiced for "chimey" vintage tones, while Hi promises sonic devastation⁶. MusicRadar's Jonathan Horsley characterized the difference in feel: Hi Gain mode gives a more compressed, modern feel, while Lo gives an "open, raw vintage" feel⁴. Both modes work alongside the MVC master volume dial to sculpt gain⁴⁸.

The built-in noise gate

Inside the pedal sits what Fortin calls the industry standard Fortin Zuul noise gate, using the tech from the Zuul, Fortin's standalone noise gate pedal, which Guitar World notes is already popular for metal²⁶. Fortin describes the gate as a crucial component for the dead-silent stops between riffs that Meshuggah's style depends on², and gearnews calls it key to the ultra-tight, articulated staccato riffs the band is known for⁸.

Power

Fortin specifies a power draw of 106mA at 9V DC³, while Guitar World and RockBoard's PedalPedia listing both give approximately 125mA⁵⁶. Gearnews reports the pedal requires a 9V DC supply with a minimum of 106mA⁸. Give your isolated supply enough headroom for the higher figure.

Running it into a power amp or IR loader

As a preamp, the pedal is meant to feed a power section or a cab sim rather than sit in front of a dirty amp like an overdrive. Fortin says Mike Fortin got as close as he could to the tone and, most importantly, the feel of the amp, and that if you run the Meshuggah into the power section of a Meshuggah amp, or even into the IR section of the Neural DSP Nameless X suite, the tonal differences are extremely hard to hear³⁵. MusicRadar quotes the same claim from Fortin's FAQs⁴.

Built with Thordendal and Hagström

The pedal was designed in close collaboration with Thordendal and Hagström⁴, the two guitarists whose signature amp it descends from. Fortin frames the product as crafted in direct collaboration between the sonic visionaries of Meshuggah and the innovative mind of Mike Fortin³. The amp itself remains a rare, sought-after piece: MusicRadar reports that Lee Malia of Bring Me The Horizon told them he wanted one⁴.

The Meshuggah pedal sits in Fortin's preamp pedal line alongside the NATAS ($299) and the later KALI, both also amp circuits converted to pedal format⁷. See Fortin Natas and Fortin KALI for those, or the wider field in distortion pedals and preamp pedals.

What reviewers said

Guitar World's review concluded the pedal delivers "some of the tightest, most vicious modern metal tones you'll find anywhere"⁶. Guitar Pedal X's Stefan Karlsson, reviewing it at launch, wrote:

He also noted it delivers saturated, tight, palm-muted djent sounds⁷. In Guitar Pedal X's 2025 year-end roundup of the best new distortion pedals, the Meshuggah earned a SILVER award, with Karlsson calling it "a super tight and potent focused disorient - one of the tightest and fiercest I have encountered"⁹.

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