# Catch Thirtythree Drum Setup: Tomas Haake's 47-Minute Concept Album (Meshuggah, 2005)

> Complete breakdown of Tomas Haake's drum programming on Meshuggah's Catch Thirtythree (2005). Discover how the 47-minute single-track concept album bridges the Nothing and obZen eras — the djent tuning pioneer and the digital kit that replaced the Atomic Clock.

**Type:** Album Drum Setup
**Drummer(s):** [Tomas Haake](/llms/drummers/tomas-haake.md)
**Band / Album:** Meshuggah — *Catch Thirtythree* (2005)
**Genre:** Extreme Progressive Metal / Djent

## Overview

Released on May 23, 2005, Meshuggah's *Catch Thirtythree* is simultaneously the band's strangest and most philosophically ambitious record. Every drum note on this 47-minute concept album was programmed by Tomas Haake in Logic Pro — no kit, no sticks, no physical performance. Just the Atomic Clock sitting at a laptop, sculpting rhythmic architecture from software samples.

But the story of *Catch Thirtythree* is not really a story about a drummer who took a break. It's a story about a drummer who pushed his compositional language beyond the physical limits of the human body. The patterns on this album occasionally exceed what is humanly playable — and that was the point. *Catch Thirtythree* is a work of pure rhythmic imagination, unencumbered by what two hands and two feet can actually execute in real time.

The album spans nine sections — Autonomy Lost, Imprint of the Un-Saved, Munspori (The Uncontrollable Spread), In Death - Is Life, In Death - Is Death, Shed, Personae Non Gratae, Dehumanisation, and Sum — that unfold without a single break, forming a single unified 47-minute composition. No other metal album before or since has attempted this format at this rhythmic complexity.

*Catch Thirtythree* sits between [Nothing (2002)](/articles/nothing-drum-setup) and [obZen (2008)](/articles/obzen-drum-setup) in the Meshuggah arc. The three albums together form the definitive polyrhythmic sequence: *Nothing* established the blueprint, *Catch Thirtythree* transcended physical limits, and *obZen* delivered "Bleed" — the manual benchmark that answered the question the programmed album couldn't: can a human body actually play this?

## Gear Breakdown

- **Drums:** Toontrack dfh Superior (Drumkit From Hell Superior) — pre-commercial beta build (software instrument)
- **Snare:** dfh Superior multi-velocity sampled snare library
- **Cymbals:** dfh Superior cymbal sample library — hi-hats, crashes, ride, china
- **Studio Platform:** Apple MacBook Pro + Logic Pro (full MIDI programming)
- **Live Rig (2005 Tour):** Sonor Designer Series + electronic triggers + dfh Superior samples
- **Live Pedals:** Sonor Perfect Balance Pedal (x2 independent single pedals)
- **Live Throne:** Porter & Davies BC2 Vibrating Throne (tactile kick monitoring)
- **Live Sticks:** Vic Firth 5A American Classic
- **Heads (Studio):** N/A — sampled drum library
- **Snare Tuning:** Programmed — velocity layers simulate dynamic range from ghost notes to full rimshots

### The Digital Kit: Logic Pro + dfh Superior

*Catch Thirtythree* has no drum kit in the conventional sense. [Tomas Haake](/drummer/tomas-haake) built the entire rhythmic architecture of this 47-minute concept album in Logic Pro, using a pre-commercial build of Toontrack's dfh Superior sample library as his primary instrument.

dfh Superior — short for Drumkit From Hell Superior — was the successor to the original dfh library that had become standard in extreme metal production. The Superior version introduced multi-velocity layering and realistic cymbal bleed simulation, giving Haake a canvas of unprecedented flexibility. Without the physical constraints of a human body, he could write kick patterns at densities and velocities beyond the reach of live performance.

Some passages feature kick note velocities and placement patterns that no drummer could physically execute — this was deliberate compositional thinking: what would this rhythm sound like if the body were not a constraint?

### The 47-Minute Concept: Why This Album Is Unique

*Catch Thirtythree* is the only 47-minute single-track concept album in metal history where every drum note was programmed by the band's own drummer. The nine sections unfold continuously:

1. **Autonomy Lost** — disorienting opening, establishing asymmetric rhythmic logic
2. **Imprint of the Un-Saved** — dense groove patterns, polymetric bass/guitar interaction
3. **Munspori (The Uncontrollable Spread)** — escalating complexity, programmed kick patterns building density
4. **In Death - Is Life** — conceptual center, sustained rhythmic intensity
5. **In Death - Is Death** — darker counterpart, cymbal programming serving structural function
6. **Shed** — transitional section, rhythmic decompression
7. **Personae Non Gratae** — re-escalation, album's most extreme programmed passages
8. **Dehumanisation** — dark thematic arc centerpiece
9. **Sum** — resolution, completing the single-composition structure

The album's thematic content — a meditation on consciousness, identity, and cycles of existence — is reflected in its rhythmic architecture. The 47-minute runtime with no breaks mirrors the continuous, unresolved nature of the philosophical questions it poses.

### Catch Thirtythree in the DEI→obZen Arc

*Catch Thirtythree* occupies the central position in the Meshuggah arc:

- **Destroy Erase Improve (1995):** Polyrhythmic vocabulary first achieves full expression — displaced snare, cycling kick patterns, hi-hat pulse reference
- **Nothing (2002):** Blueprint systematized and elevated — 8-string guitars in F# standard, djent template fully drawn ([see Nothing drum setup](/articles/nothing-drum-setup))
- **Catch Thirtythree (2005):** Blueprint transcended through digital composition — body removed to ask what the music becomes without physical constraint
- **obZen (2008):** Physical answer — "Bleed," six months of daily practice, proves the human body can meet the programmed standard ([see obZen drum setup](/articles/obzen-drum-setup))

*Catch Thirtythree* is the bridge that makes *obZen*'s "Bleed" meaningful. Without the programmed extreme of *Catch Thirtythree*, the manual accomplishment of "Bleed" would be impressive but not epochal.

### Live Trigger Setup for Catch Thirtythree (2005 Tour)

For live performances, Haake returned to his Sonor Designer Series kit augmented with electronic triggers and bass drum sensors feeding into the dfh Superior samples. His two independent Sonor Perfect Balance single pedals — no connecting linkage between feet — drove triggered bass drum sensors. The Porter & Davies BC2 vibrating throne provided critical tactile monitoring for sample-triggered kick signals at concert volumes.

The hybrid acoustic/electronic rig was necessary because approximating the programmed album live required both physical performance and sample triggering. No amount of live technique can reproduce patterns that were designed to exceed human capability — the trigger setup bridged that gap.

## Key Facts

- ALL drums programmed in Logic Pro — no live kit recorded for the album
- Toontrack dfh Superior (pre-commercial beta) used for all drum sounds
- 47-minute single continuous composition divided into nine sections
- Programmed entirely by Tomas Haake — completely solo drum creation process
- Bridges the [Nothing (2002)](/articles/nothing-drum-setup) and [obZen (2008)](/articles/obzen-drum-setup) eras
- First Meshuggah album fully built around Fredrik Thordendal's djent tuning concept
- Some programmed patterns deliberately exceed what is humanly playable
- Live performances (2005 tour) used Sonor Designer Series + electronic triggers
- Porter & Davies BC2 throne provided tactile kick monitoring for the live rig
- Two independent Sonor Perfect Balance single pedals for live performance

## FAQ

**Q: What drum kit did Tomas Haake use on Meshuggah's Catch Thirtythree?**

Tomas Haake used no physical drum kit on Meshuggah's Catch Thirtythree (2005). Every drum note was programmed in Logic Pro using a pre-commercial beta build of Toontrack's dfh Superior sample library — all kick drums, snare, hi-hats, crashes, rides, and china cymbals programmed MIDI note by note on a laptop. For live performances supporting Catch Thirtythree, Haake returned to his Sonor Designer Series kit augmented with electronic triggers to reproduce the dfh Superior sounds live. The two independent Sonor Perfect Balance single pedals that defined his technique since Nothing (2002) remained in use for the 2005 live rig.

**Q: Why is Catch Thirtythree a 47-minute single track?**

Catch Thirtythree is a 47-minute single continuous composition because Meshuggah conceived it as a unified concept album without discrete tracks. The nine sections flow into one another without pause or silence, forming a single unbroken piece. This structural choice reflects the album's thematic content — a meditation on consciousness and identity that resists the artificial reset of track breaks. Rhythmically, it allowed Tomas Haake to program transitions and developmental arcs spanning the full 47 minutes, a compositional freedom only possible because the drums were programmed rather than performed live in studio sessions.

**Q: How did Tomas Haake set up his triggers for Catch Thirtythree live performances?**

For live performances in 2005, Tomas Haake used a hybrid acoustic/electronic setup built on his Sonor Designer Series kit. Electronic bass drum sensors and select pad triggers fed into the dfh Superior sample library, allowing the live performance to approximate the programmed sounds of the album. His two independent Sonor Perfect Balance single pedals drove the triggered bass drum sensors, maintaining the foot independence fundamental to his technique. The Porter & Davies BC2 vibrating throne — which transmits bass drum signal as physical vibration through the seat — was especially critical in the trigger setup, supplementing acoustic monitoring for precise kick control at concert volumes.

**Q: What makes Catch Thirtythree important for the djent genre?**

Catch Thirtythree (2005) is important for djent because it is the fullest early expression of Fredrik Thordendal's extended-range tuning concept before the genre had a name. While Nothing (2002) established the 8-string guitar in F# standard, Catch Thirtythree built an entire 47-minute concept album around the sonic possibilities that tuning enabled — without physical drum constraints limiting rhythmic complexity. The programmed drums allowed Haake to write patterns matching the extreme low-frequency density of Thordendal's djent tuning at theoretical extremes. When djent emerged as an identifiable genre in the late 2000s, Catch Thirtythree was retroactively recognized as foundational — the album where djent's tonal and rhythmic ambitions were first fully unified.

**Q: What is Meshuggah's weirdest album?**

Catch Thirtythree (2005) is Meshuggah's strangest and most structurally unusual album. A 47-minute single continuous composition with all drums programmed by the drummer himself, built around a philosophical concept of consciousness and identity, sitting between two masterworks of live rhythmic performance (Nothing and obZen), and containing patterns that deliberately exceed human physical capability — there is no other album like it in extreme metal. Its closest structural ancestor is a symphony; its closest rhythmic ancestor is the pattern logic of Nothing (2002); its closest spiritual descendant is "Bleed" from obZen (2008).

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**Source:** https://metalforge.io/articles/catch-thirtythree-drum-setup

**Related:** [Tomas Haake drummer profile](/drummer/tomas-haake) · [Nothing drum setup (2002)](/articles/nothing-drum-setup) · [obZen drum setup (2008)](/articles/obzen-drum-setup)

**More LLM resources:** [Site index](/llms.txt) · [Full database](/llms-full.txt) · [Master FAQ](/llms/faq.md) · [Drummer index](/llms/index.md)

*Last updated: 2026-06-27 · Source: [MetalForge.io](https://metalforge.io)*