Drum recordings near conlusion

Hello again.

So... It's been a week now and almost everything is done. Two songs still miss some parts + some tracks need possible fixes and fine tunings.

Niko left yesterday and now i'm with Janne. Nostalgic situation once again and finishing of drums is closing. Last week has been physically and mentally very challenging and yet very pleasurable week. THE very best drumming sessions i've ever had in many ways. Best tracks i have ever played, best sounds and production and what not.

Even the equipment is the best i've had around, despite all technical troubles. :)

The whole setup here in Imatra's Pässiniemi house has been top notch. Drumsetup, equipment, sauna, drinks, buddies, cookings, everything has been awesome.

Now, with the conclusion of these sessions, i'd like to thank Janne & Niko for their participation, relentless producing and engineering my playing, Laura for her unconditional support and her excellent cookings, which has kept us going, Pekka for his assistance and solowork, and last but not least, Aku, just for laughs, you made my day with the drumsticks. :D

'til next time. ;)

Lari

PS. Stay tuned for the for the "making of" video.

Drum recordings continue...

Its the 5th day of the drumming session, progress is slow but sure at the moment. We have now recorded four songs and theres four more to go... I'm tired, my feet are like concrete, two hours of sleep last night, not enough to keep things going for long enough. Anyway we recorded one more song today, tomorrow and monday is going to be a tough run.

Our bassist showed up to help us with the recordings and to keep out spirits up, thus releasing Pekka from 24/7 assistant job.

It seems that most of the technical problems are now solwed and now its only about my performance. I have to say, this far these drum tracks are THE best i've ever recorded, steady progress keeps the pressure up nicely.

Oh, i almost forgot, we've been helped out tremendously by our "professional" drummer friend, Aku Hyöppönen, recording this album wouldn't be possible without his pair of drumsticks. To be honest, i wouldn't use these for anything else than firewood. ;)

Sauna is warming up, i hope it will help out with my sore feet, theres some tough doublebass runs to come. Stay tuned.

Drum recordings started

Hello once again. Finally after much delays, the recording of official drum tracks began. We started setting up tuesday with kit setup. Sound checking and some technical problems slowed us down a bit, but we were all set at thursday. The place of our choice (or actually must)  is my mothers apartment. Only spot for my drumkit at the moment. This place is very nostalgic for us, this was our first rehearsalroom and the 'sutdio' for making our 'Pohjola Kotimme..' demo. And yet again, were back, this time with way more experience and better equipment.

Soundcheck went ok, we are now using quite special setup, the kit is halftriggered, both mic'ed and triggered, except the bassdrum, we had to change it to a bassdrum pad because the crappy BD trigger broke. Sounds are excellent, best we have achieved this far.

This has been very fun session this far, our friend Pekka(who plays some solos on the album) is working here as a studio assistant and my girlfriend Laura(Shes a professional cook;) has been taking care of the catering. Quite professional.

We have had quite a few technical problems on the way, first the bassdrum trigger broke, then we had to nail the BD pad to the flood, so it doesnt slide all over the place and i'm running out of playable sticks. How embarrasing, everything else is so, so pro done and i run out of sticks! Fucking millenium crap! Luckily our bassist comes to aid, he's joining us tomorrow and will bring some new sticks with him.

Despite all these troubles we managed to record two songs yesterday and one today. Theres still few songs left & all the after fixing so there's plenty to do.

I've very much enjoyed myself, bit hard at times, must to play correctly, all the stress etc. but still i can honestly say, this album making has been the most fun, almost tops the recording of Noitakansa demo years back...

That's all for today, more to come tomorrow.

Lari

Rhythm guitar recording band camp.

I drove to Ruokolahti on Monday evening. I took two electric guitars (Ibanez S7320 with upgraded mics & Schecter Solo-6 Limited), an amp head (Koch Powertone II) and an amp cabinet (4x12" Fender with Celestion Vintage 30 elements). Also on the trip was my wife and a hellish red tent.

We miked the cab with Audix i5 and a Shure SM57 clone (the legendary T.bone MB75). Audix was fine there where I first put it, and like the SM57 always does, the other mic needed some adjustments to be done with headphones on. The sound we found is very raw, metallic gain tone with full body, not mid-scoop here. We recorded also the raw preamp line from the send bus of the series type loop. No effects needed, Koch provided a very convincing tone once again.

On Monday evening we got one song on hard disc, though it took almost two hundred takes. The problem with recording my parts is the problem with rehearsing that is caused by the distance from my home town Jyväskylä to Imatra area, about 250 kilometers. Recordings started in good mood, the only reason to complain about was the room temperature, 28 degrees celsius.

On Tuesday we managed to record two full songs more. On the second one I already got a bit frustrated when I just didn't seem to get the timing of one quite simple riff played right at metronome click. Well after a while I got it done and the rest went more easily.

On the morning of the third day we slept till 12 o'clock and missed some potential recording hours, but on the evening I think I found a bit better playing touch than on the preceding days. We got two songs done also on Wednesday. The room temperature was 30 degrees celsius all evening. It made my head ache but luckily cold beer gave relief.

On Thursday we needed to make some necessary preparations for the promotional picture shootings so we went shopping on some of the flea markets of Imatra and Lappeenranta. We found some fine outfits there. Once again two songs got finished on my part in the evening. Now the room temperature was 31 C degrees.

Friday started with promo picture sessions. We put the fancy costumes on and went outside. We had Janne's old friend Jesse taking pictures with two similar cameras with different lenses on two locations at Ruokolahti. I think these are the best promo pictures with this band so far. Also they fit with the theme of the album very well. On Friday evening there appeared some complication as the well ran dry. It already seemed that we must leave and drive home that evening, as we couldn't take shower. Because of that supposed rush, Janne played my part in one song (Julma jupakka) almost completely as Lari interviewed me on video. We got the idea of going swimming in Lake Saimaa instead of shower, so we spent the last night in the tent like it was originally planned.

Now it's Saturday and in one hour we will have running water. There is one little chapter to be shot on video and after that I will drive home, tired but satisfied. Special thanks to Niko and Janne for mighty ice cold nerves and great studio engineering work, also thanks to Lari for being always so supportive. Thanks also to Fazer Salmiakki Mix which tasted even better after warming up with Dutch liqourice warming machine Powertone II. Last but not least thanks to hameväki Jenna and Nina.

- Taneli

Jannes' guitars finished.

3rd. day of my guitars' recordings is done, and all the rhythm guitars, lead melody guitars, and solo guitars that I`m ment to play are now recorded. Fingertips of my left hand fingers are numb and burning red, but I managed to get over with the mystical "fear of the rec. button", and got excellent performance captured on the hard disk. We have more solos and more lead melodies than ever, and the riffs in the songs are great (of course, because they are mostly made by me), so it was fun and interesting to record the guitars this time. After all this, we grilled some sausages with Niko in the warm springy evening.

In next weeks we will continue the recordings with Laris' drums. Until then!

-Janne

Guitar recordings started at Ruokolahti.

Yesterday we started the guitar recordings in our main studio, Ruokolahti, South Karelian, Finland. Ruokolahti is a village of 5600 inhabitans, right next to Russian border and lake Saimaa. We decided to capture the sound of my Bugera 6260 amp with two mics, and one straight line-in track, so we would have enough possibilities to edit the sound later. We founded a great, punchy tone quite easily and managed to record five songs worth of rhythm guitar tracks in 8 hours. After that, it was time for beer, vodka, cider and Sauna (of course).

More rhythm guitars, maybe even lead guitars, but surely quality time to come today. The quest for glory continues.

-Janne

Bass tracks completed.

It's been a few days break in my blog update because we have had very long days in the studio and my recording hours were stretched almost too long.

First day (March 19th.) I got two songs recorded as I mentioned in my first post. Day two (March 20) I got 5 songs finished and the last recording day (March 21th.) I finished two remaining songs. The official recording session took three days and i got all my tracks done. Altogether, the sessions lasted for four days which included bass recordings of course, but also some video shooting which we will shortly release in youtube  as an addition to this studio diary.

All of the final tracks sound very good and accurate and everyone was satisfied with the outcome. So what we had left for today was to do a final listen-through of the official basstracks, finish the video editing and deconstruct our new mobile studio.

By the way i never had thought that filming of a "making of" document + doing some interviewing would be so difficult. I noticed that my english language skills aren't very good and there's very many authetic catches and finglish “rally tankero” words in the video. It's much easier to do and act in music videos and just focus on playing (if it's a playing oriented video) and of course speaking your native language is easier than try to be convincing with some other language for example in english. Fortunately, no one took my finglish mistakes very seriously and we still made a good video material.

I'm very happy at the moment, now there's a bass guitar in all songs. But i am also so tired that i have to go rest now and get some sleep. We had a really good time in a studio at my place and this is a good start.

For the present we take a little break from recordings, but we'll get back soon and the next time there's some other person to do his responsibilities.

-Niko

First day of bass recording at Lemi.

Sunny day at southern Karelia, in a village called Lemi. We started official recordings of our 3rd full lenght album today. About six hours and we have 2 songs worth bassline, but tomorrow we will check it with "new ears" for possible mistakes. I started to record the epic opening song of the album and the second one was a very catchy and strong track called "fishing song" (work title). Good day from all sides and it`s good to continue from this.

After two songs we decided to keep break and eat some junkfood, drink some alcohol, and warm the sauna with pinewood. Now some rest at the moment and some löyly (steam spirit of sauna).

To be continued...

- Niko

Just testing the diary / blog.

The new Cubase 6 arrived today, so after it is installed we can start some serious recordings. First will be Nikos' turn to blast some bass to the hard drive. Bass will be recorded with mobile equipments at Nikos' place, starting at 19.3. Until then!

-Janne