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The 3rd album studio diary Part VI: 3.-5.1.2011

2011-01-12T11:16:00.000-08:00

On white and freezing Monday morning, I arrived to D-studio in Klaukkala, where mixing of our new album would start. I was armed with tons of guitar tracks and 1 ton of bass tracks, which we had recorded and pre-recorded since August. Of course, I felt nervous about the outcome, as I had only a faint idea what the tracks would sound in raw flesh, after the actual mixing process. Previously, I had done one test session with Jasse (D-studio ubermaster). The result from that had indicated green light, so the band decided to do the actual recordings in our home studio Churchboat at Vantaa, among dark evil misty trolly metal forests of Finland (in here you are supposed to show a certain handmark).

Despite his alarming chilinarcotism (which eventually drag also me into the fiery swirl of Poppamies and Blair's infernal sauces), Jasse made ultra fine work, once again. The aforementioned direct clean guitar signals were fed into Mesa Boogie 50 w Rectifier head w/ some eq and extra overdrive (yes, you read right, even for Mesa) and recorded with Shure 57 & 58 mics through Engl 4x12 cabinet w/ vintage speakers. The bass guitars were forced under the same treatment w/ Warwick Pro Fet 3.2. head, E606 -mic and mostly a guitar cabinet (yes, you read right).

This process called re-amping produces new distortion tracks which were later mixed with already recorded similar distortion home studio tracks in order to spit out the best metal hell sound out of the speakers. The churchboat sessions had already produced number of different distortion tracks, basically direct amp tracks (from Koch Multitone 100 w head) and tracks where the former was fed through Boss GT-10 preamp settings. Some direct clean sounds were not re-amped. Re-amping itself is a simple thing; when settings are fine, just press the rec-button and go to your beer/coffee or chili, as in the case of D-studio.

When re-amping was done, we had a tall pile of final raw tracks on monitor screen. Song by song these tracks were then mixed, mashed, combined, reverberated, delayed etc. and mixed again against drums. Drum mixings had already taken place before this session, but this time drum rolls (especially the volumes) had to be adjusted (samples, yes). On Wednesday afternoon, these song mixings were done and the song skeletons sounded pretty damn good, actually so naturally breathing that we will certainly use as little compression as possible in the next mixing, unlike last time. Of course that will depend partly upon the forthcoming vocal synth etc. layers. More of the synth recording madness soon!!

Harri

The 3rd album studio diary Part V: August, September, October, November & December

2010-12-22T11:00:00.000-08:00

Pardon, some time has passed since the last update. It does not mean that Unshine has been inactive - very oppositive - the recordings have continued intensively, however, without sadistic pressure (to quote moukku master Pasi Crash from For Selena And Sin).

We have recorded guitars and basses during several short periods in the autumn - this felt very relaxed working method, also we were able to make the recordings under best possible conditions (mental, too:)). At the same time, it was possible to take a deeper look into the songs and beyond them. The song order will play big part in this album.

With this slow-cooking method, we have also recorded Susanna's vocals, they sound really unbelieavable and vibrant.

The mixings of guitars and bass starts on the 3rd of January 2011. Around this time other instruments, including some quite mysterious ones, will be recorded. We'll come then up with some visual and audio material from the studio along with renewed website.

But before that, HAPPY & MYSTIC YULETIME TO ALL!!

The 3rd album studio diary Part IV: 1.7. - 27.7.2010

2010-08-02T04:16:00.000-07:00

After our short summer tour, it was time to concentrate on the forthcoming album preparations, which meant that I had to dive deep in to the swamp of guitar recording mysteries! And that was a deep swamp, I can tell you...

By the second half of the July I managed to clear out somehow how to manage guitar recording creditably in our little home studio called church boat (ask for the translation and real meaning of the word from any Finnish person). We had done some electric guitars there already with the last album, but they were just short breaks and solo kind of things. Last time, the big problem was that we did not want to make our neighbours angry and that's why we could not crank out the amplifiers loud enough & long enough. With acoustic guitars we obviously did not have this problem.

I already have a quite nice and compact system in the studio, which includes a control surface with faders and audio interface. With this system it is possible to record audio directly into Pro Tools.

So, I had to learn and decide how to manage the loudness problem first. (Warning: expect here messy technical explanations in the few next chapters). The answer came in the form of an guitar isolation box, which I managed to purchase from its' first owner as a good buy! But this was not the one and only solution, as the guitar signal had to be split up so that the same signal would go first in to the audio interface and then also in to the tube amp (Koch, as on the last album) and from there in to the isolation box and from there in to audio interface. It's a long way to the ears! Before the audio interface, I located also an impedance converter, which clearly enhanced the sound from the isolation box.

So, the signal from the actual guitar had to be channeled also straight in to the audio interface. In here, I put a brand new DI-box, which did the job along with splitting the signals.

Jasse, the studio messiah.

In the end (after talking and consulting with the only real professional here, Jasse from D-studio) the signal was decided to run also through Boss GT-10, which with certain adjustments produced a crispier sound than Koch itself. These two sounds, let's call them dark and sunny, could be later then combined in the mixing sessions. At the same time, two different DI-sounds will be also recorded. This makes it possible to reamp (= run the dry signal back to the amp, adjust the amp settings and record the sound from the best cabinet spot without re-playing the guitar -> no guitarist needed, no frustration/stress, no excessive consumption of beer etc.) the dry signal through whatever is needed and mix these sounds together with the already recorded amp sounds.

Setting up tubes etc.

Naturally, along with this technical hassle, all gear used for the recording had to be checked, strings and cables changed etc. This proved to be useful, as the first recrded DI-signals seemed to lack unwanted sounds like buzzing and snaps. The only thing I was told by Jasse to be avoid in the recordings was clipping in DI, which would make those parts unusable for reamping.

Ok, I think we're ready to shred...

The 3rd album studio diary Part IV: 24.5. - 28.5.2010

2010-06-13T10:42:00.000-07:00

Few words from the rhythm section...

At the end of April we had done lots of practising and arrangement for the songs of the upcoming record. I got backing tracks with rhythm guitars from Harri to check them out even more spesific. Well, as a conclusion no bigger chances were going to be done for drumlines.

For this conclusion I did some recordings with my own demo setup and listened them carefully. I contacted Jasse from D-studio (Klaukkala Finland) and nailed last nails on coffin of my own --> booked studio dates on last week of may. Oh dear. ; ) So I had over a month for training but it was not possible to commitment everything for training.

I had to take care of my job and I also had problems with my right hand. Even now while writing thing this my right forearm is bit sore. Reason for that might be drumming, even I'm all the time practising my hand technique, or so damn hard job sitting on office chair and using mouse on my right arm. Please, some sympathy. ; )

Despite of this, got some training done and day before recordings would begin I loaded drums on wheels and headed towards Klaukkala. Klaukkala, small town 30 km from Helsinki in the middle of... wehell... I don't know is it in middle of anything. We (me and my drumset) arrived to studio and I think it was band called Amoth recording their bass and quitar sections for their album. Looked like they did not need any help for their session so I started to screw my drumset up on stage "where all the magic happens". Or what do they say...

Next day I arrived to studio in the morning. As playful as I am, I was thinking of cycle to studios. As playful as "someone" is, it was raining like "something" and I took buss to studios. Jasse had miked drumset and almost tuned it ready for soundcheck. Only snare drum was going to need some tuning. We made also hard decision between Tama birch snare and 70's Slingerland COB snare. "The last one it is" we thought after some recording.

Rest of the day went with soundchecking and some real recordings. If I recall correctly we got recorded "WWW", "Defender", "Arduinna" and "Horses" (work titles). On next day, or evening to be more spesific, was going to be more recordings and Harri pushing recording button in monitoring room. Talking about hard jobs? ; ) Me and my really tolerant recorders ; ) got everything done in two days and two evenings. On last day Jasse did some drum editing and checked out everything was okay for guys to start recording guitars during the summer. While Jasse was doing his job I was sitting behind him and ripping my ears of while listening my drumming and also checking everything was okay.

Jasse is true professional and everything went fine in studios. Always during the recording session you get feeling you could have been prepared better, but I personally think it's part of learning this instrument (drums) and music making in generally. I'm exited to hear guitars and other stuff when it's done. Aren't you? ´Well, hold your "Horses" mystical druid process is on it's way... ; )

BR Stibe

The recordings of the 3rd UNSHINE album will start soon!

2010-04-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

The songs for the 3rd album are now ready for the recording, so we'll go to into the studio at the end of next month to start the official recordings!!

The 3rd album studio diary Part III: The beginning of 2010

2010-01-08T02:50:00.000-08:00

It's new year again! Or are we late? Did you know that days before our time, in celtic Europe, new year started on October 31 – November 1, especially regarding the Gaelic cultures? This is an interesting subject and I've been lately trying to find out a copy of 'Gallic Wars' written by Julius Caesar himself. This ancient dictator wrote a contemporary description of Europe in the Iron Age. This book, however, is nowadays very rare in Finland.

We had rehearsals today and it seems that we are gradually getting the bunch of songs together. At this point, I can tell you, that there is LOTS OF variance in the songs now.

January - April: Rehearsals, rehearsals and rehearsals...

The 3rd album studio diary Part II: 3.12. - 31.12.

2009-12-05T09:34:00.001-08:00

3.12.

Today I've been going through the first of the two uncompleted songs. Chorus of this 1st one has haunted me for almost a year now, so it's a good sign and I should probably use it! Rehearsals with only a single guitar, however, everything went very fine. The doom and a strange epic-50's song from the end of the forthcoming album sounded very good.

My new beloved guitar was recently adjusted in to perfection, thanks Lottonen! Schecter is extremely light to play and Seymour Duncan pick-ups pick up(!) playing very precisely. Good for metal!

6.12.

Baking bread (literally) at my home, it became out good, I used both oat and wheat. At the same time, I hopped in studio, where I'm laying demo synths for a song, which is pretty heavy, but also influenced by 90's artists from Sweden, like Dr. Alban. Pretty scary, isn't it?;) Beautiful moon tonight.

9.12.

Teemal was busy with his other responsibilities, so we pulled rehearsals without the ancient bass master. Day before today, I decided to prepare again demo backing tape for the new song, alias Dr. Alban, for the rehearsals. The structure of this faster riff-ladden druid metal piece was completed much faster than I thought it could done usually, so I gave it a go. Sounded very nice, we took few refreshments in honour of that, skool.;)

11.12.

The last lyrics are pouring out! This song will be the longest one on the album and it will break totally new ground for us. I'm very excited.:)

12.12.

Rehearsals w/ bass and drums. All went fine, except that I later managed to hurt my back (while sleeping, how can you do that? I can).

17.12.

Yesterday I wrote a (probably) verse part for the last song, no lyrics yet but a humming melody! Later in the evening, watching probably the best movie in the world, 'The Wicker Man' (original 1973 version by Robin Hardy). The DVD included interesting interviews with the director, Christopher Lee etc. And of course, Britt Ekland rules. Should buy the soundtrack someday, great music of Paul Giovanni plus the oldest song in the world...

30.12.

Today we will have he last band rehearsals of this decade!

Earlier, on the afternoon, while travelling to home by train, I wrote the remaining verses and finalised the chorus for the last, still incomplete song. The verse lyrics are very odd and the chorus is the most sorrowful in he history of our band. It could be that I have to make 2 versions of this song. The other one will be very long and the other one will be short.

In the rehearsals, we browsed through lots of new songs, it seems that the forthcoming album won't represent very standard gothic metal.;)

Happy and Mysterious New Year and a New Decade!!

The 3rd album studio diary Part I: 31.10. - 24.11.2009

2009-11-09T02:34:00.000-08:00

Hi, this is the first part of the diary, where I write about UNSHINE's forthcoming third album.

These are my personal sightings and notes written at our studio in the ancient and misty backwoods (can you hear the banjos?:)) somewhere in southern Finland, but who knows, maybe somebody else from our band will write at some point (hopefully yes, because it would be too boring to read only my writings)? To your delight (or not), I might also put some other material (pics etc.) on the line.

Hope you do enjoy this diary!!

Harri / UNSHINE

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31.10.2009. Before our gig in Billnäs (probably our last this year), I decided to make some adjustments to a very slooooow song with which I've been working with for a couple of days now in my home studio. Originally, the song was meant to sound a bit like Jimmy Page & Co, but when we tried it on rehearsals, it was kinda ok, but I thought that it won't fit the overall structure of the album in this form...

And, for heaven's sake, we don't have a REEEAAALLL doom song so far, I noticed to my horror. Well, this will fix the situation sure!

Although the lyrical concept of the song is clear to, me, I've managed to write only half of the verses so far. It's also very disturbing that the first verse was actually born very painlessly (already in 2007, before the release of our previous album). So, there's some brain work to do now.

Guitar parts, which I managed to make today, sounded very gloomy and rich, good then!

1.11. Great gig yesterday at Billnäs. Girls and guys of the two other bands (Soulgrind & Foxy Flammable), the organisers and the crowd were very nice and friendly and the atmosphere of the whole evening (including beautiful moonlight) was very timeless, very very halloween-ish, or kekri-sh, as we'd say and refer to our old and traditional, sadly quite forgotten, harvest time festival!

Timeless moonshine over Billnäs & unshine.

Starshine on mirror!

We are obviously about to see Teemal's moonshine very soon!

Stibe delivered our brand new video "My King" to MySpace and YouYube. Toni Salminen (director) and Stibe have made great work with the whole thing. I really really like this final version and yep, it is actually our first decent video!

4.11. Again I'm stuck with the "environmental doom song". Guitars on the choruses and in the end are good, but verses have oddly started to suck (within my mind).

Around 8 p.m. I suddenly saw the first snow this autumn falling down from the sky. At the same moment, I felt that I had found the one and only solution to the verses. The dark autumn evening and the song melted in to each other. Also, the end part of the song has now this very odd and light part on it, but I guess it could not be more perfect there. It's there, I'm happy!

8.11. Today I was watching Anthony Bourdain (the best travelling eater) on TV and sitting on my sofa trying to develop the lyrics to the doom song. I finally managed to write a decent verse! We'll try this nature doom song now on thursday's rehearsals. If writing in English is sometimes this difficult, I can not imagine what it would be like to write lyrics in Finnish, all my respect to those artists...

11.11. The basic structure and lyrics for the song (that meant to be the last song on the forthcoming album) done now! Hard to describe what it's going to sound like, definitely something really new for us. It seems that we have to try this song too in the next rehearsals at Helsinki. Just sad that the band people are now quite heavily under influenza, so we had to cancel tomorrow's rehearsals and try again on monday. We also decided not to do a proposed gig in Riihimäki on December, as we really have to concentrate on the album rehearsals.

16.11. Since the last time, I've done quite a lot of creational work for the last song on the forthcoming album. We had the (instrumental) rehearsals today, which were FULL work. Teemal had organised a doom metal evening (DOOOMSTOCK) on saturday and the boys were still partially recovering from that experience.;)

We went through the environmental doom song plus the supposedly-the-last-song, which, to my surprise, had actually a very tricky part on it. Even I (as the composer) could not open one certain rhytm part before the verse of the song. In the end, we somehow figured it out, but nobody was sure how. On the way home, through rainy Helsinki, I suddenly realised that the part was on 7/4-rhytm. Well, problem solved.

19.11. Rehearsals went pretty well, although 7/4 seems to represent a higher level of arithmetics for us.;)

21.11. A visit to the dear relatives at Southern Ostrobothnia (Pohojammaa). On there, I suddenly found out that Swallow the Sun & Amorphis will have a gig at Rytmikorjaamo in Seinäjoki tonight, cool! So, visit to there had to be done. Plus we played there last time with Amorphis (those guys were really nice fellas)! Good gigs from the both bands (well, what else can you expext from them?).

StS on stage in Seinäjoki, November 2009.

24.11. I had to take my new Schecter to Lottonen Guitars repairs, as I have not previously done any finer adjustments to it. See you soon.

Schecter Classic C-1.

Pt. 8: Tampere

2009-11-08T06:08:00.000-08:00

Laa-la-la-la-la-la(goes very high)-la-la-la-laa...

Veeery emotional (and dirty) people On Tampere backstage.

UNSHINE on ferry between Estonia & Suomi, our beloved homeland.

These people are alive, even though it does not look like that.

Pt. 7: Pärnu

2009-11-08T05:45:00.001-08:00

Annika & Klasu in vappu-feelings.

Susanna behind the merchandise table!

An estonian, very thin type cow breed.

Outside the concert place.

Pt. 6: Klaipeda

2009-05-27T10:24:00.000-07:00

Bus driver = superman. 5800 km. There's nothing more to add. Superman.

Fridge from hell.

Klaipeda is a beautiful, relatively large city on the shore of Baltic Sea.

When we came to the venue, construction workers and electricians were finalising the interior, dust was settling down and later in the evening UNSHINE played as the first band ever there!

Madness & insanity!!!

Pt. 5: Warsaw

2009-05-21T12:14:00.000-07:00

The stage of Progresja was the biggest on tour.

Yo man!

The beast and the beauty.

The beauty and the basist.

Progresja also had the largest backstage we've ever seen.

17 people in a same bus for 8 days = inhumanity.

Pt. 4: Prague

2009-05-21T11:57:00.000-07:00

In Prague temperature was pretty high but we soon found out that we are not going to suffer from dehydration.

Czech sausages rule!

Our name is still written smaller than Jethro Tull's...

On the road, sleep wherever there is a possibility to do so!

Soundcheck at Bunkr, a great club for playing, tube-like walls must be at least from medieval times, atmospheric & mystic!

Pt. 3: Berlin

2009-05-11T12:37:00.000-07:00

Approaching Berlin (at this time, temperature in the back of the bus reached mythical numbers, +45C).

Berlin - schnitzel heaven.

Jartsa at the gate of Knaack (Berlin - döner kebap heaven).

Building musical towers at Knaack.

The running order (Berlin - female-fronted music heaven).

Pt. 2: Frankfurt (Oder)

2009-05-11T12:12:00.000-07:00

Girls on the road!

Boys on the road!

The backstage at Gewölbe was so good that it has grown almost mythical in our memories. Meat soup had so much meat that there was hardly space for 1 potato and 1/2 carrot.

On the way to Berlin: Stibe and Teemal are waiting for the german truck driver breakfast.

BACK FROM THE EUROPEAN TOUR!! Pt. 1: Lubbenau

2009-05-04T10:45:00.000-07:00

Hi! This is the first writing in the official blog of druid metal band UNSHINE. Welcome! We've just returned from our 1st European tour named 'Female Fronted Rock-Metal Tour' (alias moukku tour 2009) with For Selena And Sin & Manzana. Here are some pictures. Löysät pois!!

From Helsinki to Berlin to Lubbenau.

Green grass & lard-coloured rockers from Finland.

Stibe & summer & Lubbenau.

Susanna & summer & Lubbenau.

Annika sneezing & Martti playing hippie music.

The routines of a tour day include arriving...

...setting up the equipment...

...the local girls waiting for the band...

...moukutusta...

...vocal exercises...

...mixing (Jussi is the man)...

...sightseeing after local pecularities...

...eating...

...some sleeping...

...and travelling to the next target (with some moukutus).