The fourth of UNSHINE: Part 6

The synthesizers for our 4th album. Done.

This massive amount of work which has been done so far is finally coming to a goal.

The guitar mixings were compiled few days ago. This time we had around 60-70 tracks of guitars (and basses) for each song. We had several micings from our Churchboat home studio (with amp isolation) and we made also few re-ampings for the rhytm guitars in the D-studio from the DI-tracks from our home studio.

The next bigger thing will be the final mixing of all the tracks, this will take place as soon as we will get the time slot to do it.

What comes to the synthesizers and keyboards, we have used a pretty different approach each time with our three albums.

In the first album, Earth Magick, the synths were recorded (due to lack of time & money) in around 3-4 hours with presets of just one synth, Yamaha S30. However, it is actually a very good synth with few incredible sound banks the sounds and it can be adjusted in real time when recording with it.

In the second album, the Enigma of Immortals, we used Yamaha again, but also Miroslav Philharmonik Orchestra from IK Multimedia trying to achieve a more symphonic sound. We think it worked very well. 

In, Dark Half Rising, the palette was expanded with virtual Korg M1 and Sonic Synth. The amount of keyboards was not as layered as in the previous one. 

And now, with this forthcoming music, there are also some new synth additions, including Roland Fantom-X7, which is a great workstation. So, in the beginning of the recordings for this album, I thought that there would be less synthesizers because there are many different types of guitars included in this one (and I thought that this would kind of a compensate them). Ah, it seems that this was not the case. More guitars meant also increase in the synths. So far, I've used all the synths in our home studio, including physical and virtual ones, most of the banks and programs within them.

This time, the general idea has been to rethink the whole approach to the synths, as there are so many ways to use them and I am not talking only about different sounds. You can approach also one single sound in countless ways and try to produce something new. I think that the synth section sounds now quite unconventional for us and doing it has been great fun. The stylistic variation is probably larger than in all three first albums altogether. So, the aim has been to find music that sounds like us, not anybody else. To make music just for the music, not for radio or social media fame and attention, that is the idea behind. Of course, this does not mean that possible listeners should be alienated from it.

Remember (or listen to the) the mid 1970's, which gave birth to considerable amount of classic electronic, prog and rock albums. These albums are still considered the best albums of all times and some of them are still actually the most selling albums in the world, because new fans find their way to their uniqueness of year after year. In these albums, musicians of those days used also their instruments in much more unconventional way than today. Those composers had surely some secret ingredients from the universe in their morning coffee, tea or whatever. Maybe their general concentration was also more on music itself if we compare those times to the state of music industry today.

Harri / UNSHINE

The fourth of UNSHINE: Part 5

Enhancing song writing by jogging:

Have a nice Beltaine everyone,

the 4th album is progressing, synth recordings are almost done soon and the first mixing sessions will finally happen in the middle of May.

In this blog text, I describe something about the progress of crafting the recording parts in studio.

A whole lot of ideas were laid down for this album. I have already before examined the sources behind the whole songs including main ideas, melodies and structures.

Three albums behind, you start to see your own progression in the development and in the course of your own music. Of course, within the band we’ve noticed that the musical communication and intuitive idea-swapping is much more easier year by year, record by record. On the other hand, you and the other guys tend to get also more critical towards the music we make, the way we play.

I think it’s not a good idea to force songs in to a certain expected form. As an example, I’ve sometimes tried to make a song thinking that ‘this will be an easily-recognizable radio-hit when it’s ready’. What eventually turns out, is that the final version of the song is flattened by ‘supposed-to-be-great’ elements, such as overfocusing on chorus melody, or an expectable hit-song structure with 2 verses + choruses, followed by part C and the final climax of chorus repetition in transponed version with song length of 3:59. Or you to try to create a new ‘Stairway to Heaven’ in a stub-born way only to come up with a massive headache and a tedious, overlong and meaningless wandering.

Sometimes that works, of course, but I think that then this has to come out in a natural and unforced way. The very first original idea is the most important one, grab that one in your pocket and never leave the most important original ideas in the bin. They are the primal creations of your unconsciousness, language from the invisible ether, spirits speaking to you.

The songs and their structures will be always tested in our rehearsals. Sometimes, somebody or several band members suggest bigger changes to the original structures. As we have tested them, sometimes they change the whole context of the songs, i.e. a folk-metalish song turns in to something that resembles more like death metal. But we’ve also seen that the most usual case is that the return to the most original demo version works the best. In this album, we tried some songs, which were then changed in to really different ones – at the same time, the band wanted to keep that change, but somehow, the original spirit of the song was also lost. Those songs are now in the reserve and I think I might release them in a way or another. And I will stick to the original ideas.

The recordings of this album were done in bits and pieces during around one year. This gave me lot of time to think about individual details of the music. I have re-started my old hobby, running, and this, quite surprisingly offered me a new way to examine the songs. Plus running is good for your health, also mentally. I run mainly in forested areas to connect better with nature. Now, in April 2016, I've  observed the seasonal change of Finnish forest from winter to spring. Every time nature wants you to pay your attention to different things. Yesterday, I felt the forest as a whole organism, one that is getting ready for the summer. During the run, I even saw a deer and a hare - my favourite animals (must mean something).

During the long running sessions I listen to my own iBrain, I think about individual parts that are under construction. These often include arrangement of melody guitars versus rhytm guitars or, for example, the progression and lifting of one melody element throughout the song. I once went over and over in my head a piece of music that was in total a 10-second instrumental part in one of the forthcoming album’s songs. I think I played the part at least 100 times in my head and then after the run, I was happy with the part and I recorded it in my home studio. 

Apart from your normal family life, this kind of working method spends time and it really effectively crafts the song. Or sometimes, in the rehearsals, we take few beers, connect musically really well and just hit some unplanned great things in an unintentional way. However, I do not believe anymore nowadays that hangovers boost your creativity. That’s just not true. They might boost your willingness to start doing useful things, but that’s the only thing. Still, a beer now and then does not hurt anyone.

Harri/UNSHINE

 

The fourth of UNSHINE: Part 4

Hello hello from the frosty backwoods of Finland!

It's the last day of 2015.

Around one half of the current year has been spent with the recordings and planning of our forthcoming new music. The album has been recorded mainly in short pieces during summer and autumn. We all have had our comings and goings - and for logistical and financial reasons it has been sensible to do it this way - mostly in our own no-costs studio.

The demos of the new songs were written and practiced ready in April 2015. At that point, we had a reserve of around 30 demo songs, which is A LOT for us. Very many magical and odd songs had to be left out and I do not know what to do with them now. An EP or a strange mini album or something else?

The drum recordings were hammered during May at D-studio in Klaukkala, just like with the two previous albums. That session was efficient and quick.

The next thing was going to take much more time. First of all, we decided to record the guitar parts again at our studio Churchboat. Last time we had made the recordings with a commercially available isolation cab. However, it was a little bit restricted method: It was not possible to change or shift the location of the mic in relation to the speaker as it was built inside the whole thing. Actually, I still do not have an idea what kind of a speaker it had inside, not to mention the mic. The sound from it was nice and decent in a way, but we really had to blend it later with the re-amped sound at D-studio in order to get the final sound.

Ok. So, this time I decided to build an isolation cab by myself!

This took more time (not to mention the testing days) than I thought, but in the beginning of autumn, it was more or less ready to be used. It was actually pretty easy to build the whole thing as long as I could find the proper material for it. The walls of the cab were compiled from recycled material I found from a dumping place in our village. Four black plates that used to belong someone's abandonded Ikea furniture! Internet is full of instructions on how to build iso cabs, I just tried to combine the best tips when constructing the thing and in my opinion, came up with a decent result. Well, at least the beast is huge and it does not let noise out too much! I just have to add here, that once it's now inside the studio, the only way to get it out would be to break it apart...

Inside the isolation cab is the heart of the guitar voice: A customized 2x12 guitar cab by Koch. The guy from whom I bought it had changed the original speakers to two premiun 80W Celestium speakers. Inside the cab, the guitar sound is taken from the front of the speakers with Shure 58 and Sennheiser E606. The guitar amp head used for the recording is the first and original model of Koch Multitone 100. Among all the great features, it has a direct record output with cabinet simulation. So, that is the channel number 3 going in to my recording console, M-Audio Projectmix. Of course, also DI-sound is recorded simultaneously with the three other channels, in case if we have to re-amp something later.

The vocals were recorded under a different setting this time. The whole recording was done again at studio Churchboat, as it is very important to have a relaxed atmosphere and there is time to re-check from time to time what has been done so far in relation to the instruments. We used again Röde mic through M-Audio Projectmix. The 48V phantom power needed for the mic broke up at the end of the vocal recordings and I had to buy a separate Stagg phantom power unit for that purpose. The mic set looks nowadays like this:

The mic isolation shield by Thomann worked really well, however, as I bough it as a used equipment, there were no instructions on how to set it up! After several trials and errors, I did not manage to break the condenser microphone Röde and I managed to hang the shield properly event. With the last two albums, we had some immemorial hassles with "sounds" coming outside the studio. There is a large schoolyard next to our studio and it's very common that youngsters drive there now and then with their loud mopeds (this is obviously a very Finnish habit). It happened now and then that Susanna had recorded a perfect vocal take, while suddenly in the background you could hear the sound of an accelerating moped. Oh, we got some good laughs from that, but it was also extremely annoying sometimes. Once, even an aeroplane flew over the studio (the airport of Helsinki is 2 km's from here) and the jet sound could be heard in the backround of Susanna's track - just like with Led Zeppelin! Only that we did not decide to use it in the record, like they did...

The bass was laid down also at Churchboat, like last time - and again with a different twist. The recording set-up did not include amp this time. Last time we recorded the sound of bass partly at the toilet toom with a small combo amp, lots of distortion and unrelated noise. No amp, only DI and the a little bit compressed signal through big muff with a bit of distortion. Lots of experimentation with different playing styles across the drums. The DI track will be re-amped later, most likely at D-studio.

So, we are now at the point where the rhytm guitars, bass and main vocals have been recorded, also parts of the other guitars have been finished.

More guitars, synthesizers, other voices and instruments coming...

So, what is the album going to be like?

It moves between the three worlds.

There's gonna be around 11-12 songs on the album.

There's going to be one cover song by another band - first one in our recording history.

There is some kind of a leading theme in the album - a word/definition that is mentioned in every single song. Still, it's not going to be a theme album in the vein of 'Dark Half Rising'.
 
Gloomy.

Nordic.

Finnish.

Primeval.

Melancholic.

Individual.

Awesome FEMME II 2015

Around last January, we were invited to FEMME II festival 2015 in Eindhoven. This was very nice news, as we were a bit let down at that moment, as just 1-2 months before we were forced to cancel our attendance to a big European tour with a very well-known metal band. This cancellation was due to lour own logistic reasons and impossible time schedule.

On the early hours of 16th October, we flew to Amsterdam. Finnair allowed me to bring my extra guitar inside the cabin, which was pleasant. Sometimes, this is not possible and in those cases it usually means extra payment for extra luggage. From Amsterdam we took a morning train to Eindhoven through beautiful Dutch pastoral landscape.

Pic 1: Where's the train? Please, look after your luggage...

Because of the time difference, we arrived to the city main station very early and started looking for our accommodation.Soon, we had found our bed and breakfast place, De Xtra Mijl (is this a typical dutch name?), at the suburban Eindhoven, around 2 kilometres from the center of the city. What a treat, a couple of rooms were reserved for us at the home of a very nice and happy elder couple. We were treated like royal people with amazing breakfasts and there was also a very beautiful Rembrandt-ish park nearby.

Pic 2: Autumn colours in Eindhoven.

What was pretty odd in Eindhoven, was that a taxi was here much cheaper than a ticket in a public transportation vehicle. Of course, travelling with all the music gear was also very much more convenient with taxi. To our amusement, at least two taxi drivers recognized our band and we actually got one free ride by giving the driver our cd!

Because our slot was put on Saturday, we could relax the Friday and enjoy the atmosphere of Effenaar, the huge concert venue. There were many interesting quality bands to check. Lacuna Coil was very impressive, for me, this was the first time to see them playing live.

We had to get up pretty early on Saturday morning. There was a morning(!) soundcheck ahead, as we were the opening band on the Saturday bill. From the technical point of view, things could not have been better. The backline was great, the hall and the stage were really great and the in-house technicians were top professionals, special thanks to Miriam Gramsbergen, who was leading the production. 

The time ran very quickly during the day and soon we realised that it's only 20 minutes to our slot. And it was only 1 p.m.! We were lucky to share our dressing room with Karmaflow and Therion, so we could have very relaxed time with the guys before our show.

Pic 2: Besides the bass in Therion, Nalle was also a professional in Finnish swear words.

Soon we took the elevator down to the stage level and started killing the final minutes. Intro tape (Awen) started and we walked to the stage - the hall was filled already now, there were people even in the balconies, unbeliavable. Well, we could only give our best shot. We played the following songs:

The sound at the stage was perfect and the audience was just great. We enjoyed every second of the gig, the only bad thing was that the 40 minutes at stage was over too soon!

After our show, we had to ran to the merchandise area, as were kindly provided with a sales table at the main hall. It was great to meet many of the people at our show, we also sold a high number of cd's and t-shirts. The rest of the evening was superb, we could check Stream of Passion (with whom we played in the Netherlands 1 year ago), Therion, Tristania, the Gentle Storm and many other great bands. And of course we want to thank here Ton Dekkers, the festival organiser, he is the brilliant mastermind behind the whole festival. Buy him a drink, wherever you see him.

Harri / UNSHINE

The fourth of UNSHINE: Part 3

Studio has been reserved! We start with the drum recordings on the 12th May.

This means that we are going to have only two more full new album rehearsals at Kaapelitehdas.

To increase some pressure, we decided yesterday to record also a cover song. Let's see if it will appear on the album...

Things are heating up!

Harri / UNSHINE

The fourth of UNSHINE: Part 2

A very laborius period of work now in the holy grove of UNSHINE. The songs for the 4th album are basically ready - they are in their final demo form now what comes to all instruments and main vocals. However, little things matter - we rehearse now a lot in order to finalise all the details in instrumentation, this way everyone of us can bring their own views and perspectives. As the main composer of the band, I sometimes get stuck on details and can't see the forest from the trees.

Our drummer Stibe has a lot of work in arranging his parts. The drum demos I've done at Studio Churchboat are very basic and they are meant to give just the general idea of the percussions. It's probable that we will use two kinds of drum settings this time, one set-up for more acoustic performance and one for regular metal set-up.







Winter in Finland is very colourful, at least 50 shades of grey.







My guitar gear at the rehearsals.



This album has been created by making various kinds of demo and practice tapes. Nothing beats, however, the most ancient demo tape method - create the tune in your own head and if it's a good one, it'll stick there as an earworm. I've used this method for ages. Plus your inner studio follows everywhere you go.

From the most primeval versions to the final demos, all songs were first recorded this time with Apple's Garageband (instead of ProTools which I have used before). I have had GB as a free version in our studio mac and I actually discovered it only about two years ago - if I only could have heards about it before it would have saved some nerves in the previous albums. I think it's the most practical tool for musicians flooding with ideas and it fits well for making even very advanced demos. Before the actual recording we use lots of quickly produced rehearse tapes, like tapes with click and synth, but also tapes with demo drums and the whole band. GB is ideal for this kind of production.

In fact, I've loaded most of the forthcoming songs to a secret YouTube -channel, which is public only for us in the band...

Harri / UNSHINE

The fourth of UNSHINE: Part 1

It's time for the new UNSHINE album.

The previous one, Dark Half Rising, the thematical record from the time of Gallic wars was our first international release and we experienced many new things with it. Thanks for the response. We were actually very satisfied especially with the work of Massacre Records, they made a huge effort to improve our visibility.

We have left the misty mountains of Ardennes now, the tribes there are living a new, much more peaceful and more stable period of life. Farmers are busy with their seasonal work, children are playing in the fields and the arch druid is interpreting the secrets of nature in a remote grove. Time of Caesar is over and the smoke of the bonefires is withering into the winds.

We are somewhere, in a nameless and a timeless landscape, between the worlds, observing nature's signs in the current season.

It's time to travel in the otherworld.

The song writing for the 4th UNSHINE album started during autumn 2013. It was all started literally from the scratch. I decided to write some riffs just off the top of my head - music that would pour out of stream of unconsiousness without any effort. Quite soon, the first song was built very quickly around the first riff that I had developed with my electric guitar. As a results of this new style of songwriting (to me), I noticed that these songs had an odd flavour of new type of gloominess in them. The first demos were very simple, but they were also pretty attractive and primitive, in some strange way. I felt that this was a very good start, it set a way how to do things this time.

Some of the songs were left in their very primal state and they are resting and waiting for the light of day (which may or may not come). Some of them got somehow dragged along during the year - I had an urge to return to them from time to time (a good sign!) and they gradually ended to the final demo stage.

By the end year 2014, I had finally around 25 songs more or less ready, which is most definitely, the highest amount of pre-produced songs in our history.

But as said, it all starts from here. When giving a new start, you have to throw all your prejudices and expectations into the fire and see what comes out of it.

Harri / UNSHINE

Spring Equinox greetings

Dear druidettes and druids, it's been a while since we've posted here, so now at the time of Spring Equinox 2014, is time to make a change. We want to thank you all for the love, trust and great feedback you have given to us after the 'Dark Half Rising' release in August 2013. This means a LOT to us.

Right now, we are looking for the forthcoming gigs, which have been cofirmed at least to Russia, Estonia and Finland during the spring. We are also waiting for confirmations from some other very interesting places. Come to say hello at our gigs!

Also, we are very grateful both for our record company, Massacre Records and to the lovely people of Armada Agency, Wietze and Nanette. In Finland, we have received received massive help both from Mega Kuusinen, in promotional sense, and from Örkki Yrlund, in visual sense, not forgetting the other people we do not list here. Also we'd like to mention the great tour in Finland we made during last autumn with the most pleasant fellow bands, especially Teardown and all the others, thanks guys!

And last but not the least, we are already very much looking forward to the next record and period in our history. In fact, it's already on the process, number of songs have been written and we've been banging our heads to them at our rehearsal chamber. Epic stuff? Yes, more than epic...epicer!!



Cheers, and now, let's dance around the stone circles or whatever you do for the honour of spring!!!.

Susanna, Harri, Jari, Teemu and Stibe

Mastering day

On the 28th of November morning I headed to audio mastering studio of Chartmakers in the center of Helsinki. As usual, I arrived too early and as it was horribly cold and windy morning spent almost one hour reading music magazines in a local library. The librarian was a nice person as he played Jethro Tull as a quiet background music(!).

At 10 o'clock I stepped in to the (always) friendly and cosy atmosphere of the studio. Stibe was already there and Jartsa and Teemal joined us later on. Svante Forsbäck came soon and said apologies because we had to wait few minutes before he had finished one earlier Rammstein-related work (cool!).

Svante has mastered our two first albums too and he knew soon what to do with the mix we brought. Most of the work done by masterers is like magic - something is done and miracles happen while an average band player does not have any kind of idea what's happening.

In the final mix of Dark Half Rising, Svante had to do some work with low frequencies which were a bit unbalanced. It was also nice to hear that the most spikiest parts in the frequencies vanished.

The session was ready just before 4 p.m. Next: The files will go to Massacre Records who will start the work with the production and promotion.

Harri

Pea Island photo session

On last Saturday afternoon we had a photo session for 'Dark Half Rising'. The dark half had risen indeed, it's November and during this time of year Helsinki is sinking to dark which is darker than darkness.

Before the actual session we gathered at Jartsa's home, where our talented make-up artists Kirsi-Marja and Riikka (thanks girls!) had a tough job putting us make-up. See, some guys at Unshine need a lot of pink powder before they can be brought in to light. Nice session took some time and we killed time by watching Rammstein DVD and having one or two glasses of cardbox red wine. The make-up girls told us not to drink too much of it, as the heat generated by alc..something turns cheeks red and we definitely did not want to look like Snow White and 4 giant red-nose dwarfs.

After two hours we took a taxi to Hernesaari (free translation: Pea island), where photo studio of Valtteri Hirvonen was waiting. The place is quite odd, it's otherwise quite quiet harbour area, but it has also pier for cruiser ships to Estonia & Russia. The big boats shined on the other side of the bay. It was pretty atmospheric.

Valtteri was the man who took also the band photos for our last album, so he knew what to expect. The photo session went very smoothly, Valtteri is a real professional and the whole shooting went very efficiently thanks to him plus again to Kirsi-Marja who took care of the make-up etc.

Check out our FB and Flickr pages for the pictures, the actual studio pics will be naturally released as the album comes out. Cheers!

The third album studio diary Part VI, Finalising chapter: The end of 2011 - November 2012

A lot of time has gone since the last update and lot of things have happened.

Thanks for the patience for those who follow this blog.

The album recordings have been finished and the tracks have been mixed during several sessions.

So, in the end of 2011 we had a raw material version of the album.

Next thing was that we took some breath and then started contacting agencies in Europe. Soon, in the beginning of this year we inked a promotion and a booking deal with Armada Agency from the Netherlands.

The album cover art work was started and finalised during spring and summer.

By the summer of this year we had actually received a couple of record deal offers from several companies.

During August 2012, we heard that we are going to get a deal from Massacre Records (from Germany).

The deal was sealed on the 7th of September 2012.

'Dark Half Rising' will be released during February 2013.

Before the release, there are a couple of things to do: First, we will have to master the album. Second, the album art has to be finished. Third, We need new promo pictures.

You will soon hear about all listed above.

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

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

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

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

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