Preface

We are finally recording our debut album. The recordings will happen in parts. First we record drums at Jive Studio, then guitars, bass and vocals at Studio Dauntless. Finally, the album will be mixed at Studio Villvox, Lahti by Aleksanteri Kuosa 20.11.-26.11.2006. The mastering will happen at Virtalähde Analog Audio in december. The album will be released in the beginning of 2007 by Firebox Records. The album will be produced by Ville Sorvali.

11.12.2006

We did some analyzing during the weekend and noticed that two of the songs still needed some adjusting. The other thing we noticed was that most of the breaks between the songs were too short! So, we fixed them with Jaakko (ME) and now the record is finally DONE! It sounds like a tank! I can't believe it's finally ready. It took almost three months to do it! A huge thanks to everyone involved. You did a great job! What should we do next? Oh, the album covers...

- Santeri

08.12.2006

After some confusion and combining I finally got the final mixes together ONE hour before the mastering! FTP is a great thing to have! I took a subway and travelled to Herttoniemi. The place where we are mastering is called Virtalähde Analog Audio. We started the mastering session with copying the files and talking about my MS Audiotron mixer. Jaakko Viitalähde has done a lot of modifications for these mixers. The mastering went smoothly and six hours later were done. Ville said that this was the most laid-back mastering session he has ever been in.

- Santeri

Mastering Engineer's Notes

The sound was good to begin with and the aim was to maintain and improve its smooth sound with tight bass while slamming it to the max. Making things loud can be a bad thing and I hate to destroy music when it really doesn't work for the given material, but in this kind of music, slamming is plain fun.

Two of the tracks were slightly different in sound and needed some extra effort to get in the same ballpark as the others. My chain was pretty simple in terms of EQ but needed some extra gimmicks in dynamics manipulation. In general I first went out of the DAW through Lynx Audio model 2 converters to a self-built passive equalizer (that has a Neve-inspired gain make-up stage) where I mostly cut a dB or two in the lower midrange and upper bass with a tighter Q and sometimes I boosted slightly in the 2,5kHz area. One of the tracks got a cut here, too.

After this I went to another self-built piece, which is a Massenburg/Sontec inspired parametric equalizer, my work horse. Here I did the bass shaping, mostly boosting 2dB's or so in the upper bass area with a shelf curve. The adjustable Q on the shelf of this EQ came handy here. Sometimes I also cut in the lower midrange in addition with the cut of the passive EQ. It was nice combo, the parametric did the transparent cutting and the passive EQ added little "something" to the lower midrange. The high end boost was also done here, and was a bell curve in the 10k-12k area, really wide Q and varied from 0,5dB to 1,5dB.

Then the dynamics.
First a self-built prototype version of Gyraf Audio's G10 vari-mu compressor was in action, where I kept the levels low enough to NOT add distortion. It would've smeared things too much here. The gain reduction was not heavy at all, maybe 2dB's in the max with a low ratio, slow attack and fast-ish release.

After this I went to a heavily modified (of course! :) Aphex Dominator II multi-band limiter. This is an exteremely aggressive sounding limiter that isn't suited for every task, but in average about 1,5dB of GR works nicely for this type of music. It keeps the mids down (which is the first thing that starts sounding "noisey" when limiting hard) and leaves the right things out when things get loud. But you got to be very careful with this thing - it's an effect, not a transparent mastering limiter.

If I would've done all of the limiting digitally, things would've started to sound boring & noisy. I did add less that one dB of gain with the Voxengo Elephant VST limiter in the last stage though - the AIGC-4 mode can sometimes ease down the sound in a nice way. We did loads of nice edits too. Intros, break-downs and small things like that were lowered in volume to maintain the relative impact of the louder parts that was lost in the compression. All good fun!

- Jaakko Viitalähde

4.12.2006

We made the last adjustments to the songs at Villvox. It was a long list of things to do but most of them were basic stuff like volume adjustments. Time ran out and we had to leave. Aleksanteri will do the bouncing tomorrow and upload the files to our ftp server. He will also adjust the Fatso Jr for each song separately.

- Santeri

25.11.2006

We knew that this was going to be a long day. It was but not as long as we were thought. We finished the mixing for all of the songs. Well, to be honest, we still need a few hours to make the final adjustments but that will happen when we have listened all the songs carefully at home. We are almost done!

- Santeri

In the morning Santeri waked us all and once again it was time to go mixing but not fixing this time ;) Sami and Ville were smelling like skunks and they were wondering what to do with the smell they had on their clothes. I told them to put the hoodies in the studio's freezer. For some reason the guys believed me and there they were, two beer smelling hoodies in the studios freezer. Fucking smart ;)

Ok, it was sunday night and all the songs were ready to be listened once again. After a while and few adjustments we were happy like pigs in the christmas. The album sounds so brutal and different! If this doesn't work for you, you should get your head examined. I can say you that it's far from the "plastickFredman" sound that is popular right now. Monday is coming and life sucks...

- Ari

24.11.2006

We had a basic mixing day and finished three more songs. A word about the drum sound. Aleksanteri likes to use a lot of room ambience in the drum sound (remember the drum room?). He uses a lot of compression on them with attack and release set to minimum. In some parts of the songs he even added more compression (a.k.a. raivokompura). I think Body Open Wide and Four Walls United have these parts. This is something that I'm not very familiar with. The room where I usually record drums is so small that the ambience tracks tend to sound pretty weak. The kick and snare are a mixture of different samples and microphone tracks. A lot of bottom mic in the snare! The toms have some samples mixed in too. Another thing that I don't do usually. Anyway, everything sounded great and the food was good at Vihreä Oliivi.

- Santeri

When the morning came we were feeling quite bad, but we managed to get ourselves together and headed back to the studio. Aleksanteri was our "designated driver" for this trip so thanks again Ale ;) Hmm this day was tough and it wasn't all about the hangover.

In the middle of the day we went to the restaraunt called Vihreä Oliivi, because Ale and Santeri liked the place. The steaks were fucking awesome! They were called Janne's Jaloviina steaks. It's a steak that has some booze in the sause :P After the lunch we were feeling quite horny, so when the other guys mixed we headed to www.christinaaguilera.com. We tried to borrow Ville's credit card to buy some fan stuff. The total amount was about 250 dollars, including fan club memberships for the four of us, stickers, shirts and both of the albums.

After a hard days work it was time once again to move our buts out of the studio and buy some beer. We drinked lots of beer during the night and of course headed once again to Molly. After a while we went to this one night club and partied like apes. When the bar was closing down Ville decided to pour one beer on Sami's head, well after that of course Sami had to do the same thing to Ville. Ville also poured my long drink on Sami and I was quite pissed off about that. Fucking Masochist Sadist manager he is.

After that we headed back to Aleksanteri's place to drink few beers more and to talk bullshit. The funniest part was that at some time in the night I noticed that Sami had passed out without his pants on and after a while Ville had passed out and was laying on top of Sami. I had my fun with the image for a while before passing out myself.

- Ari

23.11.2006

I almost missed my Lahti train today, because I didn't plan my local public transportation trip carefully beforehand. I made it and we continued the mixing. Time was running out and we had only three songs ready. We decided to do all the basic sounds for the rest of the songs today and concentrate to the details later. Aleksanteri did all the dirty work and I observed. Later in the evening Riku, OP, Kuisma (their driver), Sami, Ari and Ville joined us. They drank some beers and gave some ideas. Most of the time only me, Aleksanteri and Ville were present in the control room. Mixing with all band members in the room is not the way to do it. Trust me on this! After some more listening, Riku, OP and Kuisma left the studio and headed home. We went to Aleksanteri's place to sleep and Sami, Ari and Ville went to the bar.

- Santeri

So, it was friday evening and time to head for Lahti! Santeri was already there, so I travelled with Sami and Ville. So we drank a few beers/ciders and listened to some good shit, We were already quite pleased althought there was still lots of work to do. My main concern was that that the vocals would be loud enough in all parts.

If I remember right we mixed and drinked until the clock was about 23.00? After that we went to Alekstanteri's and his friends place. Little more drinking and shit talking. After a few hours it was time to check the night life in Lahti. It was quite late so we headed to the first bar that would be open till 3:00 AM. Molly Malone's it was and of course our main drinks were wishky and beer! After the bar closed for the night we went back to Aleksanteri's place and drinked some more. Tonight's happy guys were me, Sami, Ville and Profane Omen's William.

- Ari

22.11.2006

Ari, Riku and OP gave us some feedback. They thought that the guitars were too chaotic and the vocals too loud. They were right. We tweaked the sound for a while and the guitars started to sound more defined. We also did a lot of other fine adjustments before we moved on to the next song Shelter Equals Grave. Rest of the day was just basic mixing and experimenting with some special effects. We also did a little trip to Nastola city to eat at their finest place called Vihreä Oliivi. Great food I must say! When we finished Shelter Equals Grave, we sent the new mixes to the other guys. I had to leave, because I have to go to work tomorrow. We will continue the mixing on friday. When I left, Aleksanteri and Ville started to do some preparation work for the next song, Born Controlled.

- Santeri

21.11.2006

We have six days for the mixing. Today was the second day. Aleksanteri had done the first version of the basic sound during the first day (plus he did some pre-adjustments last week). After listening to the first version we had a discussion about the sound we are after. We had some differences. Mainly about the guitar sound. We worked them out and agreed that we should take the tank approach to this mix. Remember this when you hear the album for the first time. Don't expect perfect clarity and separation. It will sound chaotic at first!

How about the gear? First thing I noticed was the monitoring. The studio has Genelec 1019A/Yamaha NS-10M and a Genelec 1092A Subwoofer. They also have the Genelec "Darth Vader" monitors, but they were not connected. I think the room is a bit too small for them. I had some difficulties getting used to the sound. Well, actually I had HUGE difficulties. I hope it will be easier tomorrow.

I was suprised to notice how much outboard gear Aleksanteri uses! Some gear to mention:

- SansAmp PSA-1.1 (bass)
- DBX 160A (bass)
- Yamaha SPX-90 (drum reverb)
- Eventide H3000D/SX (vocal reverb)
- Empirical Labs Fatso jr. (2-buss tape simulator & optimizer)

The plugins you will hear on our album are mostly Sony Oxford EQ, Digidesign EQ III, Waves C1, Focusrite D3, Bomb Factory BF76 and Line 6 Echo Farm. Quality stuff!

The drum sound is pretty original. At least at the moment it feels like it. Love it or hate it kind of sound. There will be a lot of things that would sound a bit different if we had more time. But we don't. We just have to look at the big picture you know? We have to get this album done.

The bass sound? We were aiming for total destruction. Three tracks were mixed together: clean DI, Sansamp distortion and a Bass PODxt distortion track. The guitar sound is a mixture of the re-amped microphone and impulse tracks. We didn't have time to re-amp the solos, so we are using Line 6 Amp Farm.

In the vocals there's really nothing special to mention. EQ, compression, limiting, reverb and delay. All that basic stuff. Of course there will also be some nice special effects here and there.

At the end of the day we bounced Ruins and sent it to the other guys to listen.

- Santeri

17.11.2006

Are you ready for some gang bang action?! Niko (Amoral), Jules (Profane Omen), Ville (producer, Moonsorrow) and Sami gathered around the mic and did some nice group vocals. Sami and Nico were feeling funny and had to get rid of their trousers! This was the last recording session for this album. Riku finished his solos at the same time elsewhere. So, next week we will mix the whole thing.

- Santeri

16.11.2006

Back to the basement. We re-recorded Riku's guitar for Born Controlled and some parts of Ruins and Sickest Victory because they were not in "good enough" tune.

- Santeri

15.11.2006

After evaluating the vocals for three days, we had a good list of corrections. We tried some new approaches for some parts and also replaced some lyrics. Everything went fine. We fixed the vocals like we planned to do. I started to add the Peavey tracks to the guitars and we noticed this one thing. Riku's guitar in "Born Controlled" sounded bad and out of tune. How is it possible that we noticed it this late? I don't know. No time to blame ourselves (and the society), we have to record and re-amp it again tomorrow. FUCK!

- Santeri

12.11.2006

More video shit. We captured some scenes that are now called "news reader", "couch potato" "office" and "band playing". Yeah, we did all these in one day, so once again Tuomas was the man for the job. So, now we should have all the elements for the video. Both of the days took about an normal working day. In this production me and Antti (my partner in crime for making videos) did the first version of the script and after that it was Tuomas who did all the shitty work. Me and Antti were also "assistant directors" and of course helped all we could during the days. But like I said, we had some good professional actors and a good crew.

- Ari

11.11.2006

What a busy day. We started with recording some missing guitar feedback for Four Walls United (yes, it can be re-amped). While doing it, "Matti & Teppo" arrived to perform some didgeridoo for Body Open Wide. I just put the mic on the floor and added a pop filter in front of it and it sounded great immediately! Nice. We continued with recording some extra guitars and corrected one take that Riku recorded drunk last night. It sounded like shit!

My original plan was to use the whole day for re-amping, but we still had some Sami's vocals left. So, we recorded the missing two songs, Suffocated Voice and Born Controlled. It was very hard to find the right note for the chorus of Suffocated Voice. Eventually we found it and added three layers of vocals for it. This is our favorite song at the moment!

<GEAR WANKING>

Finally to the re-amping. As you read earlier, we did not use any real amps when we recorded the guitars. It's easier this way, because we can now fully concentrate on finding the best sound. We borrowed some kick ass gear from our friends (thanks Matias and Sami!):

Peavey 5150 II
Mesa/Boogie Single Rectifier
Mesa/Boogie Standard Cabinet

The signal chain was:

RME Fireface 800
Little Labs Redeye (Re-amp Box)
Insekt Overdrive
Peavey 5150 II

The settings in the amp photo are not the settings we used.

What is that Insekt Overdrive? It's my custom made Ibanez Tubescreamer 808 clone. It really tightens up the sound when you set the drive low and level high. So, we were using it as a boost. Nothing new here. We had recorded only two rhythm guitar tracks, so my plan was to use both amps for both guitarists. After founding a great sound from the Peavey, I took a Shure SM57 (connected into the RME) and placed it in the center of the top right speaker. Sami had to leave for a while. I recorded a short sample and then moved the mic to the next speaker. I did this four times (4 x 12" you know). After comparing the results, I decided to go with the top right speaker. It may sound strange, but there is a huge difference between the speakers in the same cab!

Now I knew what speaker to use. Great. When the microphone is placed dead center, it can sound pretty harsh. So, I had to find a better spot. I moved the mic a little bit to the right and recorded a sample again. It sounded great right away! You can't go wrong with Mesa cabs. I have to get one of these myself. Next thing to do was to record a short sample of both guitars and to listen them in conjunction with the drums and bass. After doing some fine adjustments with the amp settings, it was there. Damn, it sounded good! Sami arrived and was very impressed.

We had a great sound already, but maybe the Mesa could add some more to the sound? We tried several different settings. With and without the overdrive. No luck here. The Peavey just sounded better without it. So, we didn't use it at all.

After finding the right settings and mic position, re-amping was pretty straightforward. I just put all the tracks one after another and hit record. Then I went doing something useful. When I came back, I sliced and edited the tracks and it was done.

While re-amping, I also recorded the signal from the preamp out of the Peavey. I did it because I can use some nice speaker cabinet impulses with it and layer them with the mic tracks. It will sound HUGE!

</GEAR WANKING>

- Santeri

Ok, while Santeri and Sami were busy with the guitars and vocals we were shooting some scenes for our upcoming music video for Flow Of Fortune. The weather was bad but luckily Tuomas Valtanen (The Director/Editor/etc.) had quite good touch for the job. We are still not sure if we will use those clips at all. I can tell you that at least these parts were quite sick :P

- Ari

10.11.2006

First some more vocals. We recorded Sami's parts for Shelter Equals Grave but I can't remember if we did something else? Anyway, today was a special day. Euge from Godsplague visited our studio and performed a solo for Suffocated Voice.

The story will continue later...

- Santeri

08.11.2006

Suck my cock and fucking like it, all my parts are done. Well maybe not, because we will listen to them again and again until we are certain that the vocals are good enough.

Today we finished Born Controlled and Body Open Wide. Once again I had quite shitty day at my day job so it was hard but we managed to do these alright. Loppu on lähellä!

- Ari

Bloody hell! At least we have the main vocals ready. Sami still needs to record three songs. Besides the vocals, we have shitloads of "sälä" to record. Like additional guitars, group vocals, guitar/bass re-amping, didgeridoo... At the other side of the town, Riku was sweating with his guitar solos.

- Santeri

07.11.2006

Hell yeah! Today we finishded Blindfolded Solutions, did some more growls/screams for Flow of Fortune and recorded the first half of Born Controlled. So, today I had a good drive. Maybe todays inspiration came from my cats Babhometh (10kg) and Zeus (7 kg), because they kept me up almost the whole fucking night.

I have only Body Open Wide and the other half of Born Controlled left. Born Controlled is fucking avesome! It's the only song on this album that we made without demoing the vocal arragements properly, but thanks to Santeri, Sami and Ville it works like a knife!

- Ari

06.11.2006

Today I started my day with going to the police station for a hearing. After that I went to my day job and about 17.00 I was at the studio.

I had my worries about the day, because I edited Disordead's new music video the whole weekend and of course we drank a lot of booze.

We started with Ruins, because there was this one part that Ville wanted us to do again. So, we did it about 3-5 times and decided that one of the takes should do. After that I wanted to try Suffocated Voice. It was quite easy although there were lots of new arragements. This day was actually a model example of what's cool about making music. I had a quite shitty day but after a few hours of yelling and growling I was feeling happy (and exhausted). In this song we have a lot of variety in the vocals, so I don't think you can get bored with this one ;)

We decided not to take any video clips or photos, because you have already seen enough of my ugly face. During the recording we also had some great fun. Yes, "pig growls" were again present, but I don't think we will use them in this song.

Our bad karma seems to continue, because Sami had to get his tooth pulled out, so his not going to singing in a few days.

- Ari

After I went home (a.k.a. Studio B) I did some preparation work for mixing. Like bouncing and arranging the finished drum, bass and guitar tracks in different folders. Better to start it now when we still have some time left. I have done a lot of things during the session that were not written here. Like drum/guitar editing and all that boring shit. We are also waiting for some special effects from this one troll that you all know...

One other thing to mention is that I have almost finished mixing Sear's second album! Great stuff!
I can tell you that it has been pretty hectic lately. And yes, I also have a day job. Few weeks and I have the time to start designing the album covers. Any good logo designers out there?

- Santeri

04.11.2006

What did we do today? Vocal arragements. Sami was the voice and I tried to produce him. Some lyrics are still missing, but what the hell. You can always sing stuff like "face the fact 'cause I'm the man" or "kill your god and fuck them all". You know, all this great stuff! At least we have the song titles now: Suffocated Voice and Born Controlled. All the pieces seemed to fit, so after three hours of work we were happy and went to sauna.

- Santeri

03.11.2006

We had a quick one hour session with Sami and finished vocals for Flow of Fortune. I also managed to write half of the missing lyrics for one of the new songs. We have only two weeks left before the mixing starts and still a lot of stuff to record. Oh shit.

- Santeri

02.11.2006

Today I had my BMW, so I could listen to some decent music again.
The flu had bothered me all day so I was worried what would happen. Also, I have to tell you that the doctors found a tumor from my throat about a year ago. When I have the flu it annoys me more than normally. But don't worry, it's not killing me. It's just a "ball" that sometimes grows bigger (gathers liquid) and then again goes away. You can imagine the feeling of having a golf ball in your throat. The doctors said that usually these things go away in time, so I think I'll just have to live with it. Hell, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Well to the point at last.

Regardless of the flue I had another good day. We started with Ruins and finished it quite fast. Then it was turn to make the lower growls for Shelter Equals Grave and that also went quite easily.

Time for Sickest Victory. It was a little bit harder, because we had some new lyrics and changed the arragements a little bit. But eventually we got the song done. When the record comes out you will hear some "pig growls" and higher screams that will break class ;) After Sickest Victory I gave up and it was Sami's turn.

Sami started with Ruins and after a while it was done. We also recorded one "harmony scream" for Body Open Wide. Not sure about that one though.

That's all folks and boy I'm tired now.

- Ari

31.10.2006

Happy halloween fuckers!

Last week we had to cancel my recordings because I had a fucking terrible flue. So, today I was feeling better but I still had a little flue lurking in my system. Still, I was really expecting something for today.

First I have to tell you something about my day.

Well, I was quite pissed off because the weather had turned to shit and the goverment had taken off my GMC's plates. I had to travel to our studio with a japanese car and it took a lot more time than usually... What was good about the weather was the fact that I could open my voice listening to Christina Aguilera on the car when I was stuck on Kehä III road. Oh boy I miss my Suburban!

Finally at 17:30 I got to the studio and and we started right away with Flow of Fortune. It went quite easily and we were happy with it. Then was the time to try again the first scream on the song (you can see the first screams on the previous video clip). Luckily we nailed it almost right away. The scream is quite hard because I use the inhaled scream technique in the middle and with the help of it I try to get as high as I can and then go down again. You can check few of the takes from the video clip (the ones that were taken via night shot/blair bitch project effect).

After that we continued with Ruins. I had already done most of the high pitched screams last time, so it was time to do the lower growls. Again, you can check some of them from the start of the video clip. At some point my lower growls started to sound bad so we decided to try another song that needs quite angry high pitched vocals and it was of course Shelter Equals Grave. First I was sure that I can't do them but after a while we had almost all of them done.

Today was also the first day when our producer "Ville the Attila" came to listen the vocals we had done. After he had listened to the vocals, we had only about 2-5 words that need some more work. Ville was happy with the sound, but my "russian english" sounded bad in few spots. We have to do them again later. He also tried to lie us that the lower growls were good on Shelter Equals Grave ;)

So, this was actually a great day for me! Almost two songs ready and some great inhaled screams.

We also listened to all the vocals Sami had done. I was like what the FUCK!?? Is this Sami! The "clean" parts in Four Walls United and Body Open Wide were great! Don't take me the wrong way, Sami's vocals are not clean like really really clean, they are like Diablo/Fear Factory style and they sure work! I forgot to mention that with Ruins we have to do the first growl and the last parts again, because they didn't sound good enough. The same thing is for Shelter Equals Grave.

The video clip includes:
First Ruins and in the middle one scream from Shelter Equals Grave. Few of the high pitched screams, that had inhaled screams, were the ones that were captured with night vision. Last clips include Ville drinking Dr Pepper (usually it's beer, so we had to capture this moment!) and a list that shows the finished vocal parts.

- Ari

27.10.2006

More Sami's vocals. He has actually learned to shout in tune! We had some difficulties with one part in Ruins, but changing two words solved it. I still need to write lyrics for one song...

- Santeri

24.10.2006

We recorded the missing rhythm guitars with Riku. We had a great laugh listening to the bass "punch in's" Ville and OP had recorded earlier. WTF? Experimental shit at least. This is what happens when a bass player produces an album!

- Santeri

22.10.2006

Today it was Sami's turn to do vocals. I chose to record the vocals with two microphones at the same time, because the "cleaner" parts need more "air" than the dynamic Shure SM7B can offer. I think we will still use the Shure for the hardcore style vocals. I used a TSM MT87S with the Shure. Why TSM? Well, we did a condencer microphone shoot-out few weeks ago and it sounded the best of the bunch in our blind tests. TSM was actually the cheapest microphone we tested! The others were AKG Solidtube, MXL V6 and Röde NT1000. I used RME's mic pre for the TSM.

Alright, back to the subject. Sami was feeling great and wanted to do some "clean" parts first. We started with Four Walls United and after a few tries it sounded damn good! We moved on to Body Open Wide. First it was pretty hard to find the right note. When the original version of the song was recorded in 1999, Sami was not singing like he does now. After finding the right note, we were amazed how powerful it sounded. We also did some cool Kirka style vocals. Unfortunately we did not keep them.

Now we had all the "clean" parts for two songs. Sami was feeling lucky, so we decided to do some hardcore vocals. We continued with Four Walls United and after a few tries, we finished Sami's vocals for it. That was it.

- Santeri

19.10.2006

More guitars. We had only two hours, so we recorded Riku's rhythm track for one of the new songs. Notice the GPB* Riku is using under his left foot. It's the original model, not the re-issue version that you see everywhere. We are also thinking of using it live, because it just makes the playing so much tighter!

- Santeri

*Guitar Player's Brick

18.10.2006

Today I was totally frustrated, because on monday my voice was really bad. Luckily today I had a better day! :) I started with Four Walls United, but the hard drive crashed (I think I have some bad karma etc...). After we got the computer working again, we recorded the whole song :) After that we tried Body Open Wide but it didn't work, so we decided to record screams for Ruins. After a while I was totally exhausted but I wanted to try the starting scream for Flow of Fortune. As you can see from the video (be careful with your levels, it's loud!), I was REALLY tired, so we called it a day. Thanks to all the fucking idiot customers at my day job, who maybe helped me today to find the right anger and attitude for the songs :)

- Ari

16.10.2006

First vocal day. Well, actually it was a vocal soundcheck, because Ari's voice was not working properly. We recorded a few takes and decided to quit. The microphone we used was a Shure SM7B. It's a dynamic microphone designed for broadcast use, but in "percussive" type of vocals it just rules. Even Michael Jackson knows this! Rest of the signal chain was a TLA 5050 Ivory II tube preamp into RME Fireface 800.

- Santeri

15.10.2006

We recorded the two missing bass tracks and some nasty sweeps with OP.

- Ville

12.10.2006

Today we recorded Sami's missing rhythm guitars at Studio Dauntless. Sorry, no photos this time.

- Santeri

8.10.2006

At 1 pm me and Ville continued to record the guitars with Riku. After some time OP and Sami joined us. We recorded and we recorded. At the end of the day we had seven songs out of ten ready. So, our plan failed. But was it a good plan anyway? We will continue the guitar and bass sessions at Studio Dauntless. It's not really a problem, because we don't have to find the same spots for mics etc. Shit, we could even record in a moving trailer if we wanted to!

- Santeri

Producer's note

In the morning, Ari left the gas leaking from the grill probably with the intention to kill us inside the cabin and/or blow up the whole thing afterwards.

7.10.2006

After waking up in the morning we listened to the song the guys were recording before they went to sleep. It was nothing to write home about. We all agreed that it should be deleted and recorded again later on. After some warming up, we continued recording.

We did some "Miami Vice slides" and other cool stuff to spice up the songs. The "perunakellari-Nintendo" part was also very interesting! Not to forget "lottoarvonta" part! We also visited the Vääksy city and bought some more sausage.

Later in the evening our mixerman Ale visited the cottage. It was nice to talk meet him and talk about the upcoming mixing process. Of course we also had our gear wanking conversations. I could talk about gear all day long. Really? No shit.

Producer's note

Sami and Riku did a fine job with the guitars, both finishing about halfway of the album. Sami got all frustrated after a few tracks and fled to the sauna, but returned some hours later and eventually even completed the song he had been trying to play for the whole last night (you read about that earlier). Furthermore, neither of the guitarists had the urge to do anything stupid with the arrangements - after all, that's the bass player's job. Points to both guitar players, equally.

The focal point of the day was to record the bass for five tracks. OP is actually a guitar player, but he didn't have any problems fitting the bass lines in, be it simpler or more complex stuff. We also experimented with some curious bass tappings and nasty licks. What the heck, it's only the bass. Points.

What happened apart from the recordings?

Ari arrived quite early in the day (considering his usual weekend schedule) to heat up the sauna. Of course because of the rain and the fact that someone had forgot the shelter, he only had wet wood to heat it up with. Everyone tested the sauna several times during the evening, and the bravest swam in the lake a couple of times (it's October in Finland, remember). Riku had passed out well before Sami and Santeri finished the last track of the day, which was around 2am. Santeri went to sleep, while Sami opened up his bottle of jaloviina, consequently passing out a few hours later. Sami woke up again around 5-6am. Eventually we all gave up at 7am and decided to "call it a day".

Deathroll (as listed by Riku, Sami, Ari, OP and Ville)

- 74 bottles of beer
- 10 bottles of light cider (Ari drank these)
- 6 bottles of lonkero
- 2 bottles of rum
- 1,5 bottles of whisky
- 1 bottle of jaloviina
- 1 bottle of red wine

Drummer's note:

Ville ate 18 sausages during the weekend!!!

6.10.2006

We had a plan. It was to record all rhythm guitars and bass in one weekend. We packed our stuff and drove to Lahti to pick up Ville (producer) from the train station. After some serious confusion in Finland's Chicago, we headed to the countryside. We arrived to the cottage at around 7 pm. I started to set up the gear and Ville started a bass workshop in the kitchen with OP. Their monitoring system was interesting: an iPod connected to a Peavey guitar combo!

Producer's note (live at 8 pm)

We had a successful bass workshop with OP. Now we can concentrate on grilling sausages and drinking beer until Santeri is finished setting up his studio equipment. Then, we can observe Sami playing guitar and grill more.

We didn't have any real amps with us. We recorded a clean DI signal (guitar plugged to the instrument input of RME Fireface 800) and used PODxt (thanks Matias!) for monitoring. The guitars will be re-amped later at Studio Dauntless with real tube amps. Not familiar with the concept of re-amping? Read this.

We started to record the rhythm guitars and continued until 3 am. Everything sounded tight. After a long day I needed some sleep. The other guys seemed to have a great vibe going and wanted to continue recording. I went to sleep and Riku took my place as an engineer. Ville gave up at 4.30 am. Sami, Riku and OP went to sleep at 6.30 am after they had recorded Sami's guitars for one of the new songs.

- Santeri

25.9.2006

The last day of the drum sessions. We listened to everything we had recorded and checked all the crossfades etc. Boring stuff. At the end of the day I had two DVD's on my hands. The work will continue at Studio Dauntless.

- Santeri

24.9.2006

Ville was not present today, because he had some "commitments" in Sweden. We started with the easiest song of the day, Flow of Fortune. It was pretty easy and we moved on. Next song was Sickest Victory. How can it be so difficult to play a song that was written two years ago? Because it's faster than before? Maybe. We did seven or eight takes and finally got everything in order. After all the sweating I was hungry. Everyone agreed that sunday is the official pizza day. I have a word of warning to all the drummers out there. Never eat a whole pizza when recording drums. Luckily I knew this BEFORE eating the pizza.

Back to the studio. We had one more "official" song to go, Blindfolded Solutions. It was almost as hard to play as Sickest Victory. I was pretty sure that on our next record the drums will be played by Mr. Midi! Well, maybe not. We recorded one more song, a short bonus track. We are not sure yet where we are going to use it. Time will tell. I also did some drum editing during the day just to lear Pro Tools (I'm a Cubase user).

- Santeri

23.9.2006

No more gear wanking in the drum sessions. We have to get the drums done. The day started with Ville complaining about his hangover. Sami was nowhere to be found. Ville tried to reach him with no luck. Finally Ville managed to reach Sami and found out that he was still at home and suffering from hangover. Who would have guessed? I decided to start the playing anyway. Luckily, I had brought the demoguitars with me (played to a click of course). Now this is important. If you have the possibility, always program your click tracks before the studio. Everything will be easier that way.

I started to play Four Walls United and it was going pretty well, but I had to play it many times to find the right "drive". Finally I found it and nailed the song. After it was done, Sami arrived to the studio. Right after that we went to the grocery store to buy some food. Sami ate his meatballs and was in top shape again.

The oldest song of the album will be Body Open Wide (aka Buddy). It was written back in 1999. After playing the song for seven years without a click track, it was pain to get it right. We also decided to change one part of the song (known as "yläaste-blast") in the last rehearsals before the studio. Sami seemed to have a vision about the part, but I was totally lost. We tried many different approaches and finally found the right one. I was being sceptic at first, but finally had to agree that it sounded much better than the "yläaste-blast" you all know! It sounded pretty good actually. One more reason to buy the album! After some 'editing puzzle' it was done.

We moved on and recorded two completely new songs. These songs will be the most straight forward tracks of the album. Not much more to tell about them at this point. It was time to leave the building.

- Santeri

22.9.2006

Today is the day. We will start the recordings of our still unnamed album. I packed my drums and drove to the studio. After some waiting the studio owner Jukka Varmo arrived. I set up my Tama Crestars and had a little discussion with Jukka about the microphones we are going to use. I brough some of my own microphones with me: Electro-Voice Co4, Sennheiser E602 and a matched pair of Röde NT5's. After a while drum tech Junior (Mannhai, Bleak) arrived to tune the drums. He did it very quickly and everything sounded great.

We decided to use five microphones for the cymbals, because our mixerman Aleksanteri likes good cymbal separation. Most of the microphones were Röde NT5's. We aimed them away from the snare. It was not very hard to decide which microphone to use on hihat, because there was a Neumann U87 available (I prefer large diaphragm condencers on hihat). Everything sounded balanced, so we moved on to the close mics.

My snare drum is a good quality Sonor metal piccolo. I have recorded it many times and I know that Shure SM57 doesn't sound very good with it. I have never used any Audix microphones, so I was eager to try them out. So, first we tried the Audix I5. It sounded good but I also wanted to try my EV Co4, because I have gotten some some great results with it in the past. EV was a clear winner this time. It seemed to have that "grit" that I really like. For the bottom we used the Audix I5. For kick we chose Audix D6. It just sounded great with a lot of definition and "click". I also wanted to use Yamaha Subkick. It's a strange looking sub-frequency "microphone" that captures only below 100 Hz area. It's better to use it for low end boost rather than EQ.

Thanks to Junior, the toms sounded great without any damping. Rack toms sounded great with Audix D1 and D2. For the floor tom, I wanted to use my Sennheiser E602 because I have had some good luck with kick drum microphones in it. Well, this time it didn't sound very good. Actually in Jukka's opinion it sounded so bad the he thought it was broken, haha! I agreed that we should try something else. Just for comparison, we tried the Shure SM57 - too much midrange for my taste. Then we tried the Shure Beta52 - it sounded shit. Then we found THE microphone for the floor tom: Audix D4. It was everything I was hoping for. Great low end thumb and with good attack!

The drum room is 30 m² size and sounds great. Jukka has put a lot of money into the construction and acoustics. He likes to use a pair of Behringer omnidirectional measurement microphones for the ambience tracks. The microphones were in a ORTF configuration right behind the drums. Lots of good low end ambience there!

After seting the levels and sampling the kit we were ready to record. Sami and Ville (our producer) arrived to the studio and right after that we started to record our first song, Ruins. It will be the opening track of the album, so we had to record it first. Things have to be in right order, you know? We recorded it four times and thought that it would be enough. No problems there.

After all the studio porn and playing we were hungry. Subway seemed like a good idea. One could think that after playing blastbeat for years nothing would be too fast. Well, the service at the Subway was. I was very confused. What are the ingredients of a curry soup? Curry. OK!

After eating the c u r r y soup we continued with a song called Shelter Equals Grave. We followed the same strategy as with the first song: record a few good takes and edit later. After 8,5 hours of work everything sounded great and two songs were ready. We listened to some music and for a while and headed home. At least I did...

- Santeri