I've been waiting for this day to arrive so long. Our first full lenght album is finally done after huge amount of work and it sounds awesome!
Yesterday Mr. Saksa had quite a bad day, I could say. He was supposed to do the last adjustments for the album, but suddenly his computer broke down. A brand new Apple computer, how is that even possible?! So, with few sweat drops on his forehead he started searching a new computer from his colleagues. Or actually Mr. Saksa is known to be cooler that cool in every situation. A true ICEMAN, unlike some ex-formula driver. :) After three hours of searching he found a new computer, but there were still some problems ahead. For some reason the new machine didn't recognize Mr. Saksa's screen size properly and he couldn't see all he was doing. But, around 8 pm he finally called me and said that everything is now ok and all the adjustments are done. Man, you can imagine just how relieved we felt.
This morning I went to Finnvox studios with Bob. We arrived there around 11 am and met our mastering engineer Mr. Jussila, who has worked with Nightwish, Chidren of Bodom and HIM back in the days. Before this session, Mr. Jussila has mastered only one of Edward's releases, our first demo tape in 2003. We had a blast during the session, because Mr. Jussila told us such crazy stories about music business' big names and how they laugh on their way to bank. The session lasted about four hours and everything went just fine. We left Finnvox studios with big smiles on our faces.
Tomorrow we're all heading to a cottage far far away to celebrate our first album. But right after that on Friday the 2nd of April we're starting our 2 months long release tour from RT Partyhouse in Järvenpää. Then it all starts. Make sure you don't miss that show.
Finally, I have a little time to write something here. I've been extremely busy during last two weeks and it quite frankly shows in my face. Just last week I realized that we're starting our spring tour in three weeks and we need the get the album and many other things done before the first gig.
But first, let's go back to the 6th of March, the day we took our new promotional shots. Our trusted (but shaky) photographer Colin Jameson took our photos at his working place in Espoo. We had a blast during the photoshoot and I'll upload some footage here as soon as I can get the material out of my camcorder.
Since that day I've been working (read: designing) my ass off, trying to get the following things done:
– Album covers – New posters – New t-shirt – New stickers and flyers – New website
Now, after many hours of sweaty sitting everything is almost done. We are mastering the debut album on 25th of March at Finnvox studios by Mika Jussila and then it goes straight to press, so that everyone can buy their own copy on 2nd of April, when our spring tour begins at RT Partyhouse in Järvenpää. In case you are just reading this blog and not visiting our website, here are the tour dates:
Fri 02.04.2010 RT Partyhouse, Järvenpää Sat 03.04.2010 Liberté,Helsinki Fri 09.04.2010 Glory Days, Porvoo (Acoustic gig) Thu 15.04.2010 Torvi, Lahti Fri 16.04.2010 Rocktown, Hämeenlinna Sat 17.04.2010 Monttu, Pori Wed 21.04.2010 YO-Talo, Tampere Thu 22.04.2010 Klubi, Turku Fri 23.04.2010 Kino Nights, Kerava Sat 24.04.2010 Blue Pool, Forssa Tue 27.04.2010 On The Rocks, Helsinki Fri 30.04.2010 Live Rock Cafe, Harjavalta (Acoustic gig) Sat 01.05.2010 Rock 'N' Roll Cafe, Lohja Fri 07.05.2010 Red Neck, Jyväskylä Sat 08.05.2010 Ravintola Rock, Kuopio Sat 15.05.2010 The Rocks, Savonlinna Fri 21.05.2010 Café Tivoli, Rovaniemi Sun 23.05.2010 45 Special, Oulu Fri 28.05.2010 Heven, Järvenpää
Last Thursday I went to the studio with Mikkis to sing more backing vocals. Mikkis finished all his vocals that day. Here are some footage of Mikkis singing quite high notes. :)
Since this week has mostly been about mixing and editing the album, I recorded the final backing vocals at our rehearsal place, so that our engineer, Mr. Saksa, can concentrate on his job.
If you're listening to Radio Rock, you may have noticed that there is this competition called 'Radio Rock Starba'. As soon as we get our album mastered, we'll take part of that competition with a brand new song, which will be revealed next week. The idea of the competition is to get as much votes as possible, so make sure you will vote us and spread the ED-word around. I'm guessing that judges will pick 9 bands to play in final which is to be held at On the Rocks on the end of May.
Our debut album is called 'Songs to Unchain Hidden Hopes'. In case, somebody wants to know the reason for that name, send me an email and I'll try to explain it. :)
At first, we're pressing 1000 copies of the album and these special edition copies are to be sold only on tour. So, if you want to get your own copy, come to see our live performance.
Here's the cover of the special edition of 'Songs to Unchain Hidden Hopes':
Here is the tracklist:
1. Born Again 2. A Life to Be Unreal 3. Hope for the Best 4. Open My Eyes 5. Back Home 6. Try to Make it Last 7. Way You Are 8. Side 9. Long Gone 10. Wake 11. How the World Ends to Me
I'll tell you more about this whole release thingie next week. Take care boys and girls!
It was about 11 am when Mikkis picked me up from my apartment with our brand new bling-bling band wagon and I was already shaking in my boots. I had been more than anxiously waiting for this day to arrive: A day to record lead vocals for the upcoming album. For those who don't know that much about me, I have to say that everytime I'm truly looking forward to something good, strange things happen to me mentally and physically.For E.G. I can catch a cold if I just happen to think of it. In a nutshell, I'm the kind of a guy, who is always overexcited and in my case, the exitement always ruins everything. So, there a was, sitting in a car with a sore throat, partly mute and unable to hear properly because of all the ringing in my ears. Some might say, I looked pretty pale too. :)
We arrived to the studios around noon and I started warming up my voice. Soon I noticed that because of all the exitement that I've been having, I couldn't sing properly. The higher notes where totally gone. To get something done, we decided to start with some easy, lower vocals for verses. After two or three hours of singing, I finally got myself relaxed a bit and we could start doing the parts that required higher singing.
The day was done after 5 hours and man, did I feel down. We got like three of four verses and few choruses done and I wasn't that pleased with my own sound, not at all. I was so stressed out that once I got home, I went basically straight to bed and tried to get some sleep. While sleeping, I saw a dream of myself dropping down an elevator shaft with a strange mammals in my arms. Where is Mr. Freud, when we need him?
Day 2
I woke up at 10 am and suddenly noticed that my voice was working a way better than the day before. This time I drove alone all the way to Hämeenlinna and sang Soundgarden songs the whole way there. I'm so used to sing when I'm driving that I don't even notice it anymore. Still, it must be hilarious to see a man inside a vehice screaming his ass off while waiting the traffic lights to turn green.
Once I got to the studios we started recording right away. First we did more lower vocals for verses to warm up. After a while, our engineer Mr. Saksa said that maybe we could try the higher notes now. I was still in doubt, but went for it anyway and noticed to my surprise that everything was as it should be.
Because the singing wasn't so hard anymore, we ended up recording lots of choruses and higher screams without even having a break in the middle. Clock was about 7 pm, when we wrapped up. Suprisingly, we got done more than we had thought.
It's strange how one's feeling can change so much during two days of recording. When I left the studios, I had the biggest smile on my face. Nothing like the day before.
Day 3
On the third day Mikkis picked me up again. The feeling was already extremely high when we drove to Hämeenlinna. Lots of bad jokes and laughter. A plan for the third day was to record new vocals for couple of old songs: 'Try to Make it Last' and 'Life to Be Unreal'. Also, we recorded choruses and high screams for 'Back Home'. Other songs that we recorded were 'Way You Are' and a very sentimental piece called 'Wake'.
At some point there was only one song to record and I was feeling pretty releaved because of all the hard work. But as soon as I got myself a peace of mind, Mikkis and Mr. Saksa started doing something that I had no clue what so ever. While I was in a separate recording room, they made three alternative endings for 'Try to Make it Last' and didn't say a word to me. I was kept in a total silence for a long time. I just watched them laughing on the other side of the glass. They contacted me only when they needed me sing something they had just came up with. Oh man, it was weird. Those guys aren't to be left alone or some horrible will happen. :)
After the three alternative endings and the choruses of 'A Life to Be Unreal' everybody was feeling satisfied and we decided to head back home. Before closing the studios' front door, we saw Mr. Saksa pick up a big bottle of Leijona booze to go. That's propably a good way to spend a Thursday night, after recording us for three days in a row. ;)
Here you have it. I'll upload pictures and couple of videos here this weekend.
More posts coming next week, when we're recording backing vocals. Have a great weekend!
- Eppu (L.S.*)
* There might be a new artist name coming up when the album is out. ;)
I haven't had the time to write my latest studio diary. Fortunately, I'm writing this only two days late, so it isn't that bad. Now I have all the time in the world to tell you my story about recording acoustic guitars. Here I am, sitting on Leo's couch and listening Nikki Sixx's Heroin Diaries and drinking beer.
Like last time, I went to the Sound Supreme studios after working my ass off. This time, I was supposed to record some acoustic guitars with Mr. Saksa. But first of all, I wanted to listen some guitars that Wäiski did last time. Dudes!!! I have to say people that there are loads of new pretty fucking amazing stuff.
Well, anyways. After getting the guitar sound as it should, I started to play. It took me like 2 hours to play all the songs through. Then it was time to play some new stuff with many different arrangements. That took me maybe 2 hours more. Again, I'm satisfied with the sound and the whole recording session with Mr. Saksa. He had lots of new ideas, which worked heavenly well.
I guess that I don't have much more to say about recording the acoustic guitars. Next time i'm going to listen Leo's vocals and maybe do some singing myself. Now, it's time to have some beers and start getting ready for me nd Leo's show tonight.
Maybe I'll write something to you boys and girls after my singing session.
This week we're continuing to record the album. On Tuesday, Mikkis will go and play some acoustic guitars in and on Wednesday (or Thursday, the day isn't clear yet) it's Tommy's turn to record bass guitars for five songs. Next week, I'm going in to do some serious singing. We decided to take Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for vocals. Hopefully I don't get sick or lose my voice because of these butterflies in my stomach. :)
Last week we recorded demo vocals for each song. We came up with loads of new ideas that worked like a charm. Now the only thing I'm worried is, how the hell am I supposed to sing these new versions live. :) The reason, why I'm worried is that these versions contain loads of high notes and different kinds of screams which I've never sung before. :) Luckily, I have at least some time to practice before our release tour, so I don't have to shake in my boots during our live performances. ;D
I'm writing this only one and a half weeks after the day at the studio. :)
So, it was a friday afternoon, and after one hour of driving, taking a wrong turn and going in circles and almost getting lost, I found the place and we got down to business. There's actually not very much to tell about bass recording that I think would interest normal people, but let's try.
We plugged in the bass, and after tweaking the settings on my preamp (translation for mortals: bassomööpeli) Mr. Saksa made some mixing magic on the computer, and suddenly we had a pretty good bass sound that in my opinion mixed very well with the other instuments, and fitted the soundscape in general. We started recording, and during the 4-hour session we got about half of the songs done. Some songs went without much difficulty, and to others we had to figure out some new arrangements and stuff, but all in all I'm very pleased with the day at the studio, and I'm looking forward to recording the rest of the songs.
We'll continue recording in about two weeks, so hang in there and don't get overwhelmed with exitement!
My day didn't exactly have the best start. I had an appointment with the devil=DENTAL HYGIENIST! She scrape my tooth and my gums with such a wicked touch that I had blood even all over my face! Every time she stuck this tube (a suction device) in my mouth I could see that the color of the tube changed to red. Pretty sick dudes and girlies! But enough about that and let's get back to business.
I arrived at the studios around half past twelve. I recorder clean guitars for "Open My Eyes", "Side", "Way You Are" and "Wake" in about two hours. I had noticed that I forgot to record one lead in "Side" and Miggis told me that he had forgot to record one tiny crunch in "How The World Ends To Me". These didn't take much time. But then things got a bit more interesting. Mr. Saksa asked me "Have you ever played with a slide?". Sure I have but it's been like 5 years since I last even touched a slide. So Mr. Saksa had some ideas and we ended up recording some slide guitars for "Side". Nice!
And finally the true fun part started. It was time to record solos for "Open My Eyes", "Side" and "Born Again". :) I have always enjoyed shredding solos in a studio (and live of course). ;D So I just recorded the solos over and over again and really had a blast!
Now we had reach a point where all mandatory guitars were finished. So I stepped inside the room where the actual cabinet of the guitar amplifier was. Mr. Saksa turned gain of the amplifier all the way up and we recored some feedback guitars for few songs. It was a bit tricky because I had to get as close to the cabinet as possible without touching the microphones. In result my left knee was cursing like hell! I didn't have the most ergonomic recording stance. ;)
Around 17.30 I could finally take it easy. Everything on my behalf had been recorded. I had one last thing to do. I had to jam all the guitar stuff (which belong to Miggis by the way) in my car. Thanks Miggis for the help! ;D MoFo! xD I said goodbye to Mr. Saksa and started my journey Back Home. Now I think I've deserved my victory whisky!
And here I am... Drinking my whisky... And writing this legend about my third and last day recording Edward's début album at Sound Supreme studio... Tomorrow shall be a joyful day... ;) Party on people!
Once again my beauty sleep was interrupted at 5 am and my eyes were feeling heavy as shit! I had same routines planned for today as I had for the day before. And after really long one hour drive I finally reached the studios.
I had lead guitars for two songs and as much clean guitars as possible to record. Recording leads for "Side" and "Way You Are" took more time than I had expected. It took almost half of the whole day. After the leads were finally out of the way it was time to relax a bit by fiddling with the knobs on the Mesa Boogie -head to provide a smooth clean sound. No more headache from killer crunch sounds! ;D No I'm just kidding. All the guitar sounds so far have been just superb! :)
After four hours of recording clean guitars there were only few songs left which lacked of clean guitars. So the final recording day for me shall consist of clean guitars for four songs, couple of solos and some extra guitars à la Mr. Saksa. I'm feeling really happy and satisfied now that most of the work (on my behalf) is done. :) You can bet your sweet ass that I will solemnize this achievement with couple of classes of whisky in the evening! xD And during the next of course weekend! >;D
Tomorrow at 1 pm at the studios. And there shall be an ending to my bumbling around at Supreme Studios... At least for now... Cheers!
It's 5 am and the alarm clock starts to make fearsome noises. I feel myself a bit, how would I say this... pretty damn tired! Fortunately I had a good night sleep thanks to my almost namesake Mr. Whisky. ;) I decided to start my day off with couple of hours warming up before heading to the studio. At 9 am I finally reached Sound Supreme studio.
I recorded lead guitars almost non-stop from 9 to 17 (I had a 20 minutes lunch break and that was pretty much the only break). The chair I sat on really rubbed my ass the bad way. I felt myself like someone had executed serious ass-rape on me! But I managed to record all the main lead guitars for all the songs except "Side" and "Way You Are". We came up with quite a lot of totally new stuff with Mr. Saksa to make the songs even more massive. I'm very pleased with the results.
Most demanding songs were the two latest songs "Born Again" and "Long Gone". The reason for this was that these songs needed some composition and arrangements before I could record them. We did record demo versions of all the songs before the studio but I wasn't completely satisfied with the lead guitars in these two songs. But everything went without any major problems and it was really rewarding and fun to work with Mr. Saksa. So lead guitars for two songs, clean guitars for all the songs and few solos were still waiting for someone to record them. These recordings were left for the next day and the day after that.
When I finally arrived home I felt pretty damn exhausted. I had to do some other duties for couple of hours. Then I decided to have a few relaxing "malt-meals" and call it a day. ;D The next day shall offer pretty much the same schedule. Need to get some sleep and fast! Ugh!
I'm posting this one almost in real time, 'cos I brought my laptop with me. It is the second day for guitars and Mikkis is sweating his ass off right next to me. :) Distortion guitars are almost done and now it's time to do some clean and acoustic guitar tracks.
We arrived today at 10 am with my "Italian Stalion" ultimate super car, which worked like a dream.
Let's hope that we will get back home too. For some reason that macaroni nation didn't prepare their cars for Finland's cold-ass winter. Maybe they were too busy eating their lasanges. Am I funny or what? No offence. ;D
This time we brought our Mr. Sleepyhead Kalle a.k.a the photographer LEVOLA with us. As you can see, Kalle (or Colin Jameson what ever you might call him) was feeling pretty tired. He had a long night last night. All sorts of ugly/nasty things happened to the guy and trust me, you don't wanna know more. Basically, he was just drinkin' with Stevie Rosiecheeks, the guy that we'll tell you more later.
The whole day has been full of watching funny YouTube clips, eating microwave pizzas and giving Kalle a hard time. At one point, I was supposed to change strings for Mikkis' acoustic guitar, but of course I just had to mess that up too. For some reason, I broke almost the whole bridge of the guitar and man, was Mikkis pleased. ;D Maybe I should start thinking about building a career as an guitar technician.
I'm beginning to think that theres is something wrong with Väiski's belly. The guy ate two meals and is still feeling hungry. I guess we need to grab and extra, super-sized Happy Meal for the guy when we head back home.
Here are some photos from the sessions. More comin' later, enjoy!
My English might be a little bit rusty. Its been a "WHILE" since I've been on the school bench. I hope it doesn't bother you folks who are reading this.
First of all it was awesome to know that I could work with Mr. Janne Saksa again at Sound Supreme Studios at Hämeenlinna. Last time when we were recording our latest singles "A Life To be Unreal" and "Try To Make it Last" the sessions with Mr. Saksa were just great. So it was nice to go there again.
As well as Bob, I started the recording session with the new song, Born Again. It's gonna be one of the greatest songs from the upcoming album. First it was a bit sticky to play, because it's fucking -20 degrees of Celcius here in Finland. But after couple of nice, warm microwave salamipizzas I got warmer and could move my fingers on fretboard and start to playing song.
Next one was an old song called "Hope For The Best" with new arrangements. We did lots of new arrangements at the studio...HAHA... and the other guys don't even know about it yet. Let that be our little secret. It will be a suprise.
Then it was time to handle our newest song called "Long Gone". Mr Saksa and Bob had made so many new arrangements that I almost didn't recognice the whole song.
BLAA BLAA BLAA... I guess that's enough about the songs. I recorded five songs and that was it. Six songs left and couple of new ideas to try. It's gonna be HUGE like Mr. Trump use to say. If I have to say something... I would say that "I love the sound. It will punch you in the face."
I left the studios around 11.30 p.m. to Hellsinki. Pretty Scary roadtrip I would say. It was so close that I didn't fell asleep at the wheel. I had to make phone calls all the way to Hellsinki to stay awake. 00.30 a.m. I arrived to Hellsinki and then my dear friend called me and asked to go for a couple of beers... CHEERS MATES!!!
Next Saturday it's my turn again to play kick ass guitars at the Sound Supreme studios.
-M-
P.S. Sorry that I don't have any pictures to show like Bob. Maybe next time.
After Mr. Saksa had put all the mics around the kit it was time to do a little sound check and make sure everything was in order so we could start the recordings.
First day we had four songs to be recorded. First one we did was a song called Born Again. It has never been played live so only few people have heard it. It’s one of my favorite songs from the upcoming album at the moment. Up-tempo song with a catchy chorus and good melodies, what else do you need. We did some minor arrangement chances to the middle part of the song.
Next we did a song called Side. This one you might have heard if you have seen us playing live. We had made some chances to the arrangement comparing to live version. When recording the song we did a few more changes and some alternative arrangements from which to decide. We also came up with some new drum fills. I especially like the verse of this song because it has a nice tom-tom beat.
Then it was time to take the tempo down. The next in line was Way You Are. You might first think that it’s easier to play slower songs than the faster ones but it’s just the opposite. I had a tough time recording this one but finally we got it. Maybe computer helped me a little bit. And again Mr. Saksa came up with some alternative arrangements. We thought that the demo version had some pointless repeating of the chorus. We’ll see how it’s going to be in the final version. Don’t know yet. New drum stuff added too.
Last song of the day was our newest song which is called Long Gone. We have never played it as a full band. I’ve only played it with Eppu when we did arrangements to it and recorded demos for this album. It's a quite straight forward song with nothing unnecessary in it. Comparing to our other songs you could say it's a mid-tempo song. I Like the chorus and I think the verse sounds different from what we usually do. I remember Mr. Saksa commenting that some how intro part reminded him of latin music. That was interesting.
The time was 9.00 a.m. when I arrived at the Sound Supreme studios in Hämeenlinna. I had my drum equipment (cymbals, drumsticks, pedals, snaredums etc.) with me but the drum kit we were going to use in these recordings was already in the studios. Slightly after me our producer/engineer Janne Saksa arrived at the studios.
First we had to decide which cymbals to use. We end up using the following setup:
- Zildjian 14” K Custom Session HiHats - Sabian 21” AAX Stage Ride - Zildjian 17” K Custom Dark China - Sabian 18” AA Dark Crash - Sabian 19” HHX X-Plosion Crash
Then we tried couple of snare drums and this time we chose Yamaha’s 14”x7” Birch Custom Absolute. It’s actually the same snare drum I currently have in my live set-up.
Drum kit was Kumu’s birch set with following drum sizes 20” BD, 12” TT, 16” FT and 18” FT. Drum kit is handmade in Finland and custom made for Sound Supreme studios. Well, I guess this is enough of all the equipment details. I don’t even know who actually is interested in this kind of stuff. Maybe some other drummer, so this is for him/her. I also use Tama Iron Cobra pedals and Balbex sticks. And if you have connections to the above-mentioned companies I’m waiting offers for endorsement deals.
Last Friday and Saturday we got all the drum tracks recorded for the upcoming album. Everything went well and there are now few alternative versions of some songs. Bob had a videocamera with him in the studio and we'll try to update some video material here this week.
This blog is all about showing you boys and girls what is going on in the studio. In case, you found this blog by accident, here is the idea in a nutshell:
