Last guitars and vocals.

So another session on its way a week ago during the first and second of August. Again Sami brought his gear to Turku and we camped out at Indigofloods practise room. The saturday was reserved for all possible basic stuff Perttu needed to get done. First of laying down the rhythm tracks, to ease the singing, to the couple of songs that still had no guitars. Fortunately both were older tunes, and Peb went through them with no apparent problems. Altough the PRS he was playing had just new strings put into it, and the G seemed to get fucked up tuning wise. Well, no solos to be laid down at this point, so it wasn't a major problem.

Vocals to all five songs left were our second agenda for Perttu. Tero was brought in to cover the rest of the rhythm guitars we didn't get done earlier, and he did a solid job once again. As continued P too, with the vocals. First take done, the man turned around, looked at me, "More pronounciation, aye?" Worded out what I'd been thinking. Nothing more to add after that, although Oceanfloor took two rounds to get right. So many words in it here and there, that Peb needed a breather in the form of Thistle Pillow Pt. II, to get the last licks of Oceanfloor right.

As Peb got through all the needed stuff, I left for a soundcheck of our own gig. Perttu, Tero and Sami were left to do some initial takes on backing vocals. We though Perttu would just need to hear what Tero was about to sing to see if they were right or not. One take or so, and then we'd nail them proper on sunday. Well while doing that, the guys actually managed to record complete and perfect versions of three songs without any problems. Tero had most of his stuff done on saturday also, although we had the whole sunday left.

That night the whole gang hit Rokkibaari. I was singing with 2x4 and Peb was handling the vocal duties with Uncle Foe. Sami and Tero took it easy, which is good considering they still had some serious work to do on sunday. Perttu had to leave sunday morning to some family thingmabo, but it didn't really slow us down, as the tradition has occured, that after each a gig heavy drinking is necessary.

So sunday morning Sami and Tero were up bright and early, and me, well, I got in the car, although not feeling too shabby. Tero had to do backing vocals for a couple of more songs, which was handled damn fast once again. A pronounciation difference between the two was corrected, to make the lines sound the same, but nothing really major that me or Sami had to take part in.
Last T laid down some of the remaining leads and solos, and we were actually done before two-o-clock. Starting at ten paid off, and we all got home suprisingly early.

May guitar session

So we got back to business on the 21st of May. We were supposed to start the wednesday evening before, but Sami got busy, so the plan was changed. We ended up cleaning the bands practise room on wednesday and kicking back a couple of brews. This time the original plan was to do the guitars at the bands practise room anyhow, so it was easier to just stay there for the night. Sami came from Vantaa bright and early, and we kicked ourselves up at about the time he arrived, so it was straight to business from the morning.

This was the first time we had recordings in the middle of the week, but as the thursday was a national holiday, we decided to use it for the project. Normally the guys would have had work on a thursday, but this was an exception. So our team consisted of Sami, me, Peb and Tero. As we only had one day, we decided to take care of as many guitar tracks as possible. The guys played really good like usual, and there actually isn't that much to tell about. Three songs, Riverhome, Thistle Pillow part II and Pouring Stairs from a Bottle, were handled if i remember correctly.

Again Peb amazed me atleast, by whipping out an old telecaster and a slide tube, and did a close to brilliant solo for Pouring Stairs. I had the initial though down, but didn't quite know how to end it yet, so we left that to simmer until next time. We used about 7 hours, for two guitars on three songs, so it was decent. And after that we needed to hurry, as we were leaving to see Lynyrd Skynyrd with P the same night at Helsinki.

The next meet is planned on 17.-19. of July, and hopefully we'll get the rest of the stuff done then. Two more songs are still lacking guitars and then there's the vocals. Knowing these guys though, me might not even need the whole weekend. Missing a note while singing doesn't seem to be something to worry about. Waiting eagerly for it.

Damn, it's been a while.

Due to logistic problems, the recordings have stood still for a long while. We've got two sessions behind us though and are slowly but firmly getting there. 14th of March was used to record the remaining drums and bass parts for the last five songs and the 21st of May we spent doing guitars for three more songs.

So first on the 14th of March.

Basic arrival at Vantaa, Sami's place when we got the crew together first at Turku. Little hung over as always and yours truly tired as hell from last nights work. So everything looked pretty basic. Drum tracks were first and there was a certain change in the atmosphere towards playing when Aki got started. We had only older songs left for recording, and it seemed like they just flowed out of the man. The guys have been playing those for so long, even second takes seemed trivial time to time. Aki pounded shit in with such efficiency, I don't know if it is supposed to be possible, considering we were doing a full lenght album.

Riverhome, Pouring Stairs from a Bottle, Oceanfloor and Rhinestone needed max three takes, so there's extra to pick from. Thistle Pillow (part II) took a little longer as it's the new song and has had some makeover done to it. Anycase, through out the drumsessions, the only thing Sami was doing was pushing record and yelling "Great, next!". So it was a blast to follow such a fluent work process.

For the whole session we had moved Peb and Tro to the next room, doing back-up guitars and vocs for A, so he remembers the song structures and every other needed detail. I was sitting with those two, and I have to admit it is always the coolest thing to watch them do their thing. Every note comes out virtually effortless, guitar or vocals, doesn't matter. And when you get to see the vocal harmonies happen right there next to you, it just blows you away.

Second matter on the list was bass for rest of the songs. I actually kind of stepped off at this point. I know Chuck too well to be acting like a producer towards him. He doesn't listen to my shit and I sure as hell don't listen to his, so we've got a mutual understanding, but it doesn't go well when working, heh hee. Perttu and Sami took over for the bass parts, as Peb is the one who knows the songs through and through, so he was there to see if all the notes fit. Sami acted as the official producer once again.

As the drums took for about 4-5 hours to record, we had either a couple of hours left of the saturday and more on sunday, or a long day on saturday and free time for sunday. Sami made the big decision, by announcing that he was up for a long day, so we could just go home after that. So they played bass for around 4 more hours and actually got everything basically done. Peb kept a watch on the notes, made small corrections and Chuck just kept slamming away. Afterward the poor bassist didn't even know if it was good or not, as he was so concentrated on playing. This far no big problems have shined through and Sami hasn't complained altough he too was a little bit iffy right after the recordings. But hey, we still have plenty of time before the release, as the albums official release date is "when it's ready". So if we encounter something someone is not happy with, we'll just plug C back in and get it right.

At this point though, seems like all the backgrounds are done, and we're a little bit closer to getting the album done. Tomorrow more on the guitar sessions on May.

Gtrs and voxs for the second set

So we had some excrement get in touch with a fan again last sunday. Yours truly hungover pretty bad from an awesome Tool-cover gig I saw on saturday, and the Indigo-people of choice Peb and T in mint condition. The agenda was guitars and vocals for Retreat and ElPez, with Samu recording, Sami occasionally supervising and then me grapping the wheel as S&S had to go celebrate fathers day.

The guitars we did couple of weeks ago were good, in terms of what Peb had rammed in. Tero's parts were done in a hurry, so those needed a little check-up. And they were actually done over all of them. Peb patched in his parts pretty easily, and then Tero took his turn. All though, I might not have been in the best possible shape, i still made a personal note that everything flowed a lot better with just two guys there. With all four of them fuzzing around there's a whole lot of nonsense flying in the air. This time everyone was more focused and everything was just easier all together. Tero did the Retreat parts easily and even picked up an acoustic after a pretty definitive conversation with Samu:
- What kind of a sound are we lookin' for?
- Something kind of on the acoustic side.
- Well, nothing sounds more acoustic then an acoustic guitar...

Samu had to leave a little after three, so we were left on our own after that. We got most of the guitars done by then though. A huge solo by Peb was but in at the last minute before Samu left though. After hearing this one, you surely can't say there isn't fast-as-f*ck fingerworks on the album, altough it might be in a highly sarcastic manner. And P did it twice. On top and intervined with each other. It sounds messed up. And damn brilliant. We must have listened to it afterwards like twenty times or something... It's genious, and you won't even know what hit you. It's like trainwreck, but in a positive manner. I can't explain it. Or emphasize it enough. You propably got my drift by now though.

So after Samu was gone, we went to the vocals. Retreat was a run through. The guys have played it for years, so no suprises there. Both of them, T & P sing the whole song through, and we did some minor operations on Tero's vocal harmonies, to make them even more interesting. ElPez was a bit harder, as it needed some drastic changes in the feelings interpreted, but it didn't take P that long still. Going on from a full throttle grunt to an easier mellow mood in a second or so isn't as simple as it might sound.

Last but least, there were some forgotten clean guitar parts by Tero, so we tackled those with a Schecter hollow body, altough the guys did have slight problems with the heavy string set. The Schecter just has a more warm and full sound to it than Tero's PRS. The PRS is more... ...lirputtelua... don't know the word in english. There probably isn't one actually. Perttu even brought his own axe with him for the first time to tackle the forementioned solo, because he needed the flexibility for the strings. Anyhow, the last guitar parts for Tero proved out to be a little troubled, as the solo was a damn hard one. An idea of layering it with two a bit different sounds was thrown on the table by Peb, and it actually sounded really nice, with the long notes still going under each other. At this point the clock was tickin' around 7 p.m. so everyone was getting tired and the last part of the solo was just too much. We got it almost clean, with just one miss on the very first note, but then phychic meltdown was inevitable and we just decided to call it a night after 9 hours of work.

With only a few sips left of their whiskeys, we hit the road with the one guy that was hungover in the morning now being the only one able to drive. Got the first grub of the day at around 8.30p.m and then hit home at 11p.m with Tero still working on some investment-money-whateverhedoes thingmabo in the car and after a bottle of Speyburn. A full days work, I can tell you that much.

Second set of songs

So we got at it again last weekend. The big break was due to the three song recorded last time being mixed ready for promotional/distributional use. I already waved them around at Popkomm a little bit, so hopefully someone will catch the wave that's going to hit their shores in 2009.

We got up an going 6.30 in the morning on saturday. A time that's not very helpfull for the success of the weekend... Arriving at 9.30, with a car full of tired rock-personel, we got Aki to work. Drum recordings started after the set was up at around eleven. Sami had bought a third tom tom to finish off the Kumu set, so we didn't need the extra hassle we had already done in Turku with the additional tom's, due to yours truly not checking on the needed number of tom's...

Anyhow, Aki was up and running, and as he got behind the set, things seemed to move as smoothly as ever. The man can play, no doubt about that. Retreat had gone through some changes, with some rhythm tricks added and some leads cut. The number sounded great and was done in an instant. The second song of the weekend was ElPez that proved out to be a harder one to get through. Most of the stuff was hammered through as we visited a local liquer store, to get some Zwack, but also some problems had emerged, as A seemed to get stuck on one of the drum parts. He was playing it ok most of the time, but it seemed to slip just a little out of hand. After a while, the decision to play it in as a seperate part, while the click just runs to his ear, was made, and the man nailed it in a couple of takes.

With the drums done, we moved on to the bass parts. ElPez to start with, proved to be a big one to get right. We started at 3 p.m. when Samu, our man behind the desk left and left me in charge, and then finished at 6 p.m. after three hours of struggling, with still some stuff to re-do on Sunday. A lot of hard parts to play, and a lot of wasted time do to my technical incapabilities and maybe some lack of recording experience. Recording and playing to a click is something I know from past, concerning myself, that needs to be really practised at home. When you've got to play in an excact tempo with no flaws, practising at the training place with the whole band just isn't enough, as most of the errors are muffled by the rest of the band. A metronome at home by yourself is a brutal way to hear how everything sounds, and I'd encourage playing like that to everyone who's ever going to be in a recording band...

Saturday was a wrap, and we enjoyed the normal brews and a new drink called Banana Zwack. Something Peb invented and titled the album instantly with naturally. Only the Zwack-engraving is missing from the banana-cup at this point, as it was added in the later hours of the evening.

Sunday morning Samu came up at around nine, and more bass was due. We did some demo-vocals in a hurry, just to get the song structures right and then bashed on with Retreat. Peb tacked along with the guitar, but I'm still not sure if that was the right way to go. Maybe a better demo guitar was in order, as the old ones that we used with the drums we're kind of a mess, due to an experiment with a fuzz-pedal. Altough the original idea was to get some real guitarwork done so we wouldn't have to use time in it later one, but as we later concentrated only on P's guitars they went in much more fluently, when there was just him playing, and almost nothing of the guitars played simultaniously with C were used. Might have been something to do with him getting the fingers strecthed out too though. Retreat went in pretty smooth, altough again when anything needs to be changed in the compositional part Chuck isn't at his best. The man's got his mind set on a pattern to play, and introducing new stuff doesn't always sink in easy, atleast with three other guys blabbering away on the couch. Note to myself: Bring the guys in in pairs from now on.

Samu checked out at noon, and we still did some guitars after that. P is an exceptional player even hung over, as it really doesn't take him that many takes to get something right. Altough this time we might have to do some of the stuff over, because stuff might have slipped by too easy. I kind of trusted the guys, when they said it was okay, and I think they might just have though the same about me, that I silently approved if I didn't ask for another take. We'll check the stuff out next time and do over what was left half-assed.

Tero rammed in some guitar work in a really busy schedual, and there might not have been much usefull there for the future. But as all his work was done in under an hour, so not much was expected, with all of our ears already a mash and a little bit of a fire under my tail to get to Turku for my radio spectacle.

The next date is set in two weeks, so hopefully will get to plug the leaks, patch in the rest of the guitars and then do the vocals and maybe even some extra curriculars too, with two new songs done in the end. An exhausting weekend, but hopefully the bases were laid down proper, so the concentration can move on to the gtr and voc stuff from here.

Getting there slowly

So finally we had the second session for the album on last Saturday. This time we did vocals and rest of the guitars for the three songs we started last time. The tunes are Terra Fungus, Kutteri and Rats and Hatchets (or Hats and Ratchets, I never remember which way it is with the song). We started a little after twelve and got done at around six, so everything was done fairly fast.

First of we handled the rest of Tero's guitars. Those got done real fast, even before Peb got to the studio. Nothing really to discuss about them, same sounds and guitars were used as last time. There's a part in Kutteri where Tero wanted the attack of the guitar sound eliminated with a volume trick. Last time we were at the studio, T tried a volume pedal, then this time a take with just the guitar volume knob was done, and then we talked about making it work artificially with a computer. After a minute we decided on the guitars volume knob-take. It's got a natural touch to it, and that's something all of us wanted to keep, so although the transition might not be as smooth, it still sounded the best in that aspect.

When Perttu arrived, he jumped right on the hot seat and first of we tackled a piece of Kutteri that has a guitar melody that's matched with a vocal melody. We left it out on purpose last time, as P still wanted to fine tune the thing. This time he first hammered in the guitars and then started with the vocal performance. And absolutely nothing to add to the new melody and vocals. The whole thing now ends on a big note that everyone will surely remember, no way to explain it, but you'll know it when you hear it. P went all out on it, and it works like f*ck.

The vocals went in smoothly altogether. Little bit of tuning on pronunciation, as Perttu has a habit of mumbling stuff a bit on purpose to make the melodias more fluid. I just intervined with some stuff that wasn't making any sense anymore, but it was just something like a couple of lines here and there. About singing in tune, well, the man knows best himself. A few takes were just trashed straight away when P wasn't satisfied with'em. And I mean he still sings a helluva lot better than most while having a bad take. I though he might need some time to get his voice open, but Sami put it the best: "I don't hear the difference with the first take and the last, he sounds damn great all the time.".

The most inspirated thing all day came between some singing takes, as Sami was smoking a cigarette and Tero started jamming on an acoustic. Peb grapped a lapsteel and as Tero played an acoustic part of Kutteri, Perttu just started to improvise over it. Sami came back, we plugged the lapsteel in and Perttu nailed the little theme part with a couple of takes. "There we go, first time ever I played that instrument" was his comment afterwards. Straight on to the album - not bad.

After Peb was done with his vocals, Tero did his two vocal parts in a flash. It took a couple of takes to get his voice and mouth properly open and everything was smooth sailing from there on. The final guitar for the vocal/guitar-melody part of Kutteri was added by T, now that he finally knew what Perttu was playing. Last but not least Perttu rammed in some baritone guitar to get the songs really going. As Kutteri is probably ending up as the starting track, we really spiced the beginning, so that when the track starts you'll damn sure know that here we go.

We talked about some acoustic stuff that needed to be played, but no acoustics were in the right tuning. I actually kind of missed what happened next, but I got the image that the guys just kind of decided that Sami could play them in. It's just a few chords to be strummed in the background every here and there to add character, but still, it seems to me there might be something remotely resembling trust forming here...

On the ride home, me and P went over some cover ideas. It got a little out of hand naturally, but submarines, cities taken away by the floods and the magnetic senses of the hammerhead sharks were gone through. To quote a song everyone should know: "Learn to swim."

First recordings done a while ago.

Damn, the days just seem to roll by when it's summer time. So we actually had the first recordings already a week or so ago. We took two days with the crew saturday and sunday (7.-8.6) and laid down drums, basses and most of the guitars for three tracks. Those tunes were Kutteri, Terra Fungus and Hats and Ratchets.

For once we got to start in time, as the guys arrived at Vantaa on 10.30 Saturday morning. One missed turn took the extra 30 minutes but no harm there. Toni, Perttu and Aki had taken the day to lay down the basis. Toni and Aki were the ones officially playing and Perttu was there just to strum along so the guys have an easier time to remember where they are in the song.

We were recording actually at Sami's home field, Perfect Sound, which proved to be an optimal place atleast if you ask me. The drum set, a Kumu, sounded awesome and everything was set up so that things seemed to flow better than I've ever seen recordings go. Aki first set up the drums for an hour and then he banged the song to the computer within three hours or so. No major promblems or not much to point out there. The man knows his job! Some rhythm changes seemed to be a little difficult but that was all.

Chuck handled the bass parts with almost the same precision. Which was actually a little suprise, as I heard he had had a hard time during the pre-productions last year. The silly sod had practised I'm guessing. The only hard times we had were when the songs needed changes or when we had to tone donw the playing to fewer notes. The man really seems to have a hard time pluggin' just a couple of notes here and there, but after a while we actually got to record the fewest notes ever in an Indigoflood-song in the middle part of Kutteri, and Perttu actually added to the equation the next day with just some chords strummed. Are we loosing prog here or gaining dynamics? What the hell, atleast it sounded awesome!

Before 07.00 p.m. we got done for the day and Aki headed home as he wasn't needed on sunday anymore. Me, Peb and C enjoyed a few brews and some pörpön as P calls it (cheapest possible bourbon, that is), and watched a T. Waits DVD.

Sunday started at 10.00. Tero was supposed to be there at 10, but he was a little late, so we started with Perttu's guitarparts. No problem there. Not much to say there. The man's a fuckin' metronome with the rhythm parts even in a massive hangover. Kudos to the bastard, that's what practise seems to do to a man. The official sound politics are still a bit open, as we just recorded the line signal and used computer generated amps to see what would sound best - small studio, limited resources = every trick is allowed if you ask me. Some Mesa Rectifier, Marshall JCM and Vox were atleast tried out, Sami has the specifics as he was the one turning the knobs. And the guitar changed from a Heritage Les Paul on the rough parts to a Schecter semi hollow body on the cleaner stuff.

I have to say that I though there would be some more messing around with the guitar sounds, but Mr. Sarhamaa had the whole shabang figured out. He's been working that studio for so long that he seems to know what fits where and when, so I decided to just bug out when everything was going smooth.

Tero tagged along actually before 11.00 in the morning too, so as soon as Peb was done, we got to Tero's guitars. He had a bit of a hard time getting in the mood after the long drive, but after a beer or two the man got in the zone. And as everything in the songs was pretty much decided beforehand, we basically just watched the music flow out of him. His own PRS-guitar was the main instrument and for the hard hitting stuff we relayed again on the Heritage Les Paul. Tero is definitely a more feeling based player than Perttu, so we needed a few more takes and he has also had the "pleasure" of cutting down solos, so some stuff needed to be settled on those matters, but altogether everything went down smooth once again.

I don't have the ears for for the perfect tempo or pitch yet, so it had been on Sami's shoulders for two days at this point and as he had a long week behind him, his role as a tempo-nazi had already loosened so much that we deicided to call it a day just before Tero finished all his guitar stuff. So around 7.00 p.m., after picking up the gear, the guys headed home.

Next thing up is going to be more on my side of the fence, as the session is going to include rest of the guitars including the extra touches to the guitar stuff, such as effects, maybe baritons and such, then we're gonna have a brainstorm on the possible extra instruments to be added and then finally do the vocals. Hopefully we get it done in a day with just Perttu and Tero needed, so beginning of next month we're hitting Perfect Sound again, to get a couple tracks completely done, so I can start looking for business partners for the future.

P.S. There were pics taken too, so as soon as Aki send them to me, I'll add them here too.