16.12.2006-9.1.2007 - DAYS 16-44 - Bellydancing, epic orchestras and Orrorrossomaroi!
Its been quite a while since we posted anything
A lot has been going on. Where should I start.
After getting the drums, bass and guitar done during the first weeks we started working on everything simultaneously. Accordions, acoustic guitar, lead/additional guitars, some vocals, percussion Tude did a great job on Balkaniralli emulating Bulgarian dancing girls and the jewelery / money belts on their shaking hips while they dance. This was done using an ashtray, Finnish, German and Spanish Euro-coins, and a genuine Turisas-hoodie. The same song also features the band of step dancing chimpansees well, at least in Jannes ears its really supposed to be a group of partying people, but I have to agree that I really cant get over the image anymore when listening to the part. We also had our first guest musician on this album, Aleksi Aromaa, here to record some groovy double bass on the same song. You can check his site
here
Lisko proved himself unhuman again: as a person he might be a bit odd, but CAN HE PLAY!! He put down Balkaniralli in less than an hour and most of that hour was spent setting up microphones, arranging and producing. I have to put a video clip online for you later. You just look at the fingers running over all those black and white buttons high-speed and your jaw drops.
The biggest quest during these weeks has been the orchestration work. Many of the songs feature pretty big orchestrations and most of my time has been spent tuning those. I still have the rest of Rabbits to do tonight and then theres two songs remaining. Its a slow process, but the sounds are highly rewarding. It takes roughly a 12-hour working day to get about 1-2 minutes of material sampled. The system isnt completely error-free either, but I came to the point where Im getting more done using a bunch of workarounds instead of trying to get everything running like a swiss watch. One irritation related to this is that I need to bounce (ehm
convert midi into audio) track by track and in real time. With about 30 tracks of orchestra and 5-8 minute songs, not to mention that it has to be done both wet and dry (only reverb and dry singnal separated) which means double the amount of tracks well, you do the math. Im looking forward to the day when all of that is done!
I also had a brief meeting with the leader of a more classical orientated choir some days ago to check trough the material. Those recordings will take place in a couple of weeks and I still need to provide them some more material upfront, so Im definetly not running out of activities here.
Were pretty tight on time at the moment, but after some really depressing days I think I finally found the flow again, so at last the time pressure is starting to become a source of creativity instead of killing it completely. Well, been here over a month already and I havent really left the studio except for a few occasions and the weekly shopping trip to our local supermarket Manu, 100m away. (Theres actually a small gnome living here in the studio which we have started calling Manu. He does some nasty stuff, and but cant really tell you more about him now
) On christmas I was working until eight in the evening and then decided to take the rest of the day off and go to visit my family and eat some decent food for a change. The diet here would probably not make a food consultant very happy: The traditional Finnish dish: Maksalaatikko - liver casserole - every second day - well, at least you can get it with or without raisins (yes, raisins!), so maybe the diet isnt that unbalanced after all.
On new years eve we went out for a nice dinner in a restaurant, after which we had a few beers in a local pub while playing Trivial Pursuit. Finally Tude and I ended up at a nightclub and I found myself consuming a considerable amout of JD-coke. When we crawled back to the studio I managed to pour a full bottle of Schweppes Russian Mixer over myself trying to eat meatballs straight from the fridge while lying on the floor and being too pissed to stand up. I politely wiped the floor with myself and passed out.
What else
Olli came back from the States and we did some violin recordings some days ago. Fuck the guitar solos, indeed!
Have started out on clean vocals for 1st song and Slaavimaa and Hannes did some backing vocals today. These songs are really starting to sound like something by now. Thats the part I love the most when you are finally starting to hear how its going to sound after just keeping it your head for a couple of years.
Pinball:
I think the pinball just isnt as attractive anymore. Most of the time its shut down and someone has a round or two usually when Im having lunch as its in the same room Im working in and the noise is pretty annoying. The high score has been beaten many times and according to the official list written on a coffee filter, here are the results from the last weeks:
Me: 4.284.980
Tude: 4.718.320
Jussi: 5.472.980 (or was that Tude..?)
Jussi or Tude: 6.290.850
AND THEN:
Tude: 10.766.940 !! He made the second place on the ranking list in the machine with the initials FAC.
I have had to accept my defeat in being a bad pinballer and have spent my time writing music instead, a field in which I dare to hope Im worth more.
The pinball has been challenged by the XBOX and Pro Evolution Soccer 5 for the last weeks and Tude and I have had some real thriller matches in the middle of the night (excluding the Brazil-Finland game from last night). The best commentary language is definetly Spanish and so its actually very educational as we are learning new words here too, even if we have no idea of what Orrrorrossomaroi! means. We are constantly babbling, shouting, coaching and going mad at the players while playing, so I think a secret recording of our own commentary track would in fact be pretty entertaining.
If Jussi is around tomorrow, Ill tell him to upload some more photos for you guys so check back for those later.