Saturday, April 18, 2009

New York, New York!

Back in Helsinki. There's but a few weeks until the album comes out and every day is filled with excitement now. Gigs get confirmed, lots of interviews ahead, practising and configuring sounds for the tour... Spring is definitely in the air!!

The trip to New York was fantastic, although the result is a bit surprising this time around: we mastered the album both in New York and in Helsinki and as a result of a very careful listening and comparing process decided to use the Helsinki version. This kind of thing is quite normal in the music business and our trip was a resounding success anyway: in addition to the great and instructive mastering experience with Chris Athens it was nice to hang out in New York for a week and celebrate the finished album in Nobu 57, one of the coolest Japanese restaurants in town!

The mastering session was a great experience. Right from the start Chris proved to be a very cool and funny guy with a good sense of all genres and music in general. He liked the mixes a lot and put his full attention to the album as a whole. The end result maintained the basic nature of the initial mixes by being a bit on the dark side in terms of equalization and a bit quieter than some of the modern records being done these days. Every song had many delicate eq adjustments and analog compression to strengthen and support the overall sound. Here's a short explanation of the mastering process for those interested. In addition to the great mastering experience it was fun to stumble upon the members of Green Day eating apples in the kitchen of Sterling Sound with producer Butch Vig while mastering their forthcoming album...

The version mastered by Svante Forsbäck at Chartmakers in Helsinki was a bit more aggressive in terms of sound and volume. Svante also made a couple of distinct corrections to a couple of songs that he felt needed them. Some songs went through tape, some got parallel and/or multiband compression and so on.

We really enjoyed both interpretations of the source material and deciding was actually kind of difficult in the end. After long blind tests and listening we however ended up choosing Svante's version as a starting point and fine-tuned it with him for a whole day in Helsinki. When the final version was shipped to the record plant in Germany the feeling was once again TOTALLY surreal: over a year of album making had ended in a flash!

The album cover, artwork and layout were finished somewhere between New York and Helsinki, meaning a 36 hour non-stop Skype connection between our hotel room and Matti's (our graphic designer) office in Helsinki. Johannes did most of the work while me and Tommy just voiced our opinions every now and then — while our eyelids were still open, that is. The end result satisfied everybody. A white background, lots of fun photos inside and a whole new typography on the cover. Nicehh!

The rest of our trip was spent lying around in Central Park with brown paperbags in our hands during "the first day of Spring in New York!" as a local guy put it, spending some fun time with Tommy's friends living in NY, shopping a bit and of course listening to the new album in a lot of different places. For example "Time Machine" sounded great during a nighttime subway ride to Brooklyn, and "Rush" was a blastin' experience in pouring rain in the middle of Manhattan! The warm spring sunshine really augmented "Take You Home"... "Dey Don't" took wing in the bustle of a swarming crowd, and "All Hope" worked best in a dark hotel room. "Dirt" on the other hand really seemed to be in its element inside any rapidly moving vehicle with sceneries and landscapes flying by. That equals a successful country song to me. :)

Well, it must be admitted that at this point we're RIDICULOUSLY eager to receive all kinds of feedback concerning the new album. The first comments from Universal, the management, and other close acquaintances of ours have been confusingly positive without an exception! Hmmm... smells quite fishy when you think about it.

In the end, the whole album making process at times filled with exuberant perfectionism, could be best summed in a relieved quote that has been in overuse in our studio space lately, and which I clearly remember a sherry-sipping Johannes reciting in a very cozy coffee room in the corner of 9th Ave and 47th Street: "Hey, it's only music!"

Kari

12 comments:

  1. Nice! Interesting stuff here.

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  2. kivaa päästä mukaan levyn tekemisen "prosessiin" näitä lukemalla. täytyypä lukea myös vanhempia kirjoituksia

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  3. Mahtavaa lukea näitä päiväkirjoja, kiitos. Studiovideoita tulossa millon lisää? Kiitokset myös L.L.H.:n lyriikoista - nyt kun pääsee kunnolla syventymään, voi todeta, että mahtavaa sanojen akrobatiaa on tämäkin kappale täynnä. 17 päivää 17 tuntia 39 minuuttia ja 10 sekuntia vielä levyyn...

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  4. Samat sanat. Levy tulee olemaan ihan parasta!

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  5. keep going guys, you're the best!

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  6. 15 päivää, 17 tuntia, 15 minuuttia ja 12 sekuntia

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  7. jäbät rokkaa! uus sinkku rautaa!

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  8. C'mon party people, studio videos, people.

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  9. 14 päivää, 0 tuntia, 0 sekuntia = kaksi viikkoa...

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  10. Iiiiiih! Tän kevään odotetuin lätty!:):)

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  11. Moi ja kiitos kaikille viesteistä!

    Studiovideoita pitäisi tästedes ilmestyä viikottain. Saatiin Voice yhteistyökumppaniksi, joka meinaa sitä että uusi video tulee aina ensin Voicen nettisaitille ja viikon kuluttua siitä DJBB:n YouTube-kanavalle. Ekoissa videoissa numerointi saattaa olla Voicella toisinpäin kuin meillä, ei pidä antaa sen hämätä. Uunituore kakkosjakso tässä otsikolla "Part I": LINKKI.

    Ratikka-ajelua odotellessa!

    Kari

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