23.-26.5 - bass and vocals

Samu and Niilo, ready to go. (Pics by Jussi Ratilainen)

Bass and vocals were recorded at the good old Fantom Studios with Samu Oittinen. I drove to Tampere at Sunday evening and spent the night sleeping on an airbed in one of the recording rooms. Yes, this is the glamourous rockstardom that kids are dreaming about. Then early Monday morning I drove to Valkeakoski to borrow bass from legendary Finnish bassist/metal journalist Aadolf Virtanen from equally legendary band Diablo. I have a brand new Mayones Be4 but we needed Aadolf's 5-string Warwick for some very special parts. Aadolf was also kind enough to lend me his Hartke cabinet and Ampeg head, so huge thanks to him once again!

First day in studio is always a hassle but we were lucky enough to get vocals done for two songs. Samu had some new über-great microphone which worked tremendously well. I apologize all you hi-fi nerds since I can't recall the name of the mic. Bottom line, if you want good quality vocals go to record them with Samu. On the same evening Finnish ice hockey team celebrated their world championship at Tampere but I decided to skip the party. Since there were no other Insomnium members around there was no real temptation for excessive alcohol consumption so I went to the local gym instead. Then back to studio to finish some lyrics and rehearse the songs for tomorrow. And a cozy night on the studio floor.


Googling kebab restaurants near the studio.

Day two started with setting up the bass sound. When you wake up you don't immediately want to start screaming your ass off so starting with the bass stuff is a better option. We tried both Warwick and Mayones and pretty quickly found the right sound. Basic stuff was done with Mayones and Warwick's lowest string was used in some rare occasions. I think I recorded two songs and then went to pick up photographer Jussi Ratilainen from the train station. Jussi is documenting our album making and hopefully we get some kind of video out of this mess. All these photos here are taken by him. By the end of the day we had something like 4 songs ready with vocals and 3 with bass. I drove Jussi to his brother's place, did some sports again and rehearsed the songs for the next day. If you've read so far you have probably realized that there are no crazy parties in this story. It's hard work, boys and girls.


"Hmmm... should I have played D or C there..."


"Oh God, how am I ever going to edit this stuff ready..."

Day three was the longest and most productive. I had a plan to leave on Thursday evening so we worked hard to make this happen. Samu spent something like 13 hours at studio to record my stuff and do some editing. Hard-working fellow and the nicest guy in the world!


"Pheww... I am not paid enough for doing this..."


"Ok, lyrics done by a guitarist, how am I supposed to sing this..."


"I pose here and pretend to growl like a werewolf."

Day four was just long enough for us to finish everything. Samu had to leave by 5pm and we were ready about 4:15pm. We were very satisfied with all the stuff recorded so I was in a great mood when I drove across Finland back home. Thank you Samu for great work once again, always pleasure working at Fantom Studio! Over and out.
-Niilo


Man and his Mayones bass.