Valkyrja Day 1

So the recording of the new VALKYRJA album has commenced. Without having received the pre-payment as usual...but what can we do, no point to waste any time.

We started out pretty calmly. The drums have been rigged up, tuned, tuned again, tuned again. Tried two different snares with different tunings. Nobody could agree which one to use, so we're taking that battle up again today. Not to mention the hours-long discussion on which key to tune the guitars in. I wish we had an independent jury sometimes.

Mixing and...Watain!

Ok, nothing much going on in this blog for quite some time. I just haven't felt the urge to say much because there hasn't been much to say. Everything is recorded now anyway and I'm working with the mixing right now. Have to say, it's sounding pretty good!

I also have some other news that might interest some people. The ones who attended the Watain anniversary gig in Uppsala might have noticed the audience mics on stage. I saw some people discussing it on a forum for example.
Well, here's the whole story: I had the whole setup connected to an Alesis HD24, a multi track recorder, all the mics, everything. The gig was recorded, but there is ONE flaw with the HD24, namely that if the power is cut, everything you just recorded is gone. GONE. And this is exactly what happened when the cursed fire alarm went off. The recording was GONE.
I've been looking around for a solution since then and today I found it. I've managed to salvage the entire performance, and what can I say, it sounds really, really good!

Now it's just a question of what will be done with the recording, and that's completely up to the band of course. Only time will tell.

Day 5

So, some days of no updates but we haven't been resting. Drums are done for 7 tracks and some more songs will probably be recorded as well.

Started with the guitar sound today. In line with the drums philosophy, I decided to go for exactly the same sound as on Dödens Evangelium. Unfortunately I didn't have the mic position and stuff written down, but luckily I have a good memory. Some fiddling with different positions and amp settings while comparing it to the tracks from the previous session that I was smart enough to make stems of and burned to dvds, and we basically nailed it! Renew ourselves? What for?

Day 2

Things are taking shape! Got 3 tracks of drums down yesterday and I spent the afternoon editing them together. Two more tracks done today. While we were aiming for three, it was definitely an accomplishment considering the complexity of these two.

The drums are sounding really good by the way, I've gone for the same kind of tuning that I did on the previous album.

Waiting for a new pair of speakers as well, thought they would arrive yesterday but I haven't heard a word. Hopefully tomorrow...

Day 1

The Ondskapt recording has commenced... Everything has gone well for some reason, a bit too well! Starting to wonder when the curse will take effect.

The guys showed up one after another, we started rigging the drums, miced up the kit. Lots of spot-mics this time around, three OH plus spot mics on the ride, hihat and splash. Had a little dispute over which snare to use; we found the perfect sound in one and everyone in the control room agreed. The drummer came in and said the snare sounds too "80's". Nobody else understood why that was a problem...