FF2 nearly finished, and sounding groovy

recently listening to she is not alone by sonic youth, choir of tiny boys by the crayon fields, emily by joanna newsom, last night i dreamt that somebody loved me by low, banshee beat by animal collective and on a neck on a spit by grizzly bear.

and watching peep show via tv-links.co.uk

recording, vol. 5

the following concerning the weekend of 20th - 21st of january 2007:

saturday:

after arriving at the home-studio in tuusula and having a quick meal, ilkka and i started by getting the basics ready for recording my vocals; actually, i stood around while ilkka began the tenuous task of setting up two vocal microphones, one going directly onto one track dry, while the other was routed through a fender guitar amp, using the built-in reverb, and a third mic for the amplifier going onto a second track. once this was sorted out, and the vocal parts for 'ff3' were finished, we agreed that the vocal sound through the amp suited the song very well. we used the same setup for the rest of the vocal tracks, although bringing down the amount of reverb for 'i sway', which sounded good in the end, even with the singing in the chorus crackling with digital distortion.

sunday:

we were expecting samu to show up at about half-past twelve to start work on his guitars, toy piano and vl-tone, so we had time to record a quick mandolin take before he arrived. samu called me at one o'clock to tell us he had been held up as he'd got into a car crash about thirty meters from the studio, and was waiting for the police to arrive. luckily, no one was hurt badly, but the car was deeply dented in the side, leaving the drivers-side door sticking out at a slight angle. clearly fate would not have samu play his parts for the record, further demonstrated by a two-hour long powercut later that evening, that only rectified itself soon before the last bus to helsinki. he did manage to play most of his guitars, but the missing feedback for 'this just won't do' and the toy piano and vl-tone for 'ff3' will have to wait until later. probably next weekend.

-roy

recording, vol. 4

saturday was started with violins, once we managed to negotiate our way to the right side of tuusula from helsinki. everyone agreed that these violin-takes were the best we could have possibly hoped for, even in force field pt. 3 in which, true to our form, all the strings were improvised. next was roy and a nylon-string classical guitar take (with nothing classical about it); followed rapidly by the moment most of us started drinking, and thus, the possibly ill-advised intro for the record ("for sheffield") got recorded: violins, acoustic bass and electric guitar in the livingroom, a microphone in the hallway and another in the bedroom. the end result still sounded good the next day, so we'll probably keep it.

we left for tuukka's at around 2am in max's car, and stayed up 'til the morning. as we sat in the car, pulling out of the drive going back to ilai's flat, we suddenly realised we'd left samu behind, which turned out to be a bit of a strange situation at the door, explaining that "we sort of left our guitarist behind".

once we got back to the tenement, emily and ilai started by recording a ten-second portasound solo while max drove to korso station to pick up iina & jere. apparently pregnancy tests were on special offer at the local kiosk. jere played two loud guitar distortion tracks through something called the 'pepper box' (pictured above), and went home soon after. iina played some trumpet, essi played a bit more violin, emily sang all her vocals and played some metallophone with iina, and to wrap up the evening at around nine, roy played his last guitar-parts.

we still need to record roy's vocal parts, samu's guitars, toy piano, telephone conversation, vl-tone keyboard, mandolin, a saxophone solo and some portasound drumsounds. and that should be about it.

recording, vol. 3

last day in the big room..........accordion for distress and i sway, pianosteinway for force field #3 and saxophone for i sway by johannes...............trumpet for i sway and distress & toy sax for distress by iina........pianosteinway for force field #3 and metallophone for distress and force field #3 by emily.................steinway noise for distress by samu..........only vocals, strings, a few guitars and some percussion and portasound to go before ilai starts mixing.................everything done today, and the whole room cleared within eight hours, so i dare say things are going very well

recording, vol. 2

drums and bass on clicks done now, all four songs are sounding good, although 'distress' was done without any exact time. thursday was a slow day with not a whole lot happening; we did however get johannes' percussion for 'this just won't do' and iina's steinway for the same. jere finished all his guitar parts and samu played his vl-tone bits last night (friday), and we expect to get most of the horn stuff done today, including metallophones, toy instruments, accordion and more concert-piano.



today is our last day in the present spacious surroundings - all vocals, most guitars and the violins will be done later in an apartment building somewhere.

recording, vol. 1

most of our instruments moved around from one place to another, microphones set up, and when we started with the drums, bass and guitar for "this just won't do", with a click ticking away in the background, we noticed how much easier all this is to do than before. perhaps it's that we've rehearsed, improved at our playing or too tired to feel anxious. this first day was great fun though. in addition to the drum set and one guitar amp (the other one had perfectly logically broken down about a week earlier) we're using an ampeg bass-stack which is very nice.. ronn moss is here with us too, but he may be going on a bit of a holiday now as the studio has a steinway available. also, ronn moss has been having some trouble with his legs, some screws are loose and he continuously looks like he's about to fall over. in addition to the above, we've taken in various effects pedals, three keyboards, a 'cello bow and musical saw, a small accordion, two baby monitors, three metallophones and a packet of coffee.

this is all for now, more soon later!