I just watched the new Triptykon video for the song "Shatter", and I'm completely speechless. That's why I decided to write this now.
Last Sunday I almost got a heart attack. I was staying in the studio after Saturday until the morning hours to patch together the files for the mixing. Everything went well, we got two songs ready to go, and then, the computer crashed. "So what", I thought, and decided to get on with it the next day.
When I woke up, I had a terrible hangover. How surprising is that! I went back to the control room, turned on the computer and went outside for a smoke. Having also had a chitchat with the studio maintenance, I was back in probably 20 minutes and somehow that goddamn computer still wasn't running. I stared back at the gray screen in disbelief, and suddenly, after a few minutes more, it started. I immediately checked that everything we did yesterday was in place and then ran the next project, which, uhmm, was...
EMPTY.
See, that's why ProTools does automatic backup saves every 10 minutes. In the latest version everything was 99,998% in place, so I was saved of the heart attack. However, these kind of moments are NOT the ones I want to have in a hangover. If ever.
Now, everything's ready to go to the mix. I still don't know how the hell the computer erased a project no one even touched that night. Somehow I don't care either. No files are lost and everything sounds great. I actually just played it to our record label, and they were left speechless. As speechless as I was left after the "Shatter" video? How could I tell? I'm not a psychologist.
Now you'll just have to wait 4 months and you'll hear it too. Meanwhile it will probably be mixed and mastered.
So, what DID we do during those 4 mysterious days in the woods? Let me tell you in short:
Thursday, October 7th (day 19)
Travel party:
Me (me)
Jukka (engineer)
Jules (producer)
Riku (janitor)
Sometime during the afternoon we packed our van (no, we don't have a van, it was our friend's van, capisce?) and drove to the middle of the forest in Southern Finland. The exact location will remain a mystery to you, maybe we'll launch a competition about it or something. It took some 4 hours to get there with all the stops we had for taking a piss and buying more beer. We bought lots of it. And maybe some food too, I can't remember.
When we got there, it was already dark. It was very interesting trying to get all the expensive studio gear from the car to the cabin. Luckily we have insurance. Or I don't know if we do.
When we were finally inside the cabin with all the gear, I realised Jukka had somewhat exaggerated. When I said "let's build a studio in the middle of the forest", I didn't exactly mean a studio. I thought he would probably grab a couple of mics and his computer. Well, that's how professionals work. I'm not a professional.
The studio was built within the actual room in the cabin, and a hazy storage room was transformed into a vocal booth. One night I had candles and everything there, artsy.
We didn't record anything but decided to crack some beers open and have an overlong sauna session.
Friday, October 8th (day 20)
Damn, I felt horrible when I woke up. Not because of the drinking, but probably because I had this clever idea of swimming in the 10-or-so-degrees warm (or "warm") lake water, just the night before I had to start recording my vocals! Then again, that's how professionals work.
We had a long and exhausting day just with one song. That was #5 (only a working title), a real pain in the ass. Jules was working for his money and really pushed me to the limit with every single take, consequenting in me losing my nerves not just a couple of times.
When the day was over, I sent a text message to Henri saying that I quit.
Saturday, October 9th (day 21)
I felt horrible again. This time also because of the drinking, not only because of the swimming. Which I obviously had to do again.
I decided to change one word in the lyrics for #5, so we re-recorded two lines. That's not going to affect our sales in Japan, I'm sure.
We didn't manage to start that early this time either, even though we planned to. However, this was our most productive day. We recorded two other songs and the result was somewhat mindblowing. I started to regain my "artistic integrity" and decided not to quit after all - even though we had to use the spoken parts from the original demo takes because I couldn't perform them any better, hah.
During our lunch break sometime late in the evening, when it was already dark, we ate some ribs with our fingers JUST LIKE REAL VIKINGS. Though I'm pretty sure vikings didn't have Blair's death sauces to apply on their food. Which we also applied on the vocals later on to get some authentic pain to the sound.
We had an overlong sauna session and some of us swam for the third time. The lake was getting hostile.
We also recorded some two hours of acoustic music, which will not be released anywhere anytime.
Sunday, October 10th (day 22)
Because the lake was getting hostile, we decided to record that one also. We now have it going non-stop on every track.
The day was spent with song #7, which was clearly the song with the most feeling and the most opportunities to do some "vocal acting". We all had a really good time doing this one, although "really good time" probably shouldn't be the expression used with such a song. Somehow it all felt like a piece of cake and we could quickly move on the some football choirs and random mumbling. Henri ordered from us some more vocal acting, so later on in a very drunken state, we set our inner actors free. He will probably regret that.
The last scream of the album was performed while I was strangling myself (all credit to Mitja for the idea). As I'm writing this, obviously I didn't die.
There probably isn't much more I could tell you. The rest of our time at the cabin was spent with some serious boozing, sauna and with the ever-more-hostile cold lake. Ha, "Cold Lake", now I said it!
- Ville
