It was, as they’ve tended to be over the last few years, quite a mixed year. What did I do?
It began with a January full of Franck Media documentaries, Aurinkomatkat, Nanso, Tapiola, Unicef & Onninen were in the agenda. Your basic bread and butter audio post. Some Brink Helsinki and Fullmoon stuff in between. So all in all, January was a work month. My “Samsara sings the blues” -project, which had begun a few months back was also gaining momentum. I had selected the older songs that I wanted to make and started making tweaks to melodies, structures and lyrics.
February? My friend and colleague Anttoni was getting itchy at his b-to-b work and wanted to get back into post so we started to pow wow and see if we could do some things together. My badminton fever was at it’s height so there was a practice at least twice a week. Musiikkitalo documentary was mixed with Juha Hakanen and some Franck Media stuff also. Brink Helsinki’s KoneCranes films were starting to come into post (Guys made three films of KoneCrane’s different products). Jykä’s Walo project was also coming together at last, it having been in production for the last 5 years ;-). I had mixed all of the songs properly for the first time and we (the band: Jykä, myself, Speedy Saarinen and Topi Kurki) sat down and listened to it. Some remarks were made with some additional work looming ahead, Speedy and I decided to wrap it up together….SSTB songs all coming together, made “Start Walking”, the last song of the bunch.
March, still more work for Brink (KC Agilon, Koff), some conversions of Nightwish movie as it was made in Canada with their frame rate of 23.398. I mixed a shorter version of “Kuningas Litmanen” for Dutch tv and began the final stretch for the long suffering movie about Kalervo Palsa with Jykä and director Pekka Lehto. Teijo’s Alpha Indigo had had a somewhat traumatic experience trying to record their debut album by themselves, so I offered to help. I packed my pre’s and a selection of mics, Fireface, Orion32 and MacBookPro with Pro Tools and headed for Nurmes. We made the backing tracks for 19 songs in 2 days on 22/23 March. We also went through the 11 potential songs for SSTB and did ac gtr/el pno/voc demos of them. Teijo seemed to like them, so I was encouraged to continue. The original plan of me, Teijo and Sami Kuoppamäki got turned into a duo of me and Teijo. T drumming and keying, me guitaring and vocaling and we bassing…
April – More badminton, now 2-4 times a week. Some renovation at MusicWorks, Leri Leskinen’s studio (cabling, Pro Tools updates, plug ins) and Post Control’s small theater (adjustment of their 5.1 surround system). We started the final tweaks of Walo with Speedy @ PStudio. Blå Band, Benecol, Finnkino (tv & theater posts of the ad for their new Kuopio multiplex) for Brink. Sam Marsala: Trails of Mist released, a very satisfying ambient CD project came to a conclusion. Teijo and Riikka came for the last weekend, we did the vocals of the aforementioned 19 songs….(Teijo had some throat issues and needed to open up his voice singing the same song for at least 30 times…). Practised SSTB songs for the coming sessions, all pieces falling into their rightful places….
May – My birthday came and went, the less fuss the better. Mixed the Kalervo Palsa & Kuriton Käsi movie, which turned out quite nice. Started rehearsing for Walo’s record release with the band. Moomin documentary for Franck Media, Nina Pulkkis directing. Mixed the teaser for the upcoming Teemu Selänne documentary. As luck would have it, PStudio got some new blood equipment-wise. The MacPro with PCI-e slots would be discontinued, so I made arrangements with SLSX’s Ossi Männikkö and purchased 12 Core MacPro with 28 gigs of RAM and 3 Tb’s hard disk space. And while at it, I also upgraded the other Pro Tools|HD system to HD-X as well, added an Omni interface, Artist -controller and a Genelec 7070B sub to pieni, bought Genelec 8040’s LCR to iso, moved the DynAudio’s to pieni and turned the whole setup around. I got the pieni arranged so that I could have both acoustic (with an added 16″ tom) and electronic drum sets, piano and a fully functioning 5.1 post setup all functional at the same time. I also made with my trusted technician Kari Chydenius a wall of guitar amps where I could use any speaker with any cabinet via a special patchbay. And of course practised and refined the SSTB material and made a few things for Brink.