Rhythm guitars done

Woohoo! Finished the last bunch of rhythm tracks late last night. We actually re-did most of the guitar parts in the pretty epic track that’ll be the last track on the album. It’s a slightly slower song, but has some tight parts that are actually harder to play right than many of the faster riffs. Especially one of the really heavy riffs was kinda rushed for both guitars in the first take, slightly ahead of the beat, so we simply turned up the metronome and played it really nice and tight. Everything flowed nicely last night, and we also ended re-doing the chorus parts for both guitars: when we first recorded them, we were kinda struggling to get both guitars to sound both tight and 100% in tune (some big chords there, they can easily sound out of tune on an electric if you’re not careful) Last night, we nailed them down on first (well, re-)takes!

Having finished the rhythm stuff, we had a little live jam session in the studio with Jake on piano and me on acoustic, mostly improvising around a theme we have planned for the outro of the last song, and thus the whole promo – some of it may even make the final cut Just jamming around and having a couple of glasses of red helped bring our stress levels down nicely, and today we’re ready ad eager to fill in the blanks: first the remaining acoustics, and then the leads and solos.

We should be finished tonight!

Jari / Embreach

Quick status update

Bass tracks are done! Great job from Jaakko, considering this was his first time in a studio ever. Over half of the clean vocals are done, and we are currently recording growls for one of the tracks as the day draws to a close. Plenty of guitar tracks to do still, all the solos and most of the acoustic stuff etc. Looks like we’ll have to put in one extra day during the weekend, although we were planning on completing all recordings this week to be able to mix the album on Monday and Tuesday next week. If all goes well, we’ll be mastering the record on Friday next week! That should keep us right on track for a release date real soon now!

The stuff we have finished is absolutely killer. Everything is top-notch, from Jake’s drums to Sami’s vocals to Jaakko’s bass lines. Hopefully the guitar tracks won’t be bad either I actually recorded an acoustic guitar solo for one of the songs just today, a nice little touch.

I’m le tired now, but have to keep on going for a while still. Found a nice little Thai restaurant here in Hämeenlinna, the food and a couple of beers is making us a little drowsy right now.

Stay tuned.
- Jari / Embreach

Siso for the win

Recorded some geetars last night. Through Edu’s Krank first, but listening back to the tracks today, the sound was a bit too harsh for our purposes. We tried the Krank through 2 different cabinets (the Mesa in this pic and a Marshall 4×12″) but couldn’t find the sound we wanted. This morning we scratched our heads for a while and ended up switching to the Peavey 5150 head (“Siso”) and the Marshall cab with three different mics (Sennheiser 441 & 421 as well as a Shure 57) picking up the goods. The sound turned out great! Modern and clear. Think Soilwork’s Figure Number Five.

Jaakko’s currently getting geared up for recording the bass tracks. At first, he’ll probably be going direct to the mixer, with sounds dialed in from the computer. Jaakko has brought his brand new Gallien-Krueger head along as well, let’s see what will get us the best sound.

On this record, we’ll be recording acoustic guitars for the first time in Embreach history. On our two previous promos, there have been some clean electric guitars but nothing acoustic. We just set up the mic and should be ready to add some acoustic touch to the songs. My Yamaha had a nasty spike in the middle frequencies when miked so we ended up using the Charvel acoustic found here at the studio. Luckily, it was already tuned to D standard which is the tuning we’ll be playing the acoustic parts in.

In addition to the instrument section, everything has also been set up for recording Sami’s vocals. Must say, the couple of verses he just sang as a test sounded GREAT!

From the sound department,
Jari / Embreach

Ways, ways, ways

Another day, another practice session. Today, we pretty much finalized 2 of the songs (to avoid spoilers, let’s call ‘em Alpha and Beta) structure-wise. Now it’s just a matter of fine-tuning the guitar and bass lines, throwing in some mad drum licks and writing a couple of missing vocal hooks. Alpha is going to be an all-out, no-questions-asked opening track for the album while Beta is slightly slower and darker, possibly with a glimmer of hope thrown in for good measure.

Along with these two tracks, we practiced Gamma, which nearly wasn’t going to make the album, but after a couple of new ideas it’s now one of the best tracks we’ve ever come up with. It’s modern metal up front, but under the hood there’s a huge chorus full of despair (and not just pretty vocals) and a middle section that’s truly hypnotic.

Last but not least, we’re going to be polishing a true gem: Delta. We haven’t played this one in ages, so it’s going to take some practice to get it flowing again. A pretty epic track all in all, with great melodies to boot and an atmosphere hard to beat.

Tomorrow morning, I’m off to a luthier with 2 electric guitars, 1 acoustic and a bass in the trunk. By the end of this week, we’ll hopefully have all the songs in perfect working order, instruments fine-tuned to perfection and a relaxing and inspirational weekend ahead of us.

Unsurprisingly,
Jari / Embreach

The middleground of turmoil and tranquility

Today was filled with less panic and more balance in the Embreach world. Completed the structure and finished a new demo version of one of the tracks, and made versions of all of the tracks with the demo drums removed and a metronome click added for our studio drummer, for practice use. Next up: heading up to the summer cabin tomorrow for a couple days of relaxation and recording — so scratch relaxation Next update on Sunday, probably!

Hyvää juhannusta,
Jari / Embreach