UNSHINE: Studio diary pt. 5: September ? November 2007 - beyond!!!

UNSHINE has issued the following update on their official Myspace:

"After the recordings, we continued (surprise) with mixing! As the album was recorded during several occasions and at two locations, we had a ridiculous amount of sound files here and there. Naturally, I felt regular concern and paranoia that thecarefully recorded files would disappear from the computer for example during my sleep. The only drawback during the whole time has been a mysterious breakdown of synth and vocal files of one certain song. Thank ProTools God for the automatic back-up, almost every file (excluding one single acoustic guitar track) could be traced back to previous sessions. Ironically, in the end, for some other reasons we even had to drop the bad luck song out of the album.

To my relief, everything we had recorded at our home studio, turned out to be workable stuff, i.e. basic frequencies were correct, used microphones and programs were of good quality and ProTools actually communicates with Nuendo! During this album-making process, I've often thought how much all those home studio purchases would have cost like three years ago. Probably three times that much! Hopefully the stock value of our recording equipment will increase in the future!

Mixing was done at D-studio in Klaukkala, in the very same place, where we recorded the basic instruments during April and May. Jarno "Adrian" Hänninen, studio manager, did the whole work with us. This means that he did the whole technical part and we exclaimed useful or sometimes less useful comments on levels, sounds etc. Naturally, from the beginning we have had a very clear picture in our heads of what the whole album should sound like. We also got some great help from Toni (from Twilight Opera) at some mixing and producing problems.

We kept several separate home listening breaks between the actual mixing sessions. This was very very useful, as home stereos often vary a lot (which I noticed) and then there are car stereos, mp3-players etc. D-studio has lots of excellent mixing tools, including good vintage-sound compressors, EQs', reverbs and some mystic NASA equipment which can do even more mystical tricks.;) Again, to my relief, everything we had done at our home studio, was of good quality. I had not done any cuts or increases on EQs' or reverberation etc. on the home recordings, just brought in the raw, untreated stereo or mono WAVs.

Although the mixing took quite many days, it was very much full-time work. In the end, it felt like that an imminent madness was creeping gradually in to our minds. During the last few days, my mind and restless dreams were about to explode from a sonic soundscape of volume levels, EQ puzzles and mutual balance between sounds, instruments, vocals, songs themselves and everything beyond. Due to this, before the last mixing day, we kept a refreshing 2-week ear break, in order to be able to finalize the process properly and sane. Despite of this, some of us unfortunately got slightly mad at the end, as you can witness from pictures and a forthcoming video.

The final moment of the whole album-making process was the mastering day and naturally it felt like an end of an aeon. And the beginning of a new one! Mastering was done at Chartmakers, where Svante Forsbäck (with whom we also mastered our debut) made his magic(k). Chartmakers studio has moved recently to a new location in the center of Helsinki. The main listening room, which has practically zero dB noise level silent, looks like a spaceship control centre (check out the pictures).

So, the album will be a long one...it is actually a theme album and it will be released probably in the beginning of next year. Before this, our website will be totally renewed and the new era in the history of UNSHINE will start...

Harri"