“Armageddon March Eternal”
April 2nd
Reported by Ms. Jo: Posting a vocal studioreport for you guys. Today was the day in every way. It started out excellent and ended even more so. So fucking fortunate for me the guy I had the pleasure to work with turned out to be a vocal coach and an expert when it came to vocals and shit. He pushed me over the edge numerous times and made my work even better, polished it you might say. The dude’s a genious! I had no idea I could sound this good.
April 3rd
We just finished all of Jo’s parts (and I ended up doing some stuff as well, which wasn’t planned at all – but turned out excellent) and I’m very chuffed with the outcome. Jo might not be a fucken Whitney Houston of any kind, but that’s not the point either. She’s got so much fucken attitude put into her stuff, so much emotion and so much class… What vocal-coach (yeah, that’s what he is) Robban, myself and Jo accomplished this time around is nothing short of fucken phenomenal. She’s so much more varied on this album compared to HDCE, and she was varied even there… It’s just more of everything, different atmospheres, more aggression at times etc etc… It sounds like a bunch of different girls doing vocals for this album, which is very nice, but never does she fail to remain plain fucken Jo. I’m very impressed. Very, very impressed.
Robban is a hell of a guy and he really brought out the best out of Jo. I love that fucken guy and I look forward to work with him again.
All that’s left now is the bass and I’ll try to get Michael the last songs within a day or two. Now I just wanna lie down, wait for tomorrow or something when I’ll get the damn rough-mix so I can go over and type down all the lyrics for Statik so he can get them all into the booklet. And Michael’s got like 4 songs down already. 3 to go then… I need to send him some stuff though before he can move on with those, but I’m too tired to do it now.
April 4th
I heard a few more bass-parts today over the phone and Michael’s doing some very neat shit to say the least. He’s got 4 songs down and recorded, got the stuff he needed for 2 more today and I’ll send the last shit to him tomorrow. We are on a huge fucken roll here it seems and shit’s been going excellent. The only problems we have had has been on Michael’s part since fucken computers have been breaking down, monitors and burners not working etc. All that shit made him even more pissed and inspired, and as far as I can tell so far, it fucken will show.
Someone asked how we got in touch with bassist Michael of Evergrey for this album… Well, I have run into Michael at numerous occasions actually and we always got along well. I knew he’s a great bass-player and as he started dating a chick I know, and we had some beers, I just thought “why the fuck not ask him to play”. I think doing bass is boring, he can actually add something to our stuff, you know. Sure, I can do the bass and I can play it alright, but I would never come up with all these small things he thinks up as he’s a bassist, I’m not. I’m very happy he’s doing it.
April 5th
Robban called me up late this night and said he was pretty much done with the vocal-editing (cutting off noises not supposed to be there in between lines etc etc, you know the drill) and he was raving as fuck about it. It seems I’ll get a listening copy today that I can use to type down all the lyrics for Statik now when all the vocals are done. I’m so looking forward to hear this shit again. I just love Jo’s stuff. We are getting very close to completing it now people…
Dan just said he can hardly wait to get bass on this piece since it already sounds massive as the most massive shit you ever heard. Whatever that means, kind of, I think, sort of. Also, I just got a mail from Swanö where he said this about Jo’s vocals:
” I’m starting to get the right sound for her vocals now and damn, you are prolly going to beat the fuck out of me now but it sounds like the Evanescence-chick at times (NOTE: COMPLIMENT, NOTHING ELSE). When Uncle Dan gets the goosebumps, this shit works. FAT! /D”.
Hahahaha… I don’t know how this happened ( I don’t even think Dan knows Amy is up there with the best of them for me), but Jo also sounds like my second female-vocalissa at times as well; the chick from Kosheen.
April 7th
Michael just informed me that he’s on the last track now. He was supposed to send some stuff this week so we could start mixing but he’s got some serious burning-problems so he’ll send all the bass-tracks next week when their sound-guy comes back to town so he can sort it.
April 9th
I am currently sorting the samples for the album and it sounds fucken evil to say the least. So far we have used a 30 second clip, I’m planning to use one or 2 more pieces for this… Nope, I won’t tell you what movie(s) they are from.
We are supposed to get all of Michael’s bass on Wednesday and tomorrow I’m off to Swanö’s to insert the samples and check out the planned sound for the alum. He’s stark raving jolly about the sound so it’ll be nice to hear it since I haven’t heard anything of the completed material yet.
April 10th
Just came home from Swanö after inserting the samples and whatnot. The fucken sound on this album will be excellent. Real cool to hear the re-amped guitars and everything. Muthafucken killer-shit for sure. We are starting to mix this fucken thing this week and tomorrow and Tuesday we’ll go over some small stuff that needs our attention until we get the bass-tracks.
April 11th
Just came home from Swanö again as we are now going thru all of the techno/ambient parts, adjusting the volumes on the loops and shit. It all sounds fucken great and we have started to mix some of Jo’s vocals as well, which sound mighty fine too. Tomorrow we’ll get 6 tracks of bass which we’ll start editing and put into place and I’m really looking forward to hear everything that Michael’s done with our shit. Shouldn’t take too fucken long now before the damn thing is completed and ready to be mastered. A couple of weeks or something since we don’t work full-days with it as far as mixing goes.
April 12th
I just got all songs but one with bass now and am about to start listening to it. This will be very interesting to say the least.
[A bit later:] Just have to say that I have heard half the stuff now and all I have to say is I knew I was correct when asking Michael to play. Fuck me sideways with a Spector-bass. Michael’s stuff is excellent, I just listened thru it all and that man has made some really insane shit here and there, believe you me.
Will be really fun to sort the bass-sound tonight and get the tracks into the songs. We did some marvellous shit with Jo here and there last night and we are really on a roll now it seems. I think Dan is going away on tour for some weeks though real soon so we’ll have a break coz of that but I don’t really care too much about it to be perfectly honest coz this album is so worth waiting for to say the least.
April 13th
Dan is off for tour in 2 days and needs to spend some time with his kid before that so the real mixing will be postponed for 2 weeks now. We put in the bass last night and sorted the sound and I’m very happy with the outcome. to say the least. Now we’ll rest for 2 weeks and then start the real, massive work once he gets home again.
Anyways, I’m going to go thru all the bass now since Dan’s left some CD’s for me to work with. This is fun as fuck. This means I also have a glimpse of the final sound here as this version is with the real guitar-sound and everything. Jo’s vocals are worked on as far as sound goes and same goes for J. Dan’s done the large work as in sorting the sounds and all. I’ll just go thru the bass and when he comes home I will start mixing with him, or more like do a first mix that I will go over during a few days so I can absorb everything and see if there’s any loops that needs higher volume, any particular sounds that needs to be more upfront etc etc… Then when I have made my list of stuff to change, Dan will do those changes and the fucken album will be done and ready for mastering.
April 14th
Anyways, I had to stop editing the bass for the album as I got a reminder from Tobben about The Insects playing on Saturday and we need a intro, so I made one, haha… It turned out fucken evil to say the least. I also need to tune my guitars I just reckoned.
April 15th
I think I have like 3 songs left of bass to edit by the way. Michael’s been doing great work for sure.
April 18th
Finally back home again so now I can continue editing the bass and also go thru the last song I got from Michael that I haven’t heard yet since I had to leave for the Insects-gig. I’ve been getting text-messages from Michael the whole weekend since he got one song to listen to on tour and he’s fucken extatic about it and said something like “This is the best shit I have ever been a part of “, hahaha…
April 20th
A few days ago I sorted the last bass for the final track and now we are waiting for Dan to come home so we can start mixing the shit. I have also made a little list for the stuff I have been going thru. A list of stuff that needs higher volume, lower volume, etc etc… Basically I have been checking out all of the loops and their volumes compared to the guitars and everything. Not alot of stuff needs adding but this is the fun part. I so look forward to mix this shit.
April 28th
I just came home from Swanö after making a mix of the opener of the coming album. Guys, this sound so fat… We made quite a bit of cool shit in this one that I hadn’t planned really and it turned out so fucken excellent. Now I’ll go thru this song the next couple of days to see if there’s anything we will have to adjust but so far it’s massive and beyond.
Dan’s been doing some extra-ordinary work and we plan to mix one song per session which is great since we can keep the concentration up and be all focused on everything.
