Let’s update some news from the darkness of the studio. It’s been a busy spring in mastering frontline. Number of foreign clients has happily increased all the time. The always active Spanish metalworkers have kept me really busy. Therefore I put a map of Spain on the studio wall and I will thumb a pin to the home town of every new band after finalizing the mastering. This way I will get a view of where my Hispanic clients come from. After getting this updated there will be over a hundred needles on the map.
The next pincushion I should put on the wall is the map of Italy. The number of Italian clients is running fast after the Spaniards. I’m expecting a large growth of all foreign contacts in near future because all kind of files are moving fast in the internet and therefore it won’t be necessary for a band to be present during mastering process. For same reason I have began to offer more interactive mastering where the mixing and mastering is going hand in hand, so the goal of successful result is more possible at both ends.
A lot of interesting live gigs to photograph have taken place in spring. I have been a bit lazy mastering these photos but soon they will be in the photography section. There will soon appear Stam1na and Amorphis from Nosturi, Backyard Babies, Tarot, Mokoma and Michael Monroe from Tavastia. About Michael’s band... It was more than delightful to meet my old school mate Sami Yaffa after so many years. I can’t remember us meeting more than once during all these rock’n’roll years. Sami left from school to first join Pelle Miljoona and then Hanoi Rocks and I went to Finnvox and mastered many Hanoi Rocks albums but never ran into Sami those days. It has been a miracle we have not worked together thinking of how many projects Sami has been in. Hopefully we can fix this shortcoming as soon as possible.
Our house band at home took a giant step to more professional direction. Finally I got organised a real drum kit to Niklas and not just any drum kit but a real legendary instrument from two great legendary drummers. We picked up the set itself from the Children of Bodom rehearsal mansion where maesto Jaska Raatikainen himself first showed us the secret of piecing together all hundreds of parts of his spare set. For reference Niku also took a taste of Jaska’s real drum kit. Under the staring eyes of all Bodom guys we packed up and left them raging their reaper metal – have to say – in a most functional rehearsal room we’ve seen. Now this drum kit combined to previously received cymbal package sponsored by Jukka Nevalainen from Nightwish we finally got ourselves a Pearl Children Of Nightwish drum kit for more professional rehearsing. It is a unique feeling to sit behind this instrument – thanks to these two great heavy metal persons.
Talking about Nightwish… I managed to organize a luxurious villa from Porkkala for Tuomas Holopainen and Tero Kinnunen to rent for recording demos of the next Nightwish album. I suspected their session to be exhausting so I also decided to help these musicians by feeding them one evening with self made four course dinner. At the same time I had the possibility to hear some achievements of these demo recordings and feel the good vibrations of some new tracks. I can hardly wait…
Floorball news are normally readable only in Finnish but I have to mention that few people can reach a championship of any sport during their lifetime. Niklas and I can because our team Espoon Oilers NG94 won that desirable title in C-junior series in season 2009-2010. You can only imagine the value of that title if you are even a bit keen on sports. After many years of hard work, after a long and though season and after a last game in the finals when you realise that you have reached the gold and won the championship, you can’t describe that feeling in any words. If I as a helping hand and assistant to our head coach can get such a high flying kicks from the title, I can only imagine how the players are feeling after all. I have now been eight years in Oilers’ organisation helping these ’94ers to learn and play and during that period I have achieved 22 medals with these boys. In next season this best team is splitting up and new teams are formed but I’m going to be cooking there again by giving my backup. I hope Niku will go strong and play successfully again and together we can achieve more cups and medals in the future in this great sport and hobby of ours.
I’d advice to you take a minute to check out the updated