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04.02.2009: The secrets of studio technology

The secrets of studio technology

Dear Diary,

January has changed to February and this vocal ensemble is back in business. The beginning of this year has been pretty calm, so we have managed to recharge ourselves from the busy Christmas tour and we all have the urge to continue touring. The rest of the year will keep us rather busy, so a bit more relaxing period was well needed. I suggest you to check out our concert calendar frequently because it will be updated when any future gigs are confirmed, and many concerts are still to be added.

Last week we spent in the studio. Our long-time sound engineer Ilu daringly taught us how to use his studio, so that we could try and record each other's singing by ourselves. In turns, everybody played the role of the sound engineer, the producer, and sometimes also the singer, which is a bit more familiar role to us. We didn’t receive any diploma from our sound guru after this course but I bet we all would have gotten at least an A-. Everybody was very eager to learn how to use all these weird buttons and fades. There is still a LOT to learn and our appreciation of sound engineers is growing all the time.

It was very interesting to experiment with new ways of working in the studio. In addition to recording new songs or parts of songs we also tried improvising in the studio: one of us was "thrown to the lions" and he or she had to sing something on tape. After that, everyone of us went in the studio one by one and sang something that would (or would not) match the other tracks. That was a lot of fun! We’ll see whether any of those experiments will end up on our future albums…

As I said, now it’s time to continue touring again. In the end of this week we will head for Eastern Finland. In addition to a concert in Kiuruvesi we are also going to pay yet another visit to Kuopion Yhteiskoulu, a school that is full of enthusiastic young singers. There we will kick off our latest project: working with pupils of some Finnish secondary and high schools that are specialized in music. We are eagerly looking forward to working with these young musicians. Until now we’ve been teaching mainly abroad but now it’s time to work with some Finnish talents.

Everybody, enjoy the rest of the winter – or if you are like me, enjoy the fact that the spring is just around the corner…

Take care,
Ahti