Production & studio

Final touch on the final mix

by Marcus Rejnevik

After a clarifying note on the fade-out of the song we’ve now completed the production and mixing phase of this first official tune that have reached beyond the demo stage.
Many thanks to our patient and creative producer/mixer; Peter Åhrberg. In a few days the mastering will be carried out and then we’re finally done!

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First song to get professional mixing & production – by up-and-coming producer Peter Åhrberg

by Marcus Rejnevik

A few weeks ago we decided to get some professional help. We’ve been mixing and producing ourselves but had come to a dead end. We needed an external view on our work. And naturally someone who’s a real pro and an expert on what he’s doing. After a tip and a promising phone conversation we choose to collaborate with up-and-coming producer Peter Åhrberg, Stockholm.

Livelong producer Peter Åhrberg

Peter Åhrberg - Producing/Mixing The Livelong June
Peter (formerly Dub Sweden with e.g. monster hit ‘Old house’) is a renowned sound engineer/creator from the Swedish film industry (Wallander, Johan Falk, Farsan, Kenny Begins among others).

He’s also a sought-after live mixer, mixing classic Swedish acts such as e.g. Mats Ronander, Mikael Rickfors, Dan Hylander and Noice.

Peter Åhrberg has a degree in Sound Engineering from Dramatiska Institutets, Stockholm.

And from now on he could add producing and mixing The Livelong June debut to his CV.

It’s been great to work with Peter and we love his subtle creativity, care of details and patience. On top of his professional expertise of course!

Analogue drums and triggers

by Marcus Rejnevik

For a long time it has been our intention to blend analogue drums with digital drums to get that human feel to the electronic sound. Finally, last monday we were set to go! By having added a drummer to the ‘The Livelong June’ live set-up we now have a superb drummer handy.

This studio session though, was purely a technical trial and error session, it turned out. But definitely worthwhile!

So what we did was to have the snared tuned for a shot gun sound. The kick was already prepared to have a nice fat sound. The intention was to get that perfect sound already on the analogue drum set, but we didn’t manage to get the depth and mid/bass frequencies from the snare. So we decided to go for the character of the sound that we where after and to mix the final stuff in Cubase. Then we started test recording. To be honest it sounded crap in the recording room (according to the drummer). But, when we got the mix right it sounded amazing! Finally, the analogue feel was there!

Next step was to get the midi triggers in place and working. After some misfortune with broken cables we caught the midi signal and found a nice electronic sound for it. The initial mix of electronic and analogue sounded almost perfect!

By that time it was already getting late so we decided to postphone the actual recording session until next time. Really looking forward to that since this feels like the last part in ‘the quest for the livelong sound’..

When the recording is in place, next thing will be to mix it with the programmed drum patches that our top notch drum programmer has created.

What a milestone!

 

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Five hour studio session – Down the drain

by Marcus Rejnevik

Yesterday we took on a massive reconstruction of ‘Homesick’. We’re transforming this pretty soft and emotional song to something more upbeat and more ‘in your face’.

Yesterday evening we had a five hour session where new drums were added. Some industrial stuff there.. Also we did a massive rearrangement of the tracks. All in all we had a productive and very successful evening of hard work.

Very fruitful.. If it hadn’t been for that &&@#% computer. After five hours it turned out that not a single thing had been saved. And yes, we hit the save button several times during the session.

So now we’ll have to do it all over again. Luckily the result is worth the hard work.

Finally: a (human) drum machine

by Marcus Rejnevik

Finally, things are happening on the drum side of things. After struggling with programming and over-dubbing drums manually, we finally managed to find a professional drummer to help us out.

Just tried a few ideas tonight, but the original intension of having a human drum machine still holds. Actually, we’re even more convinced after having tried one.. This gives us good hope on finally finishing a demo track, since this has been the last piece of the puzzle.

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A new take on ‘Homesick’

by Marcus Rejnevik

Had a feel that ‘Homesick’ was/is a good song, but became nothing but a ‘ballad’ (in its negative meaning). Feel satisfied with the lyrics which have a good depth in them and even though they were written in honour of my grandpa who passed away, I’ve come to realise that they also cover other situations in life. Also the chords and structure of the song are nice.

Music wise though, I forced on a pumping bass synth and added some extra bouncing bass to it. My intention was to crack down the original soft feel and nothing does that better than an unstoppable bass! Added some extra melodies to lift the chorus and a new sad (but not soft) riff. There are still stuff to be done with the song. First we need to cut down on tracks, but also the drums and the long outro need some caring.
/Marcus

Here are the two versions for comparison:

The old/original version of Homesick:
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The new version of Homesick (yet to be mixed, etc.):
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