The recordings of the 4th MyGrain album!

Day 1 – Monday 30th of July 2012
Hola everybody! Today is The Day – the recordings of our fourth album are about to begin! Woke up in the parlour of the studio (Sound Supreme Studio, located in Hämeenlinna, Finland) and dragged myself into the recording room where our producer and sound engineer guy Janne Saksa was already setting up the mics.  The beginning of the recording sessions is traditionally a bit hard for me. I don’t know why that is… am I getting old?! HELL NO! ;-)
After the soundchecks and pimpings my kit sounded unbelievably good. The sound is warm and “fat”, I love it! On this album I play with Yamaha Maple custom drumkit, Sabian aax-series symbals, Pro-Mark 5a sticks and Aquarian Response 2 drumheads.
Around two o’clock in the afternoon we finally got to the actual recording and the first song I played goes with the name “Trioli”. The song is one of my favourites with its catchy (gay?) keyboards and the verse that has a good in-your-face feeling. The second song I nailed on Monday was “Mato”. The song is pretty much fitness training with its fast bass drums and trickeries and will most definitely be a great song to play live. Let there be moshpit! Both the two songs sounded eventually really good.
Over and out for now. Lisää paskaa housuun!

- DJ

Day 2 – Tuesday 31th of July 2012

Håpla! On Tuesday we managed to record songs that go with the names ”Nappis” and ”Eve-song”. Didn’t have any problems with Nappis, fluent playing. I personally think this song might have the best chorus in the history of MyGrain.

The second one, ”Eve-song”, has it all: a brilliant chorus, catchy melodic verses etc. Not to forget the truth, there’s also a progressive part in the song. ;-) This is going to be the first video of the album.

- DJ

Day 3 – Wednesday 1st of August 2012

Hi! Today my wife beater shirt was totally soaked in sweat. You can all imagine how it feels to play with bloody nipples?! However, let’s get to the point… Today was the day to play ”Vanhaygöne”, which I think was one of the first songs we wrote for this album. The song is speedy and eventful and will definitely be a live hit. Let’s not forget a darn good chorus either!

The second and the last song that was recorded today was a song that goes with the name ”Gojira”. This song has a handful of Kotiteollisuus-feeling (mie oon Hynynen mie juon jallua… the Finns will get it). Just kidding! ”Gojira” is a mid-tempo song with Resistor’s main riff, decorated with 80′s love stuff, a bass solo etc… Over and out for today! :D

- DJ

Day 4 – Thursday 2nd of August 2012

Sigh… First I have to tell you that taking a leak is expensive. The cops caught me and Resi in the act from the centre of Hämeenlinna and we both received a 20 euro ticket. So what did we learn about this? Absolutely nothing!

I started the day mildly by playing a cover song that will be a bonus song for the Japanese edition of the album. Unfortunately we can’t reveal the song just yet… Just wait for it! The second song I played on Thursday was ”Nuotiolaulu” that starts off with a really cool keyboard lead by Eve. There’s a lot of things happening in this song with its tempo changes etc. Love it!

Day 5 – Friday 3rd of August 2012

The first song for Friday was ”Argh Enemy”. There will be sparks flying from the guitarists’ fingers when they get to the verse of this song (made by Mr.Downhill), that’s for sure! This is a frantic song that has an energetic chorus.

The last song for this studio session for me was a song that goes with the name ”HC”. The song is absolutely hardcore to play and pushed the last drop of sweat out of me! A brilliant song, one couldn’t hope for a better opening for an album.

Now, when all the ten songs are recorded, I can honestly say that I have given my everything for this album. Last but not least, a BIG thank you for our producer Janne Saksa for his patience and awesome ideas!

- DJ

Day 6 – Monday 6th of August 2012

Recording the guitars

Resistor and Mr. Downhill attended the studio on Sunday evening. Had to briefly check what was happening on local night life but surprisingly we managed to go to sleep pretty early. On Monday morning we woke up and felt lively, thanks to the early bedtime. At 10 AM we got straight to work, mounted our gear and started the search of a perfect MyGrain sound.

After a couple of hours of adjusting the sound it was time to record. On the first day we nailed ”HC” and ”Trioli”. Recording is hard work but the songs are already starting to sound kick-ass! Nighty night…

- Resistor & Mr. Downhill

Day 7 – Tuesday 7th of August 2012

Our first recording day ended up being pretty long, since it was already small hours of Tuesday as we finally got to sleep. We wanted to seize every waking hour so we continued the recording after the producer Janne Saksa went home. In the night we managed to record the intro for the album.

A couple of hours of sleep and then back to business on Tuesday morning. Today was a lot easier since we had a tense day behind us so the score for Tuesday was three songs: ”Gojira”, ”Nappis” and ”Nuotiolaulu”. In the evening we’ll continue the recordings again by the two of us. The goal is to record the cover song that was mentioned before by DJ.

- Resistor & Mr. Downhill

Day 8 – Wednesday 8th of August 2012

Ok, now it’s time to talk about the gear we are using on this album.
The Royal Rumble seems to do the work. We always start the day by
intense gaming for couple of hours to get out fingers warmed up and
then we are ready to hit some brown “kuikka” sounds on the tape.
Second important thing to remember is to always reach out for
multiballs on tape… we help each other to achieve this goal! Third
important thing to create the sound on this 4th MyGrain album is the
awesome axes we are using. GO Ibanez!!! PS: Resistor uses red Jazz III
Xl picks & Mr.Downhill uses the same but black ones… never forget
that :D

Today we got 2 songs on the tape. The fast paced “Mato” & the double
fast paced “Aaaaarghenemy”. Soon we are gonna reward our selves by few
tasty beers on the local bar. If we don’t get too drunk we might record some songs we have left
by ourselves… lets see ;)

-Resistor & Mr.Downhill

Day 9 – Thursday 9th of August 2012

Last day for the rhythm guitar sessions.
We had two more songs to nail. The upcoming music video hit song “Eve” &
this asskicking Meshuggah type of “Vanha ygöne”.  We were actually so
fast that Mr.Downhill had time to nail some cool solo licks already on
one song. Our good buddie Mr. Salminen also spent last night here with us
drinking some booze and challenging the Royal Rumble flipper..
good times! Tomorrow we will record all the weird guitar feedback noises
etc. and after that it’s all about shredding licks on the tape… go go
go Mr. Downhill!!!

Ps. A HUGE thumbs up for Janne Saksa! It’s been a pleasure to work
with him again :)

-Resistor & Mr.Downhill

Guitar solos:

Hello to all guitar noobs out there. It’s time to record some kickass, mind blowing, string breaking solos to our forth coming new album.

It’s, as always been really hard yet rewarding to work with these songs to create some cool unique licks keeping it still simple (enough) and melodic. It was surprising to realize how I had come up with lots of ideas to songs which are not the easiest to solo over and the most simple ones I had to work quite hard to get cool melodies that should stuck to ones mind.

There are solos from sweet slow melodies (nappis) to machine gun like 16th note attacks in 200 bpm (Hc), from cool tapping licks (arghenemy) to pure alternate madness (arghenemy again =D )

Hope you like the results as much as I do!

-Mr. Downhill

P.S Remember always to take the power chord with your index finger and pinky to maintain your true metal credibility, eat your morning cereals regularly and finger your guitar, girl, guy to keep your fret hand flexible!

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