"Waiter! There's a soup in my dead fly?"

Well well, we meet again for a quick scoop on the latest Lunar Path poop. Yes.

Now there's pretty much nothing left to record soon. Finished off Tuukkas lead guitars last Monday, recorded some backing vox stuff on Tuesday. I've been dicking around with a lot of samples and cheap drum-machines and generally creating weird soundscapes and stuff like that. Played guitar with a bow yesterday, lots and lots of distortion and delay, sounded really weird. Like a demented cello echoing in an asylum.

Now there's really not much left to record. Like, really really. Weird that I can finally say that, soon I can say that everything's recorded. Weird. It's taken a long time to record, not because it's been difficult, quite the contrary, it's probably been the most easiest record to record. Scheduling it has been a nightmare because of all the uncertainties in all of our lives this year. My divorce and leg injury, the fire fucked up our schedules pretty bad, bassist change, everything...

Now we've just have to record some background vocals with Jesse, wait to get the guest stars tracks... and yeah, that's pretty much it.

Then I'll start to compile this monster into mixable sessions. Now it's approx 100-120 tracks per song. Just the basic elements (drums+keyboard+guitar+bass+vocals) is just +80 tracks. Rest is additional instrumentation, efx and various talking samples.

Have to pre-prepare most tracks, do some sub-mixing. Managing that many tracks with a small 2 year old basic mac mini with Pro Tools LE is nearly impossible. Lucky I got the PT extension for this project so I've got some more tracks to use. Not enough tho, but workable, better than the basic track amount in PT LE. But even though if the machine could handle +120 tracks in the same session, my brain could not.

So for now the time schedule is (about);
December
-Wrap up recordings, prepare the (seemingly endless) tracks for final mixing

January
-Final mixing
-One week mixing 4-8h per day, one week listening in different stereos, thinking about the meaning of life and does this bassdrum sound more like a grape or an apple... Then fix mixing and repeat...

February
-Final mixing / Sending off the tracks to be mastered
-Stressing like a mother on her childs first day of school, "bird is flying from the nest" etc. yaddayadda. Until I finally press "send" and off to mastering it goes. Out of the frying pan and into the fire :P

March
-Getting mastered. Get the final master depending on the mastering houses' time schedule and/or queue... I have a couple places in mind but haven't settled on which yet.

Then it's just to twist arms with who will release this monster. Something we've been working on already and a few prospective choices have been added to the thinking cap. But we're still looking for a label to release this!

After it's mastered and done, it's basically out of our hands, depending on the label/distributors release schedule.

So patience... Yet again.

I'd so like to just leak it "whoops" so people would hear it, but I know some people would hang me from my balls if I did that :D

This is the closest I can get, a crappy bootleg of "Thin White Lines";


That gig was actually that songs debut too, btw.

/Jonas

The subtle difference between a smile and a grin depends on what you are thinking of.

Recorded backing vocals and acoustic guitars last week and finished off some loose ends here and there! Now I'm in the process of recording some additional keyboards, some guitar leads here and there, i.e. wrapping up recordings!

My goal is to finish off the recordings this year, so I can begin mixing in January. A lot has already been pre-mixed in stems and is ready to be glued in with the rest. In general the original, unprocessed sounds are 80% what It'll sound like. So mixing shouldn't take that long when the mixing process consists of mainly balancing the instruments and fine tuning sounds.

Did a promo mix and a demo mix of the whole album a few months back. Have got some great feedback from some friends and industry people already. One, whom opinion I have high regards of because his experience and technical knowledge, was amazed how good it sounds.

And I have to admit, with the risk of smelling my own farts here, it does really sound good. The songs and sounds will blow away anything we've done before, easily.


Recorded lead guitar and "crunch" overdub-guitar with a DIY tube amp kit head, UralTone Jr. Very simple, for dummies-, all tube head, with just preamp, two master and a tone controls. Stick a tube screamer in front and a Les Paul and you'll be sailing and wailing all night long on the high seas of searing lead tone.

With that head I'm using an old English FAL 2x12 cab. Really obscure seventies crap. In crap I really mean crap, but it works!

My fucking MXR Distortion+ broke down in the last minute, damn shame, was going to use it for crunch stuff. But the tube screamer does a VERY good job. Really like that pedal even though I'm just using a cheaper tonelok version, that isn't even mine. Borrowed it from Ari, our ex-bass player. Used my Gibson Les Paul Custom for all lead and crunch stuff as usual, it has some amazing sustain and the vintage pickups are just perfect for a singing and smooth textured tone.


After a few weeks I'm off to England again to relax with my honey bunny gf, so we'll try to wrap up recordings as we speak as I'll be returning in mid December and then after that Christmas fucks up our schedules anyways. But there's not much left anymore. Thank science. Some small stuff here and there, Tuukkas and my lead guitars, some additional backing vocals with the guys.

Hasn't been hard to record, the contrary in fact, but it's been a scheduling nightmare. Because of the amount of stuff to record and interference from our own normal life schedules (as we have to have day jobs etc.) and then throw in all the arson stuff, complications with my leg, Janica gets the flu just before scheduled vocal recordings. Force majure stuff basically.

The goal is to record everything before new years, and after that, 1-2 months of mixing, then off to mastering. After mastering, the final release date depends on who's going to release this and their schedule! :P

I'll also start looking into album cover art...

The album has 15 tracks (one intro and one instrumental) and running time is about 61 minutes. Packed with goodies and suprises! :D

/Jonas