Thursday evening on July 6 1995 two enthusiastic 15 and 16 year old teenage dudes had travelled 230 km from Espoo to knock on the door of a basement of a church. These young metalheads were guitarist/vocalist Alexi Laiho and drummer Jaska Raatikainen. They d arrived in Astia-studio s first location in Lappeenranta to make the second [ ] The post This Is How Alexi Laiho And Jaska Raatikainen Did…
Children of Bodom s Hate Me! single was released 25 years ago on May 5th 2025. This powerful metal song that came out in the spring of 2000 sold platinum, spent two weeks on the official Finnish singles chart and stayed in TOP20 for the total of 15 weeks. I asked the band members to comment [ ] The post 5 peculiar facts about the recording of Children of Bodom s Hate Me! single appeared first on…
Do we need to play everything live on one take? Can a wrong note be re-recorded? What if our skills are not enough and it all turns out way too difficult? These are some of the questions that many musicians have before the first tape session. And oh the joy when during the recording they [ ] The post This is how a tape recording session is done – My fear of recording on the analogue was proved in…
January 6th 2021 marks 18 years since the release of Children Of Bodom s acclaimed Hate Crew Deathroll album. I m writing this introduction with a heavy heart as just a few days ago Alexi Laiho, the guitar playing lead vocalist of the group, had passed away. I was blessed to produce and record three Bodom albums and [ ] The post 18 Facts About The Recording Of Children Of Bodom s Hate Crew…
Children Of Bodom arrived at Astia-studio around late 1998 to record a successor to their highly gold-selling debut album Something Wild. The working title for the album was Towards Dead End that later changed to Hatebreeder. It consists of songs such as Warheart, Silent Night Bodom Night and the there-was-no-show-without-it single chart #1 Downfall. By reading [ ] The post 5 interesting facts…
Let s continue with my most favorite topic; drum sound and this time drum monitoring to be exact. By reading you ll learn how you can improve the drum recording with a simple drum monitoring tip. Drummer! Avoid this common drum monitoring mistake when recording. This blog post delivers useful insight for both drummers and recording engineers. [ ] The post Drummer! Avoid this common drum monitoring…
How far are you willing to travel to make the album of your dreams? Why do bands fly up to thousands of kilometres to Astia-studio to record their music on magnetic tape? We travelled to the other side of the world to make our dreams come true! – Case study Aeternal Requiem. By reading this post [ ] The post We Travelled To The Other Side Of The World To Make Our Dreams Come True! – Case study…
On a Sunday evening in February a group of Finnish top musicians arrived at Astia-studio. The plan was to record five songs in a day on tape with me. This time you ll get to join us and prepare to get surprised about their tape-praising comments. So let s hear it from Masa Maijanen, Harri Ala-Kojola, Patrik [ ] The post Jarmo Nikku: The Sound Felt Natural (After Quite Some Time) – Case Study…
Do you still remember the time when movies made you feel? How terrifying the horror movies were and how difficult it was to sleep after watching one. Or how an emotional movie made you cry. Yet, why your old favorites don t have that effect anymore? And why must you turn up the volume when watching [ ] The post Will VHS Be The New Vinyl? – Make A Test And Get Ready To Be Surprised appeared first…
As a guitarist you surely must know how hard tuning a guitar can get. Sometimes you may press the strings too hard it can cause annoying detune. With this series I hope to help you with tuning-related issues, as I share my studio and live experience from the past quarter of a century. So let s [ ] The post Improve The Tuning Of Your Guitar, pt 5 – Do You Press The Strings Too Hard? appeared first…