The Just (Part I: Withers In The Wake) by Themata
And here it is. The first of three parts to come.
2011-05-23
> Post Thoughtum.
Around two weeks before the deadline things seemed to look up. Everything was running smoother than before, everything sounded good, we had, in fact, no problems besides the lack of time due to some premade plans that disturbed our creative flow.
And now, a few days after the deadline, we can admit we ran out of time. We only managed to finish around 30% of the song's intended length to the point where it's presentable, but luckily the song is sectioned so we were able to cut it so it sounds logical. Joonas even recorded a neat last-night guitar arp and a solo to compensate the fact that our project files were behind locked doors and we were unable to accommodate the last chorus of that section.
I won't go into the reasons that caused us to fail, but they're valid and understandable, and no drama was involved whatsoever.
We're planning to finish what we started during the summer because I think it's a fine piece of music and we've all worked rather hard to see it to its end, but unfortunately things don't always go as planned, especially if there are no clear plans.
If this post gets 10,000 comments, we'll release the first four and a half minutes of the song as Part 1 before the track's actually finished.
(Big thanks to the merciful TL for accepting our kind offering at the listening session)
And now, a few days after the deadline, we can admit we ran out of time. We only managed to finish around 30% of the song's intended length to the point where it's presentable, but luckily the song is sectioned so we were able to cut it so it sounds logical. Joonas even recorded a neat last-night guitar arp and a solo to compensate the fact that our project files were behind locked doors and we were unable to accommodate the last chorus of that section.
I won't go into the reasons that caused us to fail, but they're valid and understandable, and no drama was involved whatsoever.
We're planning to finish what we started during the summer because I think it's a fine piece of music and we've all worked rather hard to see it to its end, but unfortunately things don't always go as planned, especially if there are no clear plans.
If this post gets 10,000 comments, we'll release the first four and a half minutes of the song as Part 1 before the track's actually finished.
(Big thanks to the merciful TL for accepting our kind offering at the listening session)
2011-05-13
> Some updates.
After a few days of rigorous performance the vocals have now been recorded. So far we're liking what we've heard, and the song is finally starting to come together as mixing and additional synth tracks are being recorded in two buildings right next to each other. So we're still trying to keep ourselves busy.
At this point five days before teh deadline there's only a few minutes of bass edits and scuttling them through our Ampeg multichannel chain of doom left after we could actually listen to the song from beginning to end like it was intended. Everything on top of that is a plus. But we have all the pieces now. It's just a matter of putting them together, which from what I've seen does not look like an easy feat as a project file.
I changed the background and the way this site manifests itself visually. I've also taken the liberty of translating the site into english and rewriting the three older entries. I hope nobody minds, hmm.
2011-05-03
> Edits.
After all the guitars and basses were recorded at home and in a hurry, it was time for editing. We decided to go with Logic 9 as our DAW as we had seen and heard great things to have been performed with it. Saku immediately found the important buttons and his journey through 10 guitar tracks of sonic brutality was on its way. Thanks to Antti and Krista for their help with Apples. Well, mainly lending us theirs.
When everything looked groovy in the grid, the files were exported in the middle of a lecture by Tipi Tuovinen. Not very polite of me, but I'm sure he would've understood if I had explained myself instead of just looking sorry.
All 168 tracks were nested in the loving bosom of Saku's Cubase. The guitars were prepared for reamping, which took place a week and a half before the deadline. More info on reamping to come.
> The recording process.
Composing, guitar demos and final drum programming were mainly done at the same time. We gathered to compose riffs and complicate what we already had a dozen or so times during the fall of '10 and spring winter of '11. We tried to keep the teams as small as possible, usually a maximum of two.
This allowed us to develop a very intuitive work flow in composing, which was basically done by fusing together many good bits of many good riffs. The ideas were then refined to machine-like death metal 'piece' in the vein of some of our 70's and later idols.
As the technician in most of these sessions was Jonne, whose background in electronic music lead to some questionable solutions that were needed to complete the task at hand.
> A necessary evil.
In all honesty, I have never been a huge fan of promotion or artist connection. Despite my opinion, I am now forced to promote myself and my band. In this case, the band is us - Themata.
We're an initial group of three, later four, students of Tampere university of applied sciences. Our first year's biggest school assignment is forming a band, making a sufficient promo release and arranging the actual promotion. This blog serves as a form of the promotion.
The members of Themata and their special powers are:
Joonas Leppänen > Guitars, Riffs.
Saku Moilanen > Keyboards, A link to reality.
Joonas Raistakka > Vocals, An immensely brutal man.
Jonne Kytö > Drum programming, Basses, Knows all about everything.
We're supposed to document how we came about, what our motifs are and what sort of triumphs or pitfalls our teamwork has come about. Commenting is always nice, but I understand.
We'll see.
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