Whispered studio blog

Album is 100% done!

2009-11-02T05:32:00.000-08:00

Yo yo mothafuckas!

Our debut album is now ready and being printed! \,,/

Cover-art came up maybe even too epic!

Release date? Unfortunately we don't have that yet.

We're hooking up some intresting opportunities so once again

there's a delay. Yes it's frustrating,

but we don't want to release this oni without someones

careful plan to spread its terror upon the lands!

Anyway new webpage, album info and stuff coming soon enough!

- Whispered

Grrrrreat news!

2009-10-02T08:50:00.000-07:00

Hello you f*************ers!

Just here to tell you that our album is...

MASTERED!

Svante Forsbäck did really good job
with the mastering and the general sound of this album is way better I'd
ever imagined that it could be! So I'm feeling very fonkee right now!

We went to take promopictures for the album to the Oulu other day with
Onni Kinnunen who is very talented
photographer and he really knew what he was doing, so our promopictures
will be epic too!

And huge huge huge thanks for Perttu Vänskä for a godlike effort he put
in this album. All the programmed japanese instruments and those godforsaken
percussion tracks we never knew existed sound way too awesome and real.
Thank you!

Whole team working for this album has been so professional and blessed with
same vision, so the album will be pretty much just the way we wanted it to be.

SO our debut is ready and waiting for the cover-art to be finished. Cover-art will
be made by mysterious lady from Japan called ToK. She has done all the samurai drawings that are on the webpage and on the cover of Faceless internet-single,
so she really shares my vision too. And she's cute too. Hope to marry her someday...

So keep waiting and rocking!

Yours,
Jouni

It's done. Well, 99,9% of it.

2009-09-21T14:33:00.001-07:00

So... it's 12 pm, Monday night, I sit on my computer, suffer from a hangover and for once am not programming the strings, woodwinds, ethnic shit or some godforsaken percussion track of which existence I wasn't even aware of. For the first time in weeks I have a possibility to get some sleep, and not stay up for some 28 hours straight doing Whispered, fall asleep for 2 hours, and then wake up to do it all over again. For the first time in months I don't have anything waiting on my "Whispered: To do -list". Either it means I got fed up with this damn album and went underground or... the motherfucking mixing is OVER!!! Hooray, hippies!!!

Yeah, the harsh reality. Record producing is haaaard work. On Friday we had one last thing to do, we mixed the intro for the album, one I wrote and programmed on Thursday and the following night based on Jouni's sketches. It turned out pretty epic and not your typical gothic pompouse ”loud as hell with church organs and choir” -intro, so we've got a good atmosphere builder for the monster. What monster? This goddamn album! Let me tell you – it seems like we've created a monster. Or, at least for the last months, I have. You might wonder what in dear God's name have we been doing during the time between the recordings and mixing??? Well, we've been busy with the monster-creating! In my dark laboratory, I've been adding flesh around the bones, polishing the details inch by inch, surrounding the basic band tracks with all the ingredients that make the band sound like Whispered. There's choir, there's orchestra, there's ethnic instruments, percussion, synths, organs etc. and all that adds up to incredible amounts of small details in the songs. And, please remember that before the tracks can exist, someone's got to write the music for all the different instruments. And that someone's yours truly. So, we've definitely not been lazy, I tell you. It just takes time, when you have to do everything yourself. Speaking of which, Teropekka did FANTASTIC job with the mixing. Tight schedule, ridiculous amounts of tracks (yeah, we made it to >150 league!), weird instruments, long interludes, all in all a mixing process harder than the trick of licking your own elbow. But, being the pro he is, Teropekka took the music on a half Nelson and beat the living shit out of it. Everything's clear and intense, and still the band sounds as brutal as Bruce Lee on crystal meth.
Judging by the yesterday's pre-master listening party, the long and hard work's not been for nothing. My job here is done, only the mastering's left. What can I say? A long and extremely challenging project that's become like a child for me, and after nearly a year it's finally over. I hope you'll love the result as much as I do.
Behold – this album will rip your heart out and feed it to the dragons, and if it won't, Mr. Evil Samurai Lord Jouni V. will come through your chimney and do it himself! You've been warned.

Godspeed, Whispered.

-Perttu Wänskä

MIXING HAS STARTED!

2009-08-30T13:31:00.000-07:00

So finally our album has been given to the hands of the sound mastermind
Teropekka Virtanen.

The mixing could've started sooner with someone else, but we waited
patiently for Teropekka to have time for our project since he has worked
with us before too. For the album will contain orchestrations, real choirs and many japanese instruments Teropekka Virtanen was a right choice for mixing.
Album will be mastered by Svante Försback who is also one of the top soundmasters in Finland.

Me and my fellow-mate in song making Perttu Vänskä went to the HIP-studios
to listen the first incarnation of the first song of the album "Thousand Swords",
and it immediately blew our minds off. We gave some creative and some non-creative
ideas to Teropekka to carry on with his great work. =)

From left : Perttu, Teropekka and me going all serious of the number of the tracks.....

"Are those waves like.. Audio?" "Yes Jouni. Very good."

Pepe in Mars.

- Jouni -

Album release getting closer!

2009-08-07T03:41:00.000-07:00

Hi ya all!

Trying to write some info here again..

Mixing of the album starts in this month and it will be mixed
by very HC Teropekka Virtanen (Turisas - Varangian Way... etc.)

The album release date is aimed for October, but nothing's confirmed yet. :)

More info later on!

Though there has been long time to wait I assure you that
this project won't turn to Duke Nukem Forever. ;)

- Jouni -

Konnichiwa!

2009-07-05T15:42:00.000-07:00

Ok folks - some pictures and info about our videoshoot with Vasarafilms.

Like Jouni mentioned, the day went pretty fuckin' smoothly even though the schedule was a very tight. Sake was cold, music was loud and geishas were hot so the video will definitely look cool. Everybody did their job well and we're grateful that we got a chance to work with such hardcore professionals.
The video will be released in autumn.

Stay heavy!

Gettin' ready!

... and action!

Valtteri rehearsing his Immortal pose

"Pepe in Greenland" -photo interrupted by ME!!!

Fucking heavy metal!!

Pepe in Sweden.

-Mika

Filming of music video done!

2009-06-25T01:11:00.000-07:00

Helloy!

I'm more than happy to inform you that our first music video
was filmed at 23th of June at Tähtitorninmäki Studios with
Vasarafilms. ( http://www.vasarafilms.com/ )
Everything went pretty fucking well and everyone was really excited
about our concept!

The video will be released somewhat same time as the album..
In other words this fall!

Some pictures and more info about the procress soon!

- Jouni -

.

\,,/

2009-05-10T23:57:00.000-07:00

Just here to tell you all that everything is going fine,
and we start to film our first music video very soon!

At this point all I can tell you about the video is that
it will definetly look like Whispered. ;)

Album is nearly finished!
Programming is in procress and after that the tracks go to
mixing and mastering.

And here's a songlist of the for now nameless album :
(Superofficial songlist with lengts 'n stuff will be released later.)

1. Hajimari (Intro)
2. Thousand Swords (The story of Saito Musashibō Benkei part I)
3. Fear Never Within
4. Dead Cold Inside
5. Faceless
6. Sakura Omen (interlude)
7. Wrath Of Heaven
8. Of Honor
9. Blindfold
10. Blade In The Snow (The story of Saito Musashibō Benkei part II)

- Jouni -

Yo!

2009-04-21T07:26:00.000-07:00

Hi it's Jouni here writing. The blog looked so lonely and empty so I decided to try
to tell something..

So recordings are very near the end! Just some extra spice is left to record.
Things have gone very well and everyone have worked their ass off, and at this
point I can say that album sounds like totally rockin' epic japanese warfare!

Before guitar recordings I was afraid if I can make it, 'cause my hand was broken
but all the guitars are recorded now and my hand is totally cured! (Need to stop that violent wanking..)

Next weekend we start to record choirs. ;)

Nothing else comes to mind right now..
I've been playing too much Left4Dead recently and my head is empty.

So here are some pictures! :

Vocals.
Serious business.

"Stop it! That's sounds like horny bear!" - Matias Kupiainen

Valtteri <3

"Pepe gimme evil rockstar-face!"

"This is amazing! It really keeps the tune!"

At Finnvox, Perttu from Tracedawn giving some finishing touches to the set before blasting.

Pepe in Paris.

Doing goood!

2009-04-02T01:18:00.000-07:00

-

Hello everyone!

We're doing really good at the studios and recordings are nearly
finished! :)

Here are some pictures..

Amp wired up and ready to rock.

Session vocalist.

Pepe and our producer Perttu Vänskä decided to drink instead of recording
guitars for our album.

Matias Kupiainen recording guitars for our album.

Pepe in Brazil.

By : Jouni

-

What's going on?

2009-03-16T02:53:00.000-07:00

Greetings to everyone!

In the studios we're doing fine and with this schedule we've no
hurry so there's not so many blog updates..

Current status of the recordings are :
DRUMS - Done.
BASS - Done.
GUITARS - Almost done.
SYNTHS - Almost done.
VOCALS - Starting this week..
PROGRAMMING - In progress..

The album release date is not yet informed, but still
it will be at this year!

At this point I can only say that the album WILL rock! ;D

- Jouni -

NEW INTERNET-SINGLE RELEASED

2009-01-14T01:30:00.000-08:00

So the new internet-single Faceless has been now published in YouTube, MySpace
and our website!

There hasn't been an update for a while, so I'd better
sum up something about the recordings of the album and new single
Faceless...

Overall all the recordings went well, though there were some
evil forces on our way.. (For example our mixer's computer blew up!!)

Here are some pictures of the recording-sessions (5by5 studios and Finnvox) :

Valtteri was excited with the bass gear. (looking bit gay)

Our sound-master Matias Kupiainen caught mixing our song into 70's pop.

Our session-guitarist Tatu Ruponen showing off. (HUGE THANKS FOR HIM
HELPING WITH GUITARS!!! (My hand is broken at the moment. :( )

Toni's gear.

Our producer Perttu Vänskä being creative. Many, many, many thanks for Perttu for
working so long hours in programming with our Faceless internet-single!!

Pepe in Rome.

WRITTEN BY : Jouni Valjakka

A delay!

2008-11-23T22:31:00.000-08:00

There has been some schedule changes so album will be released in
August 2009.
This sucks, but we will start gigging as soon as possible!
(So don't stick a katana in your ass yet!)

Album status :

Drums - RECORDED.
Bass - RECORDED.

So there is now a long time to wait but trust me : It will be worth it!

Meanwhile you can watch this

- Jouni -

Bass'n'Booty getting groovy!

2008-11-04T08:15:00.001-08:00

Greetings from the bass god himself!

Got a call from Perttu last thursday about 20.00 that I would have to start my bass recordings a bit early than we had planned.. There had been a misunderstanding of somesort between Redhouse and Finnox and we had one extra day at Finnvox wich we would use to record some kickass bass. Well, of I went the next day to the hidious vaults of Finnvox.

To my surprise (not), I found Toni and rest of the crew suffering from a horrible hangover at Finnvox. Perttu could barely stay awake and I think Toni was still drunk.. Toni had one song left 'till I could get to my recordings.

About 16.00 Tony finished his last song and we started putting up the bass gear. We ended up using a Line 6 bass pod thru a Chandler tube driver and a Fender 4x10 Bassman. We are not quite sure but there might me some reamping ahead.. The setup sounded nice but it wasn't quite what we were looking for. My choise of bass was my Neuser Chase fivestring wich I normally use with Whispered.

Boy oh boy when you hear the bass stuff on this record.. It's pure GORILLA! Trujillo will wet himself when he hears my shit.. :)

-Valtteri

Greetings from the producer - have you seen our drummer?

2008-10-31T02:25:00.000-07:00

Krhm. Ok, so we've been recording the drums at Finnvox this week and everything has been nice, smooth, epic and stuff. We've grabbed great playing from Toni and the tracks sound awesome. So, to reward ourselves we decided to take a break last night and devour some sake. We found ourselves from Otaniemi listening to Battle of the Bands (won by Asgardium, fuck yeah) and after that from the festivities of Rumba magazine. So, everything went fine, we had great time and were slowly getting wasted, until it was time to grab the horse wagon to reach the eternal gardens of sleep. With Matias we realized Toni has gone into hiding - I mean seriously into hiding, the guy just disappeared!!! The last time we saw our epic skinbasher when he first went crazy on this blog and a while after that was arguing loudly with some dark knights, some guys claiming they were highly paid bodyguards and mercenaries for some African country. So, we'd have a song left to play and it seems like the drummer is getting familiar with old African percussion.

If you see him, please tell we'd appreciate his presence in Finnvox!

-Perttu

DAy 3. FUCKIN' EPIC OVERLoAD

2008-10-30T17:53:00.000-07:00

IIIHA SELVI PÄIN! JOO JOO!! Today we got blindfold n' dead cold...hard work..

-toni&perttuterttu

DAY 1. 28.10.08

2008-10-28T12:53:00.000-07:00

Epic hail from the dark corridors of Finnvox!!

Things got started last night with intense last minute shopping in the music stores of Helsinki (special thanks to Levytukku), after which we headed to 5 by 5 Studios (former Minor Music) in Pitäjänmäki, a place owned by Matias (Kupiainen) and Perttu (Vänskä) and a few other nice guys, to get the drum set tuned for METAL!

After a good night's sleep we arrived to legendary Finnvox Studios with Perttu and Matias around 11 am, already having had an encounter with some berserk metal workers, who questioned our right to park our chariots of fire. In spite of all the reckless mouthbashing the infidels ran for cover after meeting the true spirit of the samurai. At Finnvox, waiting for us was the wicked skinbasher of Tracedawn, Perttu Kurttila, who gave a helping hand to get the drum sound as close to perfect as possible. Thanks Kurttu, you're the man!!!

After getting all the microphones (quite a few of them, actually!!!!) and stuff in place we started with a song called 1000 Swords, and found out the drum sound was so fat it seemed like a sumo wrestler had given a visit. NICE! After 1000 Swords we went for Of Honor, which came together surprisingly smooth. Then it was already time to call it a day.
Looking nice this far, although there are a few quite difficult pieces in line... :|

Just remember... HOMO TULEE!

-Toni-

Blog of the album making started!

2008-10-28T10:27:00.000-07:00

Recordings will go somewhat like this :

1. Drums
2. Bass
3. Synths/sampling/orchestrations
4.Guitars
5. Vocals
6. Extras

Today Toni went to dark vaults of Finnvox studio to bash the skins.

Wrote by : Jouni