Occurrence 2012

Almost a year has passed and our upcoming album remains still unfinished. I know it's common that recording process takes many many years from composing the songs to the finest little details on the booklet and the website. It has always been the way Karelian Warcry works. As a drummer it can be very frustrating to wait other players to finish their parts.

Meanwhile I can plan what booklets could look like, pick photographs from my own archives that represent our goals in visual part, draw sketches, even design a flash game for website visitors or whatever comes to my mind. And of course concentrate other important things in my life, like cuddling with my beautiful wife-candidate. Still the ongoing recording process haunts me once in a while. It can drive you nuts. Patience, my friend.

Today I was thinking about recording situation itself. It was icy cold, pitch black dark and my life was quite a chaos at the moment. I can't even recall the proper miking setup we used. A good friend of ours came by and set the things up, while I was still unsure what cymbals or what snare I would use, and also still a bit too confused about the new appearance of my drum kit. I couldn't do that all just by myself. Miking setup consisted of 15 mics overall: snare top, snare bottom, hi-hat, 2 x ride, 3 x tom, 2 x bd, 2 x overhead, 2 x room mic and one extra mic for china. Maybe I'll add the specs of them later, now I'm just too tired to do that.

One thing that buggers me off, is the china cymbal I used on record. It didn't sound the way I wanted, but hey, what can you except from a basic china like 18" Meinl Classics. I added one self-hammered splash underneath it and one cut splash on top to get more complex sound from it (by the way that Paiste Alpha Splash on top is formerly owned by Tonmi Lillman. He sold me that while he was still living in Kouvola. This way I honour fellow drummer who passed away in February, 2012). I didn't use that Sabian Leopard China shown on kit pics somewhere below on this blog.

What I've learned from previous recording session? A lot and hell of a lot more. More practise, more tuning, more timing, yadda yadda! You know what I'm talking about. For the next recording I prefer to have all the cymbals miced separately and hopefully I can use totally different symbal set. At the moment I don't have place to hammer my cymbals and I'm not sure if I'll have any in the near future. I've also decided that next time when I'm sitting behind my drum throne recording patterns, it totally happens in the middle of summer. That's it for now. Over and out!

Hiisi flying drumstick broom

DIY Drum kit modification

Hola!

We made a rawmix-sample from the upcoming and yet unnamed Karelian Warcry album. You'll hear how my drumkit sounds at the moment. Check it out from here!


I also stained my drumkit at last and I'm very happy with the results. See for yourself!

Stained floor tom and bassdrum on the back.

Stained floor tom and bassdrum.

Watching the scenery , while fishing near our recording location.

Otherness

Long time no see... (DIY Tom to Snare conversion)

 ...and no improvements for my equipment. Until this week...

Remember that 10"tom I lowered last year? I've been working with it and here we go. I need some suitable snare heads for it, so I can test how this beauty sounds. The Engravements was made with a dremel and I needed to drill some new holes for a snare strainer. Still not sure rather I should fill all of those old lugholes or leave half of them open as it is now.

Bearing edges was made using a sandpaper and  small tube, similar to this: http://www.prisma.fi/tuotekuvat//large/80/bmm2rlfnga2ljdpv.jpg
I rolled drum around in a tub and sanded in suitable angle with piece of wood and/or a carboard roll, depending what I wanted to accomplish. Top edge is like 30/60 and quite sharp. Bottom edge is more flat, round-like from the outside and sharp edged from the inside.

I felt my drummers balls descending to my knees during this project. It will be reaaady sooon!

Couple of pictures, here you go:

The rest of my kit remains still unfinished from the outside of shell. I added some mahogony antique wax to inside of the shells. Any suggestions for the outside or should I leave it natural, adding only some beeswax for them?

Studio Purtilo (DIY Drum kit modification)

We are recording new material for upcoming Karelian Warcry album. I've been planning to rip off the wraps from my drum kit to get more open sound. So now was the right time to do it. I will add some wax on the shells later.

Starting point

Bass drum got new wooden hoops on them

Chaos reigns pt. 1

 Chaos reigns pt. 2 

Temporary window seal patent for protecting the new hoops

Tuning on process (Toms: Evans EC2 coated/Remo Diplomat reso  Bd: Power stroke 3/Aquarian Regulator reso)

Miking setup

The set of the mad drummer

Demolition (DIY Cymbal Lamp modification)

There will be hard times ahead. The building where our rehearsal chamber (and where I mostly do things with my drum gear) is located, is going to be demolished soon and we have to set up a new place elsewhere. Meanwhile I try to make something at home.

And some more stuff from the archives:

Lampshade made from Sabian 16" AAxplosion crash and 14" Wuhan china

DIY Cymbal modifications

During this fall I've turned couple of broken cymbals into something else.


This first one makes a good pair with 20" Sabian HHX Power Ride's bell. On the pic the bell is mounted on the top of 20" Sabian XS Medium Ride:

6½" Bell (made from 17" Zildjian Z-Custom Rock Crash)

This one didn't last very long, so its cut down once more to a chimelike cymbal (not on this pic yet):

6" Bell (from 17" Stagg DH Medium brilliant Crash)

This one is unfinished, but we are almost there. I've tried to mate it with other hi-hat cymbals I own. The best match at the moment is with 14" Sabian XS Medium hi-hat bottom:

Hi-hat 1000g (from 17" Zildjian Z-Custom Medium Crash)

Sound is crispy with good stick definition when closed, and loud & big when played open. It feels like he-hat is eating someone alive everytime I hit it hard.

Same as above without lightning.

(Pictures are taken in poor lightning conditions with Olympus µ 790SW.)

Ooops! I accidently whole tomtom... (DIY Tom to Snare Conversion)

Tomtom WAS 8 inches and IS 6 inches deep now (not 8 inches as I accidently mentioned in previous post). Maybe this thingy is going to be somekind of snare/tom hybrid which can be transformed to different kind of situations with only a little effort. Time will tell... Time will tell... Modularity FTW!

I also spared those two pieces I cut away, maybe I'll make a grinding tambourine from them.

At the moment I'm looking for the double ended lugs with centerpoints approximately 40mm. And I'm planning to fill those holes near the edge with wooden plugs. Also inner plys seems to be torn apart from each other (I didn't drop this drum... it was the other guy), so they need some glue and abrasion(=hiomapöly) for them.

PS. Never trust a ruler...

Np. Anathema - Sleepless