INSOMNIUM guitarist Ville Friman has issued the following studio blog:

Day 1.

22.3.2009

"Yeah baby, yeah! It took a while, but finally we are ready to enter studio and record new Insomnium album. Markus (Hirvonen, drummer) picked me up 14:00 and after loading the car with leftover alcoholics from my doctoral defence we headed to Lutakko to get our gear. Nothing special in there and after few nice rounds of Tetris we were ready to hit the road. The trip went smoothly and meanwhile Markus drove I practised to use new video camera we bought to document the recording session. Time will tell if we get anything proper on the tape besides drunken madness.

Since the last sessions, Fantom studio had moved from the cosy bomb shelter to brand new premises at Akun tehdas. Samu welcomed us at the yard, show us bit around after we took the gear in and started to settle in. Currently, studio has one playing room and monitoring room that serves us nicely. Markus spent the evening by setting up the drums and I used the time wisely by recording more demos from the new songs with my laptop. For those interested in gear tweaking, on the road I use 13-inch 2 ghz Macbook equipped with Logic 8, M-audio Jamlab audio interface and Korg Nanokey midi “keyboard”. The actual magic happens in Logic with help of following essential plug-ins: Ezdrummer+DFH, Amplitube 2, Ampeg SVX and some reverb impulses to get more natural cabinet simulations. Takes a lot from your computer but makes it possible to tweak your sounds infinitely. And everything fits into your back bag with your shitty underwear, sweet!

We used last days with Markus by trying out different tempos on songs and everything seems to find its place eventually. I still decided to make demos from all the songs so that it is easier for Aleksi from SWALLOW THE SUN to come up with nice keyboard arrangements. In the case he makes alive back to Finland from the supporting tour for SOILWORK, heh. Eventually Markus got his drums set up, I recorded guitars for two songs, and we enjoyed bit wine before going to sleep 2 am. Tomorrow we’ll see if the wine went to Markus’s feet, hah!"