TARJA TURUNEN (ex-NIGHTWISH) has issued the following new blog entry from Petrax Studios in Hollola, Finland:

"Yesterday was a quiet day. Only Jetro, Marcelo and I were working in the studio making edits for the songs already recorded by the band.

It’s great to be able to realize that some of the songs are already ready, just missing my vocals…

I was using one microphone that I very much liked in my previous recordings, but when we started asking for it long time ago, we couldn’t find that microphone in Finland at all!

So yesterday we went through quite many microphones that we had here with us and it was very useful. There can be really big differences between microphones and from my experience, the ones that are usually used in vocal recordings, are not so good for my voice.

Most of the microphones cannot handle my high register, so I need to find one that has good high end, but that can also be warm enough to transmit the softer moments.

I am going to be recording my vocals in two different studios; in Petrax where I am singing most of the “rock” tracks and in El Pie Studios in Buenos Aires where the more organic, movie kind of songs will be recorded.

Today we had another guest with us. Marzi Nyman came to add his guitar effects for some of my songs.

I know Marzi already from my Xmas concerts. He has been playing on my last couple of tours in Finland and I have always loved his way of using the pedals and effects.

He creates unbelievable moods as Doug does with bass.

Some of the songs on this album require special atmospheres and its better to do them organic ways rather than using samples.

Thank you Marzi for your thoughtful work.

Another nice thing happened today. I received the first orchestra arrangement from Jim and I have to say again that he is SO talented. He just blows me away every time with his work.

The orchestra will sound massive and beautiful, just as I wished it would sound. Just wait to hear!

I started recording vocals for the first song 'LL'. It was the easiest choice to start with. The song will be absolutely and definitely the heaviest track on my album and written by Alex, Johnny and me.

I think everything went fine with the song and it was fun to record it. Very easy, took me just few takes to get it right.

I’m heading towards new challenges tomorrow."

Tarja Turunen is detailing work on her forthcoming new album, What Lies Beneath, on her official blog at Tarja-whatliesbeneath.com. Further updates to follow.