EQ Magazine - February 2008 - (Page 23) Elegantly V I L L E VA LO A N D T I M PA L M E R J U G G L E I M PA C T A N D AT M O S P H E R E O N H I M ’ S M E TA L O P U S , V E N U S D O O M. BY S H A N E M E H L I N G If you’re looking for a quick metal fix, Sweden and Norway are sure-fire destinations. But Finland is quickly becoming the country to look out for, thanks in part to melodic metal maniacs HIM. Amassing a stable of international fans for the past ten years, HIM is the only Finnish band to reach gold status in the United States. And with the release of their heaviest album to date, Venus Doom [Sire], the band is poised to make Finland not just a site for great bird watching. Here, producerTim Palmer (U2, the Cure, Ozzy Osbourne)—who has worked with the band since its breakout hit Love Metal in 2003—and home-recording enthusiast and HIM frontman Ville Valo reveal the secrets behind the recording of Venus Doom. What is the sonic focus of Venus Doom, and how does it diff e r f rom past releases? Va l o : This is our sixth album, so we definitely know now what we want—and don’t want—in terms of sound. We’ve also learned to concentrate on the song, instead of being immersed in the details. I thought the last record was too layered, so we composed the new songs to be more stripped down.The challenge there is to capture good sounds, because they really count—especially when you are working with two guitar tracks instead of eight.You have to get a lot of mileage out of minimal sources. Palmer: I agree that the last album took the concept of “moody and textured” too far. It was too complicated. I figured out that, for an aggressive band like this, it’s better to work fast, and capture as much as you can in one take. Then, you can worry about the details later. Yo u r e c o r d e d i n F i n l a n d , a n d m i xe d i n t h e U.S.—how wa s t h a t p ro c e s s ? Palmer: We recorded at Finnvox Studios, and we had all we needed to get great sounds. We tracked on an SSL AWS 900, and used Neve 1081s for all the preamps. We had a great mic locker to pull from, and we had Genelec 1031As to monitor the sessions—which I love. The “pro” was that the band was very relaxed and comfortable, because it was near their homes. The “con” was that Finnvox is a pretty basic facility, and I ended up doing most of the editing and comping in ProTools LE. And this was on my laptop in the hotel room during off-hours, because I hadn’t adjusted to the time change [laughs]. Valo:Tracking in Finland was great, because Hiili Hiilesmaa, who produced our first album, was able to come in as an engineer and co-producer. He gets some of the best sounds of anyone I know—especially guitar sounds. It was great to have Hiili and Tim on board, because they could both edit and comp tracks in Pro Tools, using SoundReplacer. H ow wa s t h e d r u m k i t m i ke d ? P a l m e r : I must say this—I’m not a mic snob. I don’t need a lot of choices. I’ll use a Shure SM57 on just about everything, from snares to lead vocals. That said, I almost always use Neumann U87s for overheads, and Neumann U47s for the room microphones. I record drums so that I can have as much flexibility with the sound in the mix.To do this, I aim to get a strong close-mic sound—using pop filters if necessary— to get the sound directly into the mics with minimal reflections. But I also always mic the room R aw Ville Valo laying down vocals in Finnvox Studios. JUURIK KALA www.eqmag.com FEBRUARY 2008 EQ 23 http://www.eqmag.com
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