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FinnArild

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Blog Entries posted by FinnArild

  1. Spring update

    By FinnArild ,

    In the pine right outside my balcony two magpies has started building their spiky nest. Last year they had 3 little ones, and I wonder if these are the same ones - they probably are - but more importantly: it's a sure sign spring is just around the corner. An especially long, cold and snowy winter looses it's grip, and to celebrate me and my wife will be off tomorrow for a week of R&R in lovely Prague.

    If you have followed me on my Facebook or Twitter pages you will have known that I have been featured on many radio shows throughout the world lately. Tomorrow (April 4) I will be featured with a longish interview on the Oslo based Rock FM from 23:00 Norwegian time. I can also recommend Progulus on-line radio where you can easily preview my album by requesting tracks. Reviews are continuing to come in - check out the review page.

    Between PR work and day job I am also getting together a band - we are still short of someone on keyboard, so anyone interested should just contact me.

    That's all for now - I'll be back soon with more info about the band!

    Finn Arild



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  2. A February Update

    By FinnArild ,

    The interview I was supposed to be having with Mark Deren on Radio Heemskerk today was postponed due to problems with their radio streaming, so I thought I'd get some blogging done instead. Reviews are coming in and I have set up a new web page linking to those here. Most of them are not in a language I read though - so I've had some good laughs reading what google translate make of them. I'd be happy for any help in translating them.

    If you want to have a listen to Testament you can request tracks on Progulus Radio if you become a member. It's an online radio station which plays lots of great progrock. If you're into progrock you should definitely check it out.

    I have hired TSM promotion to do promotion for me now, so I will have more time to get a band starting and maybe writing some more music - there's some ideas brewing again ...

    Finally - some press photos that my talented photographer-wife took this week:



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  3. Selling Testament

    By FinnArild ,

    It's hard for a creative musician to be a salesman, but it is very fun when interest is stirred and the reviews and radioplay starts coming online - which is starting to happen now. Last week I was featured on Italian "Radio Città" and today I will be featured on Radio Heemskerk - which has a progressive rock show every Sunday 21:00-23:00 hosted by "Mark from Holland".

    Scream magazine will be reviewing me in their February issue and I got a pretty nice review by Donato Zoppo at Movimentiprog (in Italian). More reviews are on way.

    Now to some bad news: I have been pirated. Several pirate sites (and sites which claims no responsibility for it's content) links to downloads of Testament - and they even link to my site on the same page they link to the pirated copy. Making an album is really hard work and has cost me loads of time and money, so I have an appeal: If you have downloaded my album and are listening to it - please spend the few quids it is to purchase it. Chances are you'll even get a much better quality copy than the one you have now, and chances are that I then will make another album for you to enjoy.

    That's all for now folks.

    Finn Arild.



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  4. I am very busy promoting Testament these days, doing all those things I really don't enjoy so much - like writing my own bio, sending mails everywhere to try to get my album reviewed, distributed, played on radio and so on. It's hard work, I'm telling ya! When I finally get in touch with people it is always very nice, and most people seem to be very interested in my latest album.

    So far it is looking pretty good, Progrock.no, Progress Records, Record Heaven and CD Baby now stocks (or will stock very soon) my album. You can also buy it in lossless formats from my webshop - which soon also will include even more lossless formats and special-edition single tracks which you won't get anywhere else.

    After being done with my album I have also upgraded my DAW to Windows 7 and Cubase 5. I am playing around with it jotting down some new ideas, and it looks pretty nice.

    I am now also trying to get a band on the road to do some of my music, so if you know a bassist or keyboardist - let me know.

    That's all from me for now - you'll be hearing from me again.



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  5. Testament available

    By FinnArild ,

    Finally Testament is available for purchase (downloadable mp3/flac) or pre-order (CD).

    I expect have the CDs in hand this week, and then I will be very busy starting on the promotion - getting this CD out. Hopefully there will be some concerts next year too; I will come back to you on that. So - just a quick note telling you this, now I need to get back to promo-work again.



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  6. A couple of weeks ago I was in Strype Audios mastering studio together with Tom Kvålsvoll to put the last hand on Testament. As you may know the whole album is one piece where the songs either fade over in each-other or is separated by other effects. It turns out he was the absolute right guy to master it, and after some re-work on the fade-overs to get it just right, I got the final master last Wednesday.

    I am now only waiting on the cover art, before sending it to the printers. Then I will start working on these web-pages which are way overdue some rework.

    You can be sure I'll let you know when Testament is ready for purchase ...



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  7. The final mix

    By FinnArild ,

    So - since January, I have been recording the final bits & pieces while learning to mix while mixing the album. Now it is really getting there! I also did a re-recording of several tracks - the curse of perfection!

    Now I am looking at sending this to mastering sometime during October - all though I have stopped making promises to anyone ...

    You probably also have noticed that I am a pretty rotten blogger - there I will have to improve now that that I am entering the phase of marketing Testament. Well - that's all for now, I need to get back to mixing.



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  8. I got the house for myself this weekend, so I figured it would be a good time to do the remaining instrument recordings - classical guitar. It got very well until I came upon a bit more delicate part where I noticed one of the mics had a rather high hiss to it. I tried switching the cable but the hiss remained, so I ended up doing that part with the guitar microphone + studio microphone. All in all it worked out fine and I can check one more thing off the list.

    Today - just while I waited for Elin to get home with some shawarmas, I also did another guitar solo - hopefully next week we can tick off quite a lot!



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  9. As you can see on the tracker, one solo down - planning on doing the rest this week. Some more piano should be done next week, and every day I am working on getting the sound I want in the mix. The mixing will in earnest start when all tracking is done, and you should also be able to follow the progress on the tracker.

    The guitars are finally up on the wall - here's the pictures I promised (click for larger images).







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  10. It's been a while since I did some serious bends on the guitar, so these days I am preparing my fingers a bit for a recording session for the missing solos sometime next week. I also packed up my Hagstrøm Viking for the first time since I got back into my home studio again.

    Coming Saturday a friend of mine will come and help me get some shelves up in the studio, and then I can finally get my guitars up on the walls. The previous week I made 2 neat racks from some IKEA nightstands and set up the computer in a holder (also from IKEA - as most of the other studio furniture) to get it off the floor. All in all it's getting to be a really nice home studio! When the guitars are up next week, I'll have a picture taken (there's only one photograph in this house) and show you all.

    Also, you'll be able to follow the recording and mixing progress directly in the tool I have started to use for handling the project: Redmine.

    Here is the link to the tracker: http://tracker.finnarild.com/ - currently it contains the missing recordings, but it will also contain the mixing progress and the countless other tasks involving an album release.



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  11. I am running some websites, which is helping to pay for the rent of the dedicated server I am running this website on. The system I am running is Plone, and I have been asked by people in the Plone community to blog about the solutions I frequently find.

    For my newest customer, Ignarbakke (Not quite finished, so disregard the shabby design) - I have for the first time set up a deliverance solution. Deliverance is a brilliantly smart concept, both separating design from logic and giving you some neat possibilities of seamlessly combining several types of backend web applications into a frontend.

    However, I have been having some problems in making it play nicely - both with issues in my Varnish cache frontend, and problems with the Kupu editor in Plone. Firstly, I had problems logging in to the site since my Varnish cache kept caching my pages even if I was logged in. This turned out to be a problem with all my sites, but since I usually log in with https which bypasses my cache, I hadn't noticed. The issue was easily solved by adding the following lines to vcl_fetch in the Varnish config:

    } elsif (req.http.cookie ~ "__ac" || obj.http.set-cookie ~ "__ac") { set obj.http.Cache-Control = "max-age=0, s-maxage=0, no-cache, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate"; set obj.ttl = 0s; set obj.http.X-Finns-Varnish-Rule = "Plone logged in - do not cache"; } (This is one of several conditions in vcl_fetch - hence the "elsif")

    The other problem was that editing pages with the Kupu editor just didn't work. This was a bit more puzzling to me, and I googled my way until I found this page which shed some light on the mystery - however without solving it. I understood that Kupu depended on a pristine /emptypage - so I modified the Deliverance configuration in the example to the following:

    <!-- RULES FOR MAKING KUPU WORK --> <match path="contains:emptypage" class="emptypage"> <dest href="http://localhost:8080/VirtualHostBase/http/www.ignar.no:80/ignar/www/VirtualHostRoot" /> </match> <rule class="emptypage"> <replace content="element:/html/head" theme="element:/html/head" /> <replace content="element:/html/body" theme="element:/html/body" /> </rule> Basically I used a match instead of a proxy - and that solved my problems nicely. Hopefully this will help others with the same problems.



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  12. Getting there!

    By FinnArild ,

    So - things have been very, very busy - and a lot of it not concerning my next release: Testament, so I have regrettably not written much in this blog this year. But - now we are getting to an end with both the redecoration and tracking Testament. My wife was graceful enough to let me finish the home studio room first, so that is up now - if not quite there yet.

    I have also been in studio and done all the vocals for Testament, so all that remains now is some background vocals, some guitars and piano (which my good friend Reidar Wiik will do) - and we should be ready to mix.

    Talking about mixing: I'll be doing that myself too, on this one - with some guidance from Tor Øyvind Quille which mixed my last album. I have purchased some neat mixing tools (UAD-2) and currently experimenting with the equipment and the songs that are all but done now. I will start posting up teasers before soon, so: Keep watching this space - things are happening, at last!


    I wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!



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  13. Still redecorating

    By FinnArild ,

    Guess what - redecorating took much longer than I expected. I guess I should not be surprised, it is probably a law or something. Anyway - starting to see the end now, and I'm also getting some recording done where I've moved some of my equipment to my mum and dads' place. One of these equipments is my Marshall 8100 amp with cabinet, doing the guitar on Testament I want to sound like it's moving air around.

    Anyway - it's looking like there will ready for some paint on the walls here soon - I will of course let you know how it goes.



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  14. The drums are finally all recorded, and Micke has done an excellent job of it. The Testament album is pretty much finished as a concept now and only recording and some arrangement is left. But due to some extensive redecorating work at home - also involving my home studio - I will need to postpone the recordings a bit. A finished master is now scheduled for the new year.

    I'm exited about re-doing my home studio, though. This time it will be built with acoustics in mind and will have acoustic treatment applied to it - I'll post some pictures here of it when it's done.



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  15. May day

    By FinnArild ,

    1st of May, Labour day - is day off in Norway - nice opportunity to do some blogging. You can also now follow me on Twitter and see what I am doing at the moment.

    I am currently waiting for the East West Quantum Edition Symphonic Orchestra - which I have ended up with instead of getting real instruments to play on the classical parts I have. With some regrets, granted, but I am very excited about getting it and starting to work on what is to become the final album. The quality of the production will likely be better than mixing down X number of single instruments.

    I can now also reveal that Mikael Wikman will be playing drums on Testament. He is an experienced drummer with his own studio and he has been doing progressive rock before. We will mainly collaborate through internet.

    Until next time, Cheers - Finn Arild.




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  16. My next album - a progressive rock concept album now renamed to Testament - is in the recording phase now. Currently I am working on assembling the classical parts and also preparing for the drum parts to be recorded. I am also planning how everything should flow together and working on melody and lyric details. It is really coming together well and I think the end result is gonna be pretty cool. I am also working on this website - actually splitting it up in a Finn Arild Music and then a Finn Arilds Serendipity (which is what I plan to be the "band name" for my music projects) site - as well as a small site just for the Testament album - since there is a lot of stuff to append to the album concept than what will fit into the CD artwork.




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  17. Another year

    By FinnArild ,

    Well into 2008, and past my birthday again. I have been working hard to get the demo for my next album finished by February 1st, which is the deadline for the Norwegian music fund: "Fond for Lyd og Bilde". The plans now for the production is to get the classical pieces together - with some help from local musicians. More about this later, for now I need to get the rest of the scores together.

    As I mentioned earlier, 2nd of February I celebrated my 39nth birthday, and my wife in her extravaganza had got me a Hagstrøm Viking. Man - that's a piece of beauty both in looks, playability and sound. Check out the picture of the happy owner (click image for larger version).


    Until next time, then.




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