Taikatalvi Storytime Wish I Had an Angel Amaranth Scaretale The Siren Slow, Love, Slow I Want My Tears Back (with Troy Donockley)The Crow, the Owl and the Dove (with Troy Donockley)The Islander (with Troy Donockley)Nemo (with Troy Donockley) (Acoustic)Last of the Wilds (with Troy Donockley)Planet Hell Ghost River Dead to the World Over the Hills and Far Away (Gary Moore cover) (with Troy Donockley)Encore:Finlandia (Jean Sibelius cover) (with Troy Donockley)Song of Myself Last Ride of the Day Imaginaerum
Petri Alanko - Imaginaerum The Movie soundtrackde Imaginaerum, el Domingo, 25 de marzo de 2012 a la(s) 14:46 ·Hi everyone, it's Petri Alanko here. Since July 2011 I've been working on Imaginaerum The Movie soundtrack based on the album multitrack sessions and the original songs by Tuomas (and one by Marco). I'm afraid some of my text will be more or less technical mumbo-jumbo, but I'll try and keep it as readable as it's humanly possible for yours truly.A brief history: I met Stobe Harju whilst working with Remedy Entertainment's "Alan Wake" XBOX game for which I composed the soundtrack. I worked briefly, yet closely with Stobe during the game's cinematic cue production phase. To be honest, he must have enjoyed to make me cry, really. Every visual thing he ever showed me brought me to tears. Obviously he didn't hate me much, as I'm here again - and it's been a damn funky ride! Better than any theme park ride, this; at times you feel the wind on your face and things just couldn't come any better, no matter what you do. Then there's that one occasional moment of "how the eff do I turn this 16 bar riff into a 9 minute monster?", a thought repeatedly waking me up at nights for what seemed like a week. Oh, the agony - and how simple and elegant the solution eventually was! A lot of things have just clicked, which makes this one of my most enjoyable jobs ever and definitely the most original one. What I do is a passion, not a profession. I do make a living out of it, but without the spark that ignites me the living would suck.Indeed, the sparks were many in this project. Let me elaborate a bit.The process of turning an album track full of orchestra, keyboards, bass, guitars, Uilleann pipes, percussion and vocals into a mayhem of grief, misery, joy, yearning or wonder is not an easy one. It's a method of analysis combined with the gut feeling, at its best. I think I utilized some serious "blinking" (quick decisioning, a term borrowed from Malcolm Gladwell) during the pre-production phase: I had to listen to and through every single track of every song on Nightwish's Imaginaerum ProTools multitrack sessions - and cut out and paint green every "ok" snippet. If a certain thing sounded like it would benefit from further processing, I'd paint it orange or yellow, depending on my mindset (or a process anticipated for that particular cutout). Yellow meant simply "retune", orange "beat the shit out of it no matter what". Retuning usually meant throwing pitches around until the original sample was no longer recognizable… The decisions had to be made presto prestissimo, as I rapidly understood the more I thought of something, the more the original idea dissolved.I remember one day particularly well, in the very beginning. I had been working on a single track for the whole day, drinking about 7-8 espresso shots, and finally the last track was cut into grays (no-go), greens, yellows and oranges. The arrange page seemed a bit crowded, so I decided to select only the colored sections… and I think I crapped my pants a bit then: there were - I just checked this - 1073 tiny sections separated from their original tracks, in one song alone. Multiply that number by the amount of songs on the album, and you come across with a number such as about 12773, which my "Imaginaerum raw material" folder tells me whenever I hit cmd-I. (The size of the folder is 7.94 GB, by the way. That's a lot of raw material, in other words.) After a weekend off, I did a second run for the material, and to my surprise, I didn't have to do much additions or corrections.Some of those snippets were then turned into keymaps, them into instruments, instruments were combined to form multi-instruments - and little by little I had managed to develop myself a virtual Nightwish! Well, not really, as they were only single sounds, not pieces of performances as such. However, I did create some tempo-lockable guitar/bass instruments, shredding Nightwish riffs from one key only - and I could switch the key while they played - but these instruments were often used underneath the orchestral sections, to provide some extra "oomph", and you can _not_ hear them playing solo anywhere on the soundtrack. What's loud and sounds like a guitar or bass, it's Emppu or Marco. Period. I did similar stuff for Jukka's drums (again tempolockable) but this time I ran a lot of his stuff through different resonators and filters. Often I took the tom tracks only, picked up a rhythm from his playing and used that rhythm to control the pitches I was putting into a resonator by a keyboard. The result sounds like a percussive huge bass instrument and must be heard to believe… also, some of the vocals were turned into choirs or manic chanting. Marco's demonic "down down, deeper down" in Ghostriver redefined word "scary" after a treatment. You wouldn't want to hear that at night, I promise. At least my neighbour didn't - and he lived 20 meters away. Lived. Moved. Marco's chanting is used on a dark gray field, by the way... I did use "commercial libraries" as well, but wanted to rely on what I had on the Imaginaerum hard drive.(A side note: I was constantly amazed throughout the process due to the fact every song still sounds like a proper Nightwish track, thanks to the strong personalities behind the performances. You can't fade or mutilate true passion. Period.)It's probably pointless to say the number of tracks per song/cue turned into nightmarish amounts pretty soon after I had started. I've never been a fan of "let's just put that trendy Casio shit on and sing on top of it" method, and Nightwish are even less so. These two combined = oh holy crap and a thousand portaloos… "Last Ride Of The Day" alone had 327 tracks altogether when it went to mix, of which about 100 from the band itself, and the rest was put in to emphasize the action of the scene in which it was needed. In some cases I had to keep two spare computers running Vienna Ensemble Pro 5 (a virtual instrument networking application, not an orchestra plugin), slaved to my master computer. Yes, master had two slaves - hmm... I wish I had some assistants, too.I know some of you keep on repeating "Why all this hassle? Why must that nasty bloke destroy everything we love?", I'm sure. Movie scores are a different beast. It's not about egotripping or hating original music (I _love_ it, by the way, I, too, am a fan. "Hello, my name is Petri and I'm a Nightwish fan."), it's about emphasizing the picture and the storyline. Grabbing the essence and rebuilding emotions selectively onto that. Some wiser man (must have been my piano teacher) said movie scores build tools for "dissecting the dreams we see and turn them into consolations or encouragement". There are two (well, three to be honest) tracks that were left as is: Slow, Love, Slow and Scaretale. The third is I Want My Tears Back, sort of.One by one the songs of Imaginaerum The Album have reformed - transformed - into a soundtrack. It hasn't been easy - and hey, it shouldn't have been; in creative field, comfort zones are for suckers and nine-to-five people. One has to trust the "gut feeling", though. No use to choose the hard way just because it's there. Some things have transformed themselves almost by accident, whereas some have taken a slightly longer time. It's been a damn good ride, and there are still a few good curves ahead - but I can already see the final straight of this rollercoaster, and all you people waiting for your turn on the platform, soon joining the ride. I'm thrilled to be a tiny part of your experience.There have been a few times when I've wished there was a shotgun in my studio, but only a few. Much more often it was the wind machine that was missed. Or a wedge monitor on the floor onto which to rest my leg. Or a fog machine. A multi-kilowatt PA. A crowd of >20000 people... Heh, the amount of air guitar played in this room has months ago gone through the roof. The end result is going to sound magical, and fear not: I cannot spoil any of it, the original songs and themes are that strong. I'm mixing/cutting the fourth reel (of five) and I can't wait to see this on the big screen.To be a part of this realising dream is a privilege, and I cannot express my gratitude and pride in an appropriate way; sometimes words just _aren't_ enough. I hope the soundtrack recites wiser words than what I just did."My god, it's full of sparks!"-Petri
Today Wave 100 is happy and proud to have a guest from Nightwish, the musical leader… or art director Tuomas Holopainen. Welcome!- Thank you.Let’s begin with a question from the golden 80s. What was the childhood dream job of Tuomas Holopainen?- It was probably a biologist, more precisely a marine biologist. Nature and natural sciences have always been important to me. They still are. Crazy scientists were my biggest idols when I was a kid. I had a poster of Einstein on my wall, and things like that.Do you regret that you didn’t become a scientist?- Not at all. Like I said, I’m interested about those scenes, but I feel that I’m exactly on the right path in my current job.Let’s return to the present. Imaginaerum has sold gold in several countries already and your gigs, for example the yesterday’s gig in Helsinki, have been praised in the media. What kind of feedback has the band received directly from the fans?- Well, I try to avoid following the media, including social media. So I don’t read the comments often, but as far as I know, the album has got a very positive but also confused reception: “What is this? You used to make heavy metal with symphonic elements, and now you are making movie music with a shade of heavy metalâ€. In a way I agree with that, but this album describes what the band is today. This is exactly what we wanted to make. So the feedback has been positive and confused. And the same applies to live shows. People have been wondering “what on earth are they doingâ€. And that’s exactly what we were aiming to.What do you think about the album now when some time has passed from making the album, although it was released quite recently?- We are still very satisfied to the album, but I haven’t listened to the album after getting it ready. Maybe I should now listen to it from the beginning to the end with fresh ears.On your earlier albums you’ve had epic and big songs, but the Imaginaerum album is more integrated than the previous albums. The band sounds quite familiar, but at the same time you’ve found a new path in your music. Do you agree with my description?- You crystallized it very well. I agree with it. And in my opinion, the same thing has happened on every album we’ve made. The band has remained recognizable, but we’ve always added new genres and searched for new challenges. In my opinion, when you start to make an album the first priority is to challenge the band and in a way also the listeners.Nightwish is considered perhaps the biggest Finnish band abroad. How well do the foreigners know that the band is Finnish? And do you stress abroad that you are Finns?- It’s nice to mention. It gives me some healthy dignity and I'm proud of being a Finn. But advertising the nationality isn’t our main goal. We don’t have Finnish flags on stage or anything like that. But we are proud of it anyway. And people all over the world know where we are coming from. Finnish rock music has a very good reputation everywhere.You are making an Imaginaerum movie too. Where did you get the idea to make a feature film in addition to the music?- I got the idea exactly because I want to challenge myself to absurd acts on every album. After the previous album, I had a feeling that one path has come to the end. So I was wondering “what on earth should we do on the next albumâ€. So I had to find a new twist. And in summer 2007 I just got the idea that the next twist will be making a movie. So we made the album considering it as a soundtrack of the forthcoming movie.- The movie will premiere this year. We have a deadline that the movie has to be ready in April, but we haven’t decided yet the theatrical premiere date or the release date of the DVD.What kind of an experience has it been to make this movie? How do you feel personally and how has the other band members commented the process of making the movie?- This has been a sort of victory of persistence because the project was about to fail several times, mainly because of financial issues. Getting the funding for the movie was really hard, but in the end we found the solution from Canada. At the moment I feel very good, based on the clips from the movie and the final effect shots I’ve seen so far. It looks exactly like our original vision. This has been a great experience. We’ve stepped to the world we don’t know very well. And I’ve understood not to influence too much to it since I don’t understand this world so well. Now we’re just waiting to see the final product.Does the movie include the songs or music from the eponymous album? Or does it have a completely new soundtrack, new songs?- It has a completely new score, but every piece of music you will hear in the movie is from the Imaginaerum album. The songs are just rearranged. All songs of the album will be heard in the movie, even in the same order, but in completely different versions.Your earlier vocalist Tarja had a bit different voice compared to Anette. Although there’s no need to fix or renew the old songs, is it possible that Nightwish would some day publish rearranged, let’s say more symphonic versions of the old songs?- Definitely not.Right to the point! Do you still perform old songs live? Or is Nightwish a band that doesn’t look behind and moves bravely forward all the time?- We want to play newer songs because they are the most interesting to play. And our energy will affect to the audience and the other way around. But we want to keep some old, Tarja era songs on our set list. But the main principle is that you mustn’t force anything. We want to play and sing the songs that feel our own. This is the reason we dropped Wishmaster completely out of the set list. None of us wants to perform it anymore. It would feel strained and artificial. So why should we keep it on the set list?People have enjoyed and praised your video screens, pyrotechniques and light show. You must have quite a big team running those, in addition to the band.- There are 30 to 35 people running the show. It unbelievable how much precise knowledge our Finnish-German technician group has. That construction on the stage was built in a few hours this morning and it was disassembled in a couple of hours last night in Helsinki. The men are doing incredible job. When it comes to the current stage show, we decided already last autumn that we would bring the live experience to the new direction. So we wanted to reduce rock’n’roll and include some Cirque du Soleil elements. We tried to make it a more comprehensive and theatrical experience. Music has a big role in it, but the show is meant to be a comprehensive visual experience too.I realized that you’ve launched a Nightwish energy drink. There is a Battery tin with a Nightwish label. When will you follow the example of Mí¶torhead and launch a hard liquor?- We don’t have any plans for hard liquors, but we will release a wine soon. A Nightwish Imaginaerum red wine. We visited Napa Valley, California and tasted the wine and met the people at the vineyard, so we’ve even given some input to this product. The label is ready and we are waiting for the launch.So the next question is: when will it be released?- I don’t know yet, but I think in a few months.What’s going to happen next? Has Nightwish already achieved everything you’ve wanted Nightwish to achieve or do you still have good ideas for the future?- We’ve talked about the next album already, what would it be like and what would we do then. I have plenty of ideas and many ambitions to fulfil, but at the moment we’re enjoying this tour. We’ll start planning the future next year. But I have many ideas. We could take the show even further by including aerialists and rope dancers and bears jumping with kangaroo balls while juggling with oranges. That would be a proper, comprehensive show. Or the other extremity would be to have a minimal, completely acoustic tour at pizzerias. That could be very nice too. I still have plenty of ideas.
