All Rise for the Lord Of The Night

Dear fans, friends, partners, haters and enemies,

Cutting Room Studios Sweden

 Lord Of The Night will soon be born, we are off to the final stage: The Mastering.
Blaakyum is proud to announce that it is mastering its album at Cutting Room Studios Sweden, and that its Master Mastering Engineer Mr. Björn Engelmann will be mastering the album in the few upcoming days.

Mr. Engelmann owner of Cutting Room Studios has mastered endless bands such as: Adagio, Behemoth, Bloodoath, Hypocrisy, In Flames, Meshuggah, Rammstein, Salem, Gorgoroth, Samael, Sonata Arictica, and Lake of Tears among others...

About Mr. Björn Engelmann:

Owner & Chief Mastering Engineer, he has been mastering audio since 1980 and took over from the original owners who started the company in 1978. Beginning with vinyl mastering, Björn has never left his first love of the analog mastering equipment. A long discography through the years and the confidence from the major record labels, Björn has lead the way for Scandinavian music in the realm of mastering.

We Shall Rise \m/

Studio Camp

This is Bassem Deaibess reporting to you live from the Alchemist Studios, where Blaakyum has deployed a temporary camp, working 24/24 around the clock to get the album mixing done before the 21st of this month so that it can find its way to the final mastering stage.

The Mastering Engineer name and Studio will be announced soon... But before that, we need to get the mix as good as possible. Now with the limited resources we have, we are doing a good job, opting to record everything in an analog like manner, not using any VSTs or Drum samples but rather recording the drums guitars and bass live was not an easy task, and it is true, you have to aim extremely high to get as close as possible to what you want. Sometimes I wondered why can't we get a killer sound like the ones in Master of Puppets, Black Album, Foundation of Damnation, and the likes... the answer is obvious though it has escaped me for too long, well, we do not have strong amps like for example the mighty Mesa/Boogie, for example: James Hetfield "discovered that utilizing the midrange frequencies straight from a modified Marshall amplifier, layered over guitar tracks of his trusty Mesa/Boogie MarkIIC+ as well as the Mesa/Boogie MarkIV, plus an ADA MP-1 preamp and a Mesa/Boogie Strategy 400 poweramp, he would get a much thicker and richer tone. He enhanced the frequencies by enclosing his four Marshall 1960B speaker cabinets with foam walls and U-Haul blankets, and carefully phase-canceled particular frequencies with eight closely-positioned microphones and two ambient condenser microphones." Ok so this is advanced alchemy... Nor do we have the all mighty Warhead Randall amps to use, add to it the fact that in the good old days overdubbing was required to achieve that heavy crunch, something digital recording has fucked up quite a bit in small studios...

So we had to be content with the few not bad equipments we have, specially the lovely little

Randall RH50T Half Stack that was used to record all the rhythm parts. One little amp for the whole sound we want, almost was an impossible mission, so there we are, I have moved to the studio, spending all my time here, our engineer Mr. Karim Noujaim consecrating all his time and energy for the mixdown, band members join every now and then, work around the clock, this is so exciting, fun and exhausting... And we hope you will enjoy listening to our album as much as we enjoyed creating it, blending it, and bring it alive with the best we can... Hail to Heavy Metal, the mighty Iron Fist of the Gods

Bassem Deaibess,
Blaakyum

The Alchemist

Definitely mixing a song is like preparing a magic potion, yes yes the likes of Getafix's potions (From Asterix, in French known as Panoramix)!! It is such an art, really sound and mix engineers are as artistic as any musician, and the action of mixing a song, is subjective, with endless possibilities and variables, and a Mix Engineer like any other musician can be an amateur, a professional or a virtuoso!! And we are lucky to have someone as pro and as artistic as Mr. Noujaim.
What can I say about the mixing process? Hectic, time consuming, and totally unhealthy when you have a deadline and squeezing months worth of work into not weeks but days... BUT it is such a pleasure, that you'd really feel like an alchemist of old; Welcome apprentice, to modern days Alchemist Scholarly Wizard practices \m/
The work is going great, and with every fine tuning of new sound in a song, the thrill goes up, you'd never know what to expect when you tweak -0.08 db in the mix, or when you slightly lower that noisy fat 80Kh frequency!!! Thrilling is all that... Magic at it's best... And the results are getting better and better... What is being cooked IS delicious. And the results are on their way to the final stage.

One more thing to add, is the orchestration, specially of the first and last tracks,  these two tracks are being heavily orchestrated (the last track actually is simply a symphonic tune that does not include any band instrument, purely Orchestra), and it sounds to us as much as we hope it would sound to you, majestic, royal, classical and very soundtrack like... We cannot wait to release our wrath and unleash our worst fears, love, pain, anger, and aggression upon the world... The day of Judgement is nigh, and the Judge of all times, the Lord Of The Night shall enter, and as they say in court: ALL RISE \m/

Bassem Deaibess,
Blaakyum

Blaakyum's Blogsite is up

Our blog has turned into a fresh looking website, this Blog/website have all the information you need about up-coming events, videos, pictues, and Album details, and thus we call it a Blogsite.

Have no mistake this blogsite IS the official Blaakyum's website. A more professional website will be up after our album release, but for now all our time is being spent in the studio and on the road to get everything ready and done with, before January Friday the 13th.

We hope you enjoy it.


BLAAKYUM

A word From our Mix Engineer and Co-Producer

Soldier of Fortune, Karim Noujaim

Finally I’m done pushing the record button for the drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals, and I believe we have it all. We really enjoyed these moments that developed a solid friendship and that will most likely be unforgettable for me and the band.

For the last 5 days I’ve been working on “Battle Roar” with Blaakyum, trying different processes for their instruments figuring out how all will be mixed together, compromising on how each band member likes the sound of his instrument, the way the production and me like the sound of the instruments, and the way they came all together. I can say that these last days were really constructive and we finally have a sound we like.

I hope you’ll enjoy “Battle Roar” while we’re polishing it and adding the final touches to it and while we’re working hard to finish Blaakyum’s album that will soon be released as scheduled and mentioned earlier.

The wait is over, it’s happening.
Karim Noujaim

You can listen to the un-mastered version of Battle Roar here


Battle Roar (First Edition, Un-mastered version)





12:55 AM 4th of December 2011

Final Recording Track Laid and Mixing Started

Yesterday Thursday the 1st of December is marked as the day I have finished recording my vocal takes and the end of the long process of recording (that took us three years to get the line up fixed, the gear right and the studio and engineer right).

Enter the Mixdown realm of magic, subjectivity and adventure... This is the first time I actually produce a full length album, and the first time I realise how enjoyable, annoying, and artistic is the work of a Audio Mix Engineer.
The results are satisfying and we have picked up the pace... We are going to attack soon... so be ware of the beast... \m/




Bassem Deaibess,
Blaakyum

Blaakyum's Blog upgraded to website

Good day fans and friends. Blaakyum is about to lunch it's Debut album and just like any hard working band, internet has become a major part of a band's life, for other young bands out there, let us give you few tips:

Many young bands today say: "we have facebook, myspace, reverbnation, and all these endless social network sites, a web page is not really important" Well, True that most fans and promoters, talent scouts and business industry representatives, check social networks for new talents, but when a band catch a label's eyes and/or ears, the first thing they do is go to their website, and see how serious the band is, your website reflects a certain amount of dedication and seriousness, the more interesting it looks the more it reflects what the band is. Now this is definitely not a black and white issue, many great bands don't even have websites, and many fancy websites belong to bands who are not really original, talented or interesting, but let us put it this way, a fancy website for a mediocre band might not even be a target and won't receive traffic from talent scouts and label representatives, while a good band would miss a chance of giving a more positive image of itself if those people decided to check their website.
So a better website is always a plus in your band's promotion packages, sometimes it might be the small feather that tip the balance to your band's side.

So since this is the case, and since Blaakyum was way to busy with it's individual members lives and music scene that it had not had enough time to work on a proper site. We kept the minimum required by having a blog as our official website. This is about to change.

Just like a full length album a, "full length" website is due, but because of our album release deadline and so much pressure and so little budget, we will keep a "full length" website for later, but we will upgrade this blog to a blog/site within few days.

Cheers,

Bassem Deaibess,
Blaakyum

Blaakyum's Bassist and Co-reformer Rany Battikh review

I've passed by the studio yesterday to listen to Bassem's takes and he sounds better than ever. I thought he couldn't hit those high pitched screams anymore, I was dead wrong plus he's using new techniques that I've never heard him do before. (I'm a bad influence I know!)

The drums sounds great the way it is right now and it's still raw, nothing has been processed yet. I'm starting to wonder how great will it turn out to be when the mixing is done. For those who haven't heard Jad yet, you will be extremely pleased.

Elias' solos are amazing as usual and the rest of the guitars sound just like "Blaakyum", just like when we were setting our different sounds definitions back in 2007. (You'll know what I mean when you'll listen to the album)

Rany.

The Road is Paved, The Thunder Roars, and the Tracks are Laid

Finally the vocal recording process has kicked off, we have laid the foundation for four songs... All in all we have 11 (out of 13) tracks on our debut that has lyrics, 10 of them are full songs and one is an instrumental with a small vocal section. So now we have 4 out of these 11 recorded... And the results are satisfactory taking into consideration that I wasn't at all happy with my voice lately and it's very slow recovery pace... But we have finally reached the minimum accepted.
The growling parts are particularly great, by being forced to sing in a different way due to the fact that I cannot use my full vocal range yet (under treatment) I was able to mess around with my growling Technic and use a more "angry" approach, maybe because I am so angry of the fact that I cannot use my voice to it's full potential as I use to.
I know that bands usually do not go into delicate details with their fans, but as the frontman of Blaakyum and a person who is rarely satisfied with anything less than 90% perfect, it does make me feel a bit better getting this whole frustration off my chest... The Vocal recording is going very well, finishing 4 songs in less than 24 hours is actually a very positive thing and I cannot wait till we start the mixing process, then the mastering, and the deadline is getting close...

Because of my vocals problem setback, we were debating the possibility of delaying our release deadline. That is something we do not want to do. With the determination of our Co-producer and audio/sound/mix engineer Mr. Karim Noujaim, we will be ready before our deadline, if the gods of the Thunder and the Rain allows it, and they WILL \m/

Thank you all for the support.

Bassem Deaibess

Update on our Recording Process

Since our last recording status update was over a month and a half, you're definitely expecting an explanation, well here it is:

We have been recording the orchestral parts of the album, as some of you might have noticed through the Youtube clip we have uploaded for Am I Black Orchestration in studio... As for the vocals recording, that had to wait because of my vocals recovery problem, I know a lot of you are sick of hearing excuses, this is no excuse. I had a set back, I almost lost my voice completely for few weeks, and I am under heavy treatment, although I am not engaging in my full treatment before I finish recording the album and perform my two dates with Communion who are about to announce their comeback, usually bands do not share so much information with their fans, but who the fuck set the rules?!?! :)

To cut it short, after recording few songs, the band and I were not satisfied of the outcome, so we stopped the vocal recording and I started my vocal treatment, and in the mean time we continued recording the orchestration, which is not done yet due to the complexity of the process, but it is going out well and we will have a different thread on that. On Sunday (today) I will be entering the studio again to lay the vocal tracks finally after my voice has recovered a little bit, I am still not even at half my potential voice, but I am allowed to exhaust my voice a bit for the record, so... here we go...

Keep Metal Alive \m/

Bassem Deaibess

Vocals On The Tracks

Today I have started laying the vocal tracks down... I have just come to realise the amount of damage I have caused to my voice through smoking. I have only smoked during three years and a bit of my life, I started at the age of 30 and quit around three months ago (the not a long time but during these years I reach up to 5 packs a day!), and although the doctor did tell me that I'll recover at least 80% of my voice, I still need around 6 to 9 more months to get there, and I cannot simply delay the album that much, so we are doing our best with what we got. The results…. Well, are for you to judge once the album is out. It is a bliss, though, that I do not have to do high pitched vocals like those I do with The Hourglass, and thus this record will be out smoothly… I hope. Still I am so mad at myself for being so foolish and throwing my voice away like that, no vocalist would probably admit it the way I am doing now, but for all those vocalists out there, please do not take your voices for granted, it's a gem and it is easily destroyed.
Anyway at least I was able to record two main songs today:"Lord Of The Night" and "Am I Black" Though I am not satisfied with my voice (compared to the voice I had few years back) I did actual sound much better than I thought I will.

In the end, we are metalheads, and we are unbreakable, and I will deliver the best I can, so be read for this album when it's out, for we have put our souls into it \m/

We shall for ever...

Keep Metal Alive \m/

Bassem Deaibess

6:13 AM Tuesday 4th of October 2011

Lead Guitar tracks SLAYED \m/

Alright all you shreader addicts... Time to update you on what has been going on with your lead parts.
We just finished laying down all the lead guitar tracks and they sound fucking GOOD. Since we re-recorded our Rhythm guitars and they sound more live and more real, we had to re-record some of the solo tracks to give the same fresh sound, and the result was very outstanding.

So here is the gear sir Elias Njeim used:

Line 6 Vetta II Combo 2x12 amp and it's user settings for Distorsion and effects
For the E turned songs Njeim used a Parker Fly Mojo guitar.
As for the D Tuned songs he used a Schekter Diamond series-Hell raiser.

As well in some of the solos he used his an old but killer Digitech 2101 Studio tube rack.

Enjoy and we will be putting our gear pictures soon.

Shredder on the loose

Sir Elias Njeim is in the studio recording his solo parts, for the second time, only this time we are using live Line 6 Vetta II amp and real micing instead of relaying on Digital processors... More details soon.

KEEP METAL ALIVE \m/

All acoustic guitars recorded and done !!

Finally all guitars are recorded once and for all... The last duty in this regards were the acoustic guitars (if you exclude the solos that we might need to re-record since we change the distortion guitars sound completely)

So for all you fanatic quality seekers, here is what we used, and let me tell you, the result was really... GOOD:

I used two acoustic guitars, one for our 10 minutes long progressive song (that includes an oriental/flamenco part) and one for the rest of acoustic parts.

for the oriental parts I used a Stagg Handmade Classic Guitar C546TCE-N semi acoustic. Although the guitar sounds very clean and neat if recorded through it's built in balanced and unbalanced inputs, there was a noise that couldn't be silenced, so we micked the little thing and it all went well. Stagg are not the best guitars to use at all, but this one did the job pretty well, especially when combined with the best classical guitar strings I have ever used: the D'addario EJ45LP Pro.Arté Composites. To anyone who wants to record using nylon strings, THIS IS THE set to use for studio recording, not only that it has a perfect balance between the bass and treble strings, and that the strings life is at least twice as long, it has a greatly reduced figure noise... Just try it.

But the main baby was the gorgeous (and very cheap) Fender CD-60... I am not a Fender fan when it comes to electric guitars for obvious reasons: I play Metal! And somehow I can't see Metal and Fender mix although they did endless times (Iron Maiden anyone?) But when it comes to acoustic guitars, I bet very few can top Fender... This guitar has extremely rich resonance, and depth in it's sound. And combined with Earnie Ball Slinky acoustic strings... I could never get enough of playing on it and hearing the gorgeous sound of coated titanium strings...

Definitely these are not the ultimate combinations, specially that if the Stagg was replaced by a bit better guitar it would have given much better results... Still the Fender just made a new fan of me today, after all these years :)

That is about it for today and finally all Rhythm Guitars and acoustic Guitars have been recorded...

Keyboards are next \m/

Keep Metal Alive Cheers,

Bassem Deaibess.

Blaakyum debute release date

Blaakyum's debute album "Lord Of The Night" will be released in Lebanon on

Friday the 13th of January 2012

More information soon

KEEP METAL ALIVE

\m/

Blaakyum Performance TOMORROW (August 13th 2011)

GBOB Lebanese National Finals 2011

Place: Roman Amphitheatre

Date: August 13th 2011

Time: event start at 7pm, first band at 8pm, Blaakyum appearance between 11 and midnight

Blaakyum, winners of GBOB Lebanese National Finals 2007, and positioned 7th in GBOB World Finals, London 2007 will be performing a set form their debut album scheduled to be release before the end of this year.

Finally We got the Sound... We got the Roaring thunder of Crunchy Thrash Metal \m/

After trying, time and time again, after being not satisfied to half satisfied, to "what the fuck is missing? Those damn palm mutes are not roaring enough" To "it sounds very clean but not heavy enough" then "it sounds so heavy but too dirty..." WE FINALLY got as close as possible to the sound we were looking for... As a bit old of a metalhead, I always loved fat bottomed, vintage sounds, the old dirty tube distortion that is so clean that you can hear the crank of every single string, yet it still sounds heavy as fuck and most importantly THRASHY... How can I describe the sound my little Randall RH50T Half Stack gave me today? Maybe if you think of Metallica's first album the Kill 'em All guitar sounds but added to it a bit of edge and modern micking techniques... Well I can finally say we got Blaakyum's rhythm guitar sound... If any of you ever heard of the Band Warrior (Specially the album War of Gods and Men), then our rhythm guitars sound a lot similar... and that is satisfying as their sound struck me the first time I heard it as extremely authentic... So yes if I want to sum it up, it's Kill 'em All sound mixed with Warriors… and definitely added Blaakyum's own flavor… can't wait to hear the final product.

We will post some rhythm samples soon to have your opinion...

CHEERS MATES... and Keep Metal Alive \m/

Guitars: To Roar or not to Roar

I have been spending over 10 hours daily in the studio, working on laying down the guitar tracks (FOR THE 4TH TIME) using my 50 watt Randall RH50T Full Tubes half stack this time. Creating a distortion out of an amp that only have a heavy overdrive, can be tricky... Now don't get me wrong the RH50T is a killer amp with a wide range, from Blues to Thrash Metal sounds, but not when it is as fucked up as mine... Yet, the fact that it is fucked up gave a unique sound... Now the trick is to keep getting a heavy fat bottomed sound out of it, without much gain!!! Probably an expert guitarist would say this is not quite possible, since you need a lot of gain on overdrive to get a good distortion... But and I donno why, with my amp it is possible.

We reached a very satisfying, vintage yet Thrashy sound for the E tuned songs... but now things look less clear with the D turned songs... although the guitar sound is clear, it is not as powerful as we would like it to be.

I do not know why I am sharing these technical details on Blaakyum's website... probably out of frustration, but spending 10 hours everyday pounding your ears on distortion... you'd get a distortion overdose...

CHEERS MATES \m/

Follow Blaakyum on Facebook

Although as a band we do have a lot of reservations against Facebook, it is evident that it has grown to be the biggest social network channel online... And until that change (maybe when Google+ takes over) this will remain so. Thus, and since Blaakyum almost finished laying down the Tracks for it's first Debut and a lot will start happening from now on, please follow us onBlaakyum's page on Facebook or Click Here and we promise you'll always be updated to what is going on as this fan page has been linked to our MySpace.com page and will soon have more applications to keep you interacting with the band.

Cheers, And Keep metal Alive \m/

Blaakyum's facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/blaakyum