Berserk - Studio Report

Recording: The Phexagon Studio, & Horned Helmet Studio - Amman, Jordan
Mixing & Mastering: Horned Helmet Studio - Amman, Jordan

- Recording: March-May/October 2009 | Mixing/Mastering: Oct./Nov./Dec. 2009

- All Instruments & Vocals were recorded by Muhannad Bursheh (**)

- Musicians with an (*) beside their names participate as guest musicians

- Scroll down to the end of the page to read more information

- Please be patient, images might take some time to load

(**) A few parts of some instruments were recorded by guest musicians (More info below)

SESSIONS 1-4: Rhythm Guitars

Recording rhythm guitars. The sound is very powerful. The sessions went very smoothly (except for a broken guitar string after starting with the 3rd track... & it was a new set of strings... That only explains 1 thing... INTENSITY)

With rhythm guitars & drums completed (drums was done much earlier in the past year during the pre-production stage) next on the list were the bass lines.

SESSIONS 5-9: Bass Lines

Recording bass lines; the sessions went smooth & the bass sounds rigid as hell. Note: Bass lines were improvised during recording

SESSIONS 10-14: Lead Guitars & Percussion

Recording all lead guitar parts plus a guitar solo. The rest of the guitar solos were recorded by guest musicians. Also, tribal & orchestral percussive parts where added to some tracks to further add dark & barbaric majesty to the music

SESSIONS 15-17: Classical Guitar, Clean Guitar, Flute

Clean & classical acoustic guitars were recorded in these 3 sessions with the addition of some flute parts on 4 tracks to spice up some of the folk tunes on the album

SESSIONS 18-24: VOCALS

Recording vocal lines. I did a lot of variations; from black metal screeches & death metal grunting to dark clean speeches making the vocals sound very versatile; even some semi-operatic clean vocals were added in a few passages... The recording sessions that followed included 2 guitar solos played by guest musicians (Rami Haikal & Zaher Siryani) & a few synth & keys parts done by myself & guest musician Waseem EsSayyed. Also, I came up with a crazy idea of recording BOWED BASS for 2 tracks on some parts, & it sounded sick. Another sick idea was acoustically recording a sword unsheathing sound effect which featured on the last track of the album.

SESSIONS 25-32: Keys, Bowed Bass, Guest Artists, FX

Recording bowed bass. YES, BOWED BASS!!!!! Using a violin bow
 

Recording keyboards & synthesizer parts

Guest guitarist Zaher Siryani* (Tyrant Throne, Violent Strike)
recording a guest guitar solo on the track "Eidolon".
Although the solo was kick ass as expected from Zaher Siryani, I unfortunately decided to drop it later during the mixing stage, because I noticed that the song actually sounded better without a solo.

Guest guitarist Rami Haikal* (Bilocate)
recording a guest guitar solo on the track "Jormungander"

Guest keyboardist Waseem EsSayyed* (Bilocate, Orjuwan)
 recording guest keyboards & synthesizer parts on some tracks on the album

Guest vocalist Stephanie Ni'was*
recording an additional female chanting part on the track "Heathen"

Acoustically recording sword unsheathing sound effect

MIXING & MASTERING

Preparing primary rough mixes at The Phexagon Studio
 

Mixing at Horned Helmet Studio
 

Mastering at Horned Helmet Studio
 

STUDIOS ENVIRONMENT

Horned Helmet Studio
 

The album "Berserk" was recorded at my personal recording studios:
"The Phexagon Studio" & "Horned Helmet Studio".
 

The Phexagon Studio
 

Recording sessions took place in March, April, May & October of 2009.
Mixing & mastering were done in October, November & December of 2009
 

All instruments & vocals were recorded by myself except for the parts performed by the aformentioned guest musicians. 
Berserk was produced, mixed & mastered by myself as well
 

The Beer Tower; the world's most sophisticated architectural miracle
 

The lunatic behind the album & Bouq; Muhannad Bursheh,
and of course, the person writing this report