Music Production

Music witten by: Audun Melbye, Ron Baros, Laszlo Juhos, Martin Storm-Olsen, Simon M. Svensson
Performed by: Laszlo Juhos, Audun Melbye, Simon M. Svensson, Martin Storm-Olsen and Robin Berg Pettersen
Recorded by: Audun Melbye and Martin Storm-Olsen
Mixed by: Runar Magnussen / Magnussen Audio
Mastered by: Mike Kalajian at Rouge Planet Mastering
Produced by: Audun Melbye

Music by: Jon Ranes
Mix and Mastering: John Erling Johnson
Production and Project Management Audun Melbye / Oslo Nye Teater

Mastering: Audun Melbye
Written and produced by: Einar Thorberg Gudmundson

Recording and mixing: Audun Melbye
Production: Audun Melbye and Fortid
Mastering: Bob Katz
Release date: 24.08.2012
Label: Schwarzdorn Production

This is Fortid's 4th studio album, and their first album recorded as a complete line-up. Pagan Prophecies is most of all a Black Metal album, but with a lot of variation, tastefully blending in elements of folk/viking-metal, prog-metal, thrash metal and symphonic instrumentation. The album has a lot of track-to-track variation, while still managing to keep a consistent high quality of song writing and musicianship throughout.

First reviews:
ROCK HARD 7,5 / 10
NECROWEB 9 / 10
TIME FOR METAL 8 / 10
ROCK TRIBUNE 80 / 100
FOLKMETAL 13 / 15
NORTHWIND 8 / 10
THE PIT 8 / 10
ZWAREMETALEN 84/100

Track list:
1. Pagan Prophecies
2. Spirit of the North
3. Electric Horizon
4. Lesser Sons of Greater Fathers
5. Sun Turns Black
6. Ad Handan
7. Endalok

Here's the title track (unofficial youtube upload):
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Recording: Audun Melbye, Einar Thorberg Guðmundsson
Produced by: Einar Thorberg Guðmundsson, Audun Melbye
Mix & Mastering: Audun Melbye
Release date: 25.03.2011
Label: Schwarzdorn Production

This was the fastest album production I've done to date. The band came in to the studio with no material. I mic'ed up the drum kit, pressed record, and went out for a break. An hour later when I returned, the drums (and scratch guitars) for the whole album was written and recorded. The band then spent about 2 weeks recording bass and guitars at home, before returning for one day of vocal tracking. The following week I mixed and mastered the album in 2 days. The whole album was done in about 3 weeks, counting from the day they started writing the material.

This band wanted a very dirty sound, similar to early Entombed and Darkthrone, and I achieved this by applying distortion on the master bus, ugly reverbs and additional distortion wherever needed. Other than that, there is very little processing done, and no editing whatsoever. A very rough production suitable for the genre.

[ca_audio url="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12463732/Curse%20-%20Hour%20of%20the%20skull.mp3" width="300" height="25" css_class="CSS_STYLE"]

On the 6th of december we started recording Fortid's 4th studio album; Pagan Prophecies.
The album will consist of 7 tracks, all produced, recorded and mixed by me, in my own studio.

Recording: Gunnar Cortes, Audun Melbye
Produced by: Einar Thorberg Guðmundsson, Audun Melbye
Mix: Audun Melbye
Mastering: Steffen Hofseth & Audun Melbye
Release date: 26.03.2010
Label: Schwarzdorn Production



This Album was recorded on Iceland, and I was involved in the project mainly as the mix engineer. On one of the tracks I had to rerecord the vocals, and I recorded the guest performance of heavy metal vocalist Eirikur Hauksson on two of the tracks. I also ended up taking part in the final steps of the mastering process.

The tracks I recieved from Iceland were not very well recorded, and the the mixing of this album was in many ways a rescue operation.

Original mix: [url="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12463732/Heltekinn%20original.mp3"]

My mix (album version): [url="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12463732/heltekinn%20album%20version.mp3"]

Producer: Russel Cottier
Recording engineer: Audun Melbye
Mix: Russel Cottier
Label: Ultimate Fake Records
Release date: 20. November 2008

June 2008 I mixed a 4 track EP for "American style" rock band Find the Escape. This was my first attempt at using drum replacement, and also my first (and probably my last, I hate it) attempt at purposefully introducing compressor  pumping in the overheads. Shortly after finnishing their EP, the band seems to have dissolved.  The material was mixed in the box, using Pro Tools LE 7.4

[ca_audio url="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12463732/Find%20the%20Escape.mp3" width="300" height="25" css_class="CSS_STYLE"]

In the spring of 2007 I got involved with the recording of jazz singer Fransesca Bandino. I teamed up with sound engineer Paul Jones and we tracked a full length album together. I mixed two of the tracks, and the rest of the mixing was carried out by serveral mix engineers. Regrettably the album was never released, and I never heard most of the final mixes.

Below is a sample of one of the tracks that I mixed

[url="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12463732/bandino%20away%20cut.mp3"]

The spring of 2005 I recorded 3 tracks for one of my own bands; Pieces. We didn't have a drummer at that point, so the drums are programmed. However, in 2005 there was (as far as I know) not possible to get natural and good sounding cymbals from a drum machine, so we recorded the cymbals separately. The guitar sound is a Rocktron Pro GAP through a Rocktron Velocity 300 and a marshall 1922, miced by an Oktava MK012. The bass is DI through a Tech21 Sansamp GT2.

The tracks were recorded into Sonar using focusrite octopre preamps, then laid out on a Soundcraft Spirit (analogue studio mixer) thorough 32 channels of Apogee DA16. Reverbs are TC M3000. The mix was then recorded to DAT tape, ready for mastering.

Below is one of the tracks:

[url="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12463732/Pieces%20dormant.mp3"]