Studio Report: Void Emergent
Written on 5 Dec 2025
The songwriting for this album spans time through multiple February Album Writing Month events, from 2018 all the way to 2022. During these annual events, numerous songs were written that would eventually form the foundation of the album. While there were rough thematic ideas floating around during the writing process, the true concept became crystal clear once the lyrics were completed in 2024. Compared to the previous album's fan voting approach, this time the band took full control of the song selection process. The selected songs all fit into the album's narrative: the final months of Earth's existence, humanity's desperate exodus to space, and the ultimate transformation from biological beings into robotic and hardware-based entities. And all manner of surprises about the origins of humanity in this story. Once all the songs were chosen, an intensive year of fine-tuning began. This period was dedicated to perfecting the song structures and crafting additional lead guitar parts that would elevate each track. The work resulted in one of the strongest arrangements the band has achieved to date. The guitar recording sessions took place in autumn 2024, wrapping up surprisingly quickly over the course of about a week. The main rhythm parts were tracked using the Solar A1.7C, while all lead guitar work was performed on the trusty LTD SC-607B. Bass guitar followed in December 2024, with all tracks completed in just 3 days using the workhorse Ibanez BTB555. The drum programming underwent its finalization and "ugrification" process back in December 2023. This technique involves mapping the original programmed drum patterns to real human drummer MIDI performances, creating a much more organic and authentic sound than traditional drum programming. For vocals, the band once again turned to professional session vocalists found through Fiverr. Rough demo vocals and lyrics were provided to these professionals, who then delivered the performances you hear. Notably, ICanBeFree returned to handle the main vocal duties, bringing continuity from the previous album. The mixing and mastering phase began in summer 2025 and was finally completed in December 2025. Throughout this lengthy process, the production philosophy remained unwavering: get everything sounding as good as possible. On the technical side, the guitar tones were achieved using amp sims rather than real amplifiers, providing flexibility and consistency throughout the recording process. The bass also went through some additional processing to achieve its powerful tone and perfect tuning. The album artwork represents another evolution in the band's visual approach, utilizing AI generation with high-quality models. However, this wasn't a simple "generate and done" situation - care was taken in selecting the right style, and the AI-generated images were then manually refined and finalized to achieve the perfect aesthetic that matches the album's themes. Overall, the production process followed mostly the same workflow as the previous album, but with numerous refinements and improvements. The lessons learned from The Shadow Presence were applied here, resulting in a more streamlined and perfected approach that still maintains the band's signature sound while pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved in a modern home studio environment. == Equipment Guitars - Solar A1.7C (rhythm guitars) - LTD SC-607B (lead guitars) - EzMix packs for guitar tones Bass - Ibanez BTB 555 Drums - Addictive Drums 2 with Ugritone MIDI mapping Recording - RME Fireface 400 (DI guitars) - Audient iD4 (DI bass)