the studio

My studio is located in central Helsinki, the capital city of Finland. It is very conveniently connected to my home, which makes working effortless and seamless, and I'm able to be extremely flexible this way. I also spend a lot of my free time in the same room listening to music and generally hanging out, which means that I'm constantly fine-tuning my ears to the speakers and the headphones with no extra effort. I'm also constantly whithin one room away from my partner's grand piano; something that sparks immense joy and inspiration on a daily basis!

This particular room has turned out to be pleasantly transparent and clear, with a surprisingly well-controlled low end considering the lateral walls and generally sub-optimal dimensions. PSI Audio AVAA C20 active bass traps in each corner are really helping a lot with this. Most of the acoustic treatment is designed and built by me, coupled with a bunch of bass traps and diffusors from HOFA. What drew me towards HOFA was their ethic to employ differently-abled people for constructing the units.

My main monitors are ATC SCM20's, coupled with a pair of Neumann KH750 subs. The listening is optimized with a Trinnov NOVA system, finalised with fine-tuning by hand. While I mostly work on my speakers, I frequently reference the audio with a pair of Audeze MM-500 headphones, driven by the headphone amplifier of the same RME ADI2/4 Pro FS. It's nice to know that when referencing my master on headphones, both the AD/DA for my mastering chain and the D/A & amplification for the Audeze's are happening in the same box. It sounds like a small thing, but it's actually very comforting. That's not to say that I'd place any less trust in the D/A convertes of the Trinnov for the speakers, of course!

For my work I've hand-picked a selection of analogue units (Manley, SSL, GOLY, DuTCH.Audio et al.), that are fed from an RME ADI2/4 Pro FS and captured either with a Crane Song HEDD 192 or a BURL B2 Bomber ADC. I've found that RME's D/A processing is extremely clean, so together with the DuTCH.audio IC2.1 insert controller, critical hardware comparison feels like a walk in the park, and I can easily A/B test the A/D converter based on each song. I work in a hybrid environment, meaning that I can easily integrate my analogue chain into the mastering session on my computer in any position of the process. I also use a selection of plug-ins for extremely precise digital cleanup and state-of-the-art stereo processing.

Life is about constant change, meaning that nothing can be "complete" in the long run. That is why I'm almost obsessive at constantly looking for something that might improve my workflow and quality. I keep an updated technical inventory below, but I won't pay Tuomas to take new pictures of my room every time a piece of equipment changes ;)