Location: The dacha aka Birdhouse Studios

I was booked to showcase at manifest:io 2025 in Berlin with XRE. So Volker and I agreed to meet the week before the festival to mix and master our new EP. We looked for a place that would be not too far away from Berlin, yet remote enough to be affordable — and to not disturb any neighbors with our music. We found a dacha in the Harz Mountains that seemed to fit our basic needs (Electricity: check! Heating: check!).

Getting there

I flew into Berlin and took the train to Halle where Volker picked me up at the train station, his car packed to the rim with gear, instruments, food and drinks. The further we got away from the city, the colder it got and the more snow and ice was on the ground. When we made the last turn to get to the little cottage, the road became a forest road ... and did not lead directly to the cottage. Again we could not drive up to the door: We had to carry everything up a little path to the house. The ground was snowy and icy and we tiptoed our way up and down several times until we finally had unloaded the car. Sweaty and happy, project HEAT had started.

Déja-vu moment

It did not even take an hour in the dacha until I hit my head for the first time! Why are all these remote cottages so tiny?!? Again there was a spot in the cottage that was too narrow for us to walk through! Mental note: Add hard hats to our gear list. (Our pragmatic solution: We put a chair into the arch to prevent us from walking through.)

While we set up our pop-up studio, it was snowing outside. The birds visited the birdhouse on the terrace, chirping and eating. We were ready to get to work in the little dacha aka Birdhouse Studios.

Mixing and Mastering HEAT: Songs for the Deaf

Fun fact: Both Volker and I are (more or less slightly) hearing impaired. I guess it is a result of having been in rehearsal spaces for most of our youth as well as genetic reasons. Whatever the cause: Isn’t this a solid base to mix and master an album!?!

We were able to borrow the professional studio speakers from our friend Oliver Guse again (thank you!!!). Additionally we used different types of (bluetooth) speakers and several different headphones. As reference music we chose the album Yield   by Pearl Jam but also listened to bands like Queens of the Stone Age (here we go with Songs for the Deaf), Monster Magnet, Alice in Chains, Mad Season, Soundgarden etc.

We mixed and mastered in Ableton Live. The drums were the only programmed instrument in the mix. One of the big challenges was to create a real drum sound using the electronic MIDI tracks. Another challenge was to glue the band together despite the fact that we had recorded each track after the other. That is what we focused on, on top of getting rid of booming bass and lower mid frequencies.

Nightly Sessions: The Punk knows

On the second night during our musings, we listened to two early albums of Die Toten Hosen (a German Punk-Rock band that had started with a couple of great albums in the 80ies). From that moment on, the lyrics of their song Liebesspieler became our yay/nay-comment on our mixing results of the day.
So each night after listening back to our work on different speakers, we would either burst out singing: "Hey, heute ist unser Tag!" (Hey, today is our day!). Or yell: "Scheiße, das war heut nicht mein Tag!" (Shit, this wasn't my day!)
(Disclaimer: The song Liebesspieler is absolutely great ... but the music video is not, don't bother.)

Nightly Surprise: Closing the Circle

On the third night, we revisited our own releases. We listened to our second EP aTYPICAL (think PJ Harvey meets The White Stripes) and then to our debut EP Elements (think Dirty Projectors). While listening to the experimental Electronic Rock tunes of the latter, Volker said: "Wouldn't it be great to release our new EP in two versions? One as is, the raw Alternative Rock version. And one as an Electronic Rock version to stylistically close the circle from Elements to HEAT?" The idea struck me as absolutely fabulous! I was super excited to give it a shot.