Custom Boards Finland

Custom Boards Finland Kimmo Aroluoma
Consultant & rig builder for electric music gear | Tour tech | Event freelance worker | Author

Give us a week and we’ll make you
the pedalboard of your dreams! –
Teemme sinulle unelmiesi pedaalilaudan viikossa!

Exactly one week from now, on Monday, April 20 at 13.00, I’ll be speaking at the Rovaniemi Main Library about touring ab...
13/04/2026

Exactly one week from now, on Monday, April 20 at 13.00, I’ll be speaking at the Rovaniemi Main Library about touring abroad with rock bands and everything related to it, maybe even a bit about writing as well. If you live nearby, come say hi and feel free to bring a friend along.


Angine de Poitrine feels like a phenomenon of a scale I haven’t experienced since Nirvana. But why are people spreading ...
01/04/2026

Angine de Poitrine feels like a phenomenon of a scale I haven’t experienced since Nirvana. But why are people spreading this joyful message at this particular moment? Is the reason in the music, the microtonality, or something else?

Are there any converts here already tuning extra frets onto their guitars? If I were a luthier, my saw would already be running, but how long will this excitement last?

I would love to hear your thought about this band. Link for the article can be found from my bio.

I wanted to write a guide for opening bands about how they should behave when they are given the opportunity to open a s...
04/03/2026

I wanted to write a guide for opening bands about how they should behave when they are given the opportunity to open a show for a bigger act.

During my years of playing I have made plenty of mistakes myself, and later, while working as a technician, I have seen a wide range of performances.

Drawing from those experiences, I put together a story that follows the show day from the perspective of an unfortunate opening band and the headliner’s technician.

If you are a musician, do you have similar experiences? Your own or ones you have witnessed. How badly have you messed up, what kept bothering you afterwards, and what realization only hit you years later?

The link for the article can be found below 👇

When I started working with at the beginning of the year, I didn’t really know what to expect. Now I have two weekends ...
17/02/2026

When I started working with at the beginning of the year, I didn’t really know what to expect. Now I have two weekends and four shows behind me. I have to say, The band’s evolution has been incredible since the PA rehearsals. The new songs from the Itua album are starting to find their shape, the sounds have evolved show by show, and I’m starting to feel more at home in my role too.

Last weekend the band played two very different sold-out shows. Tavara-asema in Tampere was a rock show for 1,200 people and one of the most memorable nights in years. The next day was something completely different, as the guys performed at Bum Bum in Järvenpää for the 150 fastest ticket buyers. It’s hard to say which show was better. They live in the moment without a setlist, so no two shows are the same. The amps are glowing, the guitars are roaring, and the energy moves back and forth between the stage and the crowd.

I can hardly wait for the next gigs. There’s still some fine-tuning to do, even just with the guitar sounds, but it’s shaping up really well. I highly recommend catching Ursus Factory live. Even though the band has been around for over ten years, it feels like something special is happening right now.

(Pics: )

Memories from way back, in my new blog post out today.In 2004, I attended Faces Festival in Karjaa. I worked there as a ...
11/02/2026

Memories from way back, in my new blog post out today.

In 2004, I attended Faces Festival in Karjaa. I worked there as a volunteer and even got to play a gig with my band. One particular band and their performance stayed in my mind for decades, until I finally bought an album by them that had made such a huge impression on me back then.

You can find the link to my Substack in my bio.

The collaboration with accordionist Harri Kuusijärvi was musically one of the most interesting projects I have worked on...
09/02/2026

The collaboration with accordionist Harri Kuusijärvi was musically one of the most interesting projects I have worked on in a long time.

He plays a custom-built, MIDI-enabled accordion, which is a hybrid instrument capable of producing acoustic, electronic, and effected sounds either in parallel or separately. With it, Harri controls Ableton, which in turn is operated via a Morningstar MC6 controller. He also uses several expression pedals that allow him to fine-tune volume and filters and shape the sampler’s sounds and effects.

The challenge was that Harri travels to his solo gigs alone, so audio interfaces, USB hubs, and power supplies had to fit into a small enclosure that travels inside a Peli case. My job was to tidy up the wiring so that setting up at a venue would be fast in “plug and play” fashion. I decided to mount all the devices onto a thin plastic plate that could slide into a wooden frame. This way, the plate can be slid out for inspection or for making changes if needed. I also wired a selection of the cables, and streamlined his entire live setup.

Musically, Harri moves somewhere between ambient and jazz. He truly expands the idea of what an accordion can be capable of as an instrument. The atmosphere he creates is ethereal and immersive, the kind of playing you could listen to for hours. He is a completely unique musician, sonic explorer, who also performs extensively with other artists. His latest album ”Aallot” was nominated for “Jazz Album of the Year” at the Emma Gaala 2025 and the Indie Awards 2026. As far as I know, he is currently working on a doctoral degree thesis about the possibilities of the MIDI accordion, which I am very much looking forward to reading.

.engineering

After giving it some thought, I decided to set up a Substack profile and start publishing all sorts of texts that haven’...
06/02/2026

After giving it some thought, I decided to set up a Substack profile and start publishing all sorts of texts that haven’t found a home in my books or on my blog.

The platform’s backend is pleasant to use and, after years of wrestling with different templates, even easy. The reader view is also aesthetically pleasing, so why not.

I’ve got piles of different texts, themes, and thoughts sitting on my hard drive. It feels necessary for me to dig through the archives and find a final resting place for them. Right now, Substack feels like it could be that place. Let’s see what comes of this 🙂

The first piece is now live in both Finnish and English. The link to my Substack profile can be found from the comments.

I really enjoyed meeting one of my oldest friends and clients, , as it has been a while since we last worked together.Th...
30/01/2026

I really enjoyed meeting one of my oldest friends and clients, , as it has been a while since we last worked together.

This pedalboard was originally designed in April 2016 and has seen a lot of changes over the years, but this is pretty much the setup that Varre used while performing with the Moulin Rouge show for 187 shows and more than 170,000 ticket buyers!

The next show is already in the pipeline, and together with Varre and musical sound designer we altered the pedals and their signal order a bit. Of course, I also serviced all the pedals and checked all patch and power cables. A few things to notice:

- This might be one of the most complicated boards in terms of signal chain. Varre prefers to keep the pedal layout in a certain order, so the signal crosses all around the board. I’ll buy you lunch if you can guess the correct order 😊
- One slot was intentionally kept free for a last-minute addition. Pedal number 13 is a clever move and you’ll hear it in their next show, & Julia by David West Read and Max Martin, premiering in August 2026.

In the end, this was a great collaboration between a tech, a musician, and a sound designer. I’m really looking forward to hearing this board in action. The musicians involved are top-notch, and it was great to hear that everything is played live, and how passionate these guys are when it comes to sound and performing the score!



I am happy to announce that I’ve signed a Literary Agency Agreement with Ahlbäck Agency for my book ”HIM: The Last Tour”...
29/01/2026

I am happy to announce that I’ve signed a Literary Agency Agreement with Ahlbäck Agency for my book ”HIM: The Last Tour”. The book was released in Finland in October 2025, and now it’s time to see its potential in other countries.

A Literary Agency Agreement does not mean much by itself. It means that Ahlbäck Agency is searching for publishers in various territories and languages. If you would like to read the book, you can help and participate in this project:

If you read music books and have a favorite publisher in your country, you can share this post or the link found in my bio with them. If a publisher is interested, they can contact my agency and hopefully make a deal for the book’s release in your country.

That said, I am happy and thrilled about this opportunity. I’ve edited the book into an “international version,” leaving out some themes that mainly appeal to readers in Finland. This version is tighter and more focused on touring with HIM internationally, as well as the band’s history from the mid-90s to their last show in 2017. I want to make it clear that this is not an official “HIM book”, but rather my personal account of touring with the band as a guitar tech and long-time associate of the band members.

The link to Ahlbäck Agency’s catalogue can be found in my bio. Check it out!

Ahlback Agency Like Army

I’ve been a fan of Ursus Factory’s music, sounds, and work ethic for many years, and along the way I’ve also built Jussi...
20/01/2026

I’ve been a fan of Ursus Factory’s music, sounds, and work ethic for many years, and along the way I’ve also built Jussi’s guitar gear. Now we ended up talking about what if I also came along on gigs to keep an eye on the backline. My everyday life is in good shape, so we practiced a couple of days last weekend at G-Live Lab in Tampere, and next weekend the gigs begin.

We’re not married, so we’ll see how a boomer handles life with millennials 🙂

To be honest, my spirit is really high. These guys play with no clicks, no modeling gear, or backing tracks—just pure joy of playing. I’ll do my best to help cement the band’s reputation as Finland’s best live band, and everything seems to be in place for that. The musicians are on fire, the crew is motivated, the new album is absolutely killer, so why not!

Come by the venues to say hi and enjoy music.

A very interesting pedalboard project that took pretty much the whole fall to accomplish. Guitarist Kiko Loureiro had a ...
29/12/2025

A very interesting pedalboard project that took pretty much the whole fall to accomplish. Guitarist Kiko Loureiro had a bunch of pedals in his home studio unused and asked for my help to build several different setups. He was touring pretty much all the time, so we planned everything via Zoom while I was working on other projects in between.

At the beginning, we had a total of 35 pedals, from which we selected 23 together and installed them on four different pedalboards, each with a different purpose.

This was my first project using D’Addario XPND pedalboards. This lineup includes pretty much everything needed: boards, power supplies, risers, Velcro for attachment, etc. We used two single-row and two double-row pedalboards and came up with the following setups.

Pic 1 – Special FX board.
This board included all the “weird stuff” for when there’s a need to experiment in the studio. It also has two analog modulation pedals and the everlasting Boss RE-20, which sounded great along with the other effects. The D’Addario battery power supply is mounted on top for easy monitoring.

Pic 2 – Go-to small board.
This board includes the basics: tuner, overdrive, reverb, and looper for practice or small gigs.

Pic 3 – Moog board.
It made sense to have all these gems on one board. These are highly valued items and deliver a wide variety of sounds for inspiration. As these pedals use positive center polarity and are sensitive by nature, I used an isolated Cioks SOL power supply on this board.

Pic 4 – Distortion board.
This was my favorite, with well-selected distortion, overdrive, and fuzz pedals. Kiko has a Marshall amp in his studio, so this board alone gives him pretty much everything he needs in terms of gain structures.

In the end, this was a very fun project, as I tested every single pedal myself and also had the chance to test D’Addario XPND pedalboards firsthand. Looking forward to what Kiko comes up with using this palette of sounds.

Osoite

SahaajanKatu 14
Helsinki
00880

Puhelin

+358 10 411 0160

Nettisivu

Hälytykset

Tiedä ensimmäisenä ja anna meille oikeus lähettää sinulle sähköpostitse uutisia ja promootioita Custom Boards Finland :ltä. Sähköpostiosoitettasi ei käytetä muihin tarkoituksiin, ja voit perua milloin tahansa.

Oikopolut

Jaa