The year was 1998, Emil P.W.S Holmgren sat bored beyond belief in college audio engineering class dreaming of a solo project, where he'd do it all himself; Compose, play all the instruments, sing, record, produce, design the covers, everything! Whilst his mind wandered (and class subjects changed without him noticing) he was sketching some name and logo ideas in his notebook …

The names from his earlier solo efforts, like "Evil Emil" and "Metal Machinery", were soon written off. They were names synonymous with bad production, bad composing "skills" and ugly logos.

The original "Metal Machinery" logo.

The idea of taking things seen, heard and experienced and transforming them into lyrics appealed to him and he wanted the project name to reflect that idea. But what do you call that? Absorb! You absorb the impressions! There was the name!

The original "Absorb" logo, drawn in an audio engineering notebook.

Thus was born the virtual production company "Absorb Productions, Inc." and the home studio, now crowned "Absorb Studios".

He wasn't quite certain what style of music he wanted to play, so far each song had its own style. Many of the early recordings were covers, Metallica covers mostly.

While still living with his parents, Emil recorded most of the stuff on his near-antique 8-track Fostex homestudio (sometimes with his nearly as antique computer on MIDI drums). Always looking to improve on his equipment arsenal he bought, among other things, a DBX compressor/gate and a portable Sony DAT. After a prolonged search, he found a new ally in the recording software Cool Edit Pro (later renamed Adobe Audition). From that day, only drums were recorded on the Fostex gear.

Old fashioned Fostex recording gear (cell phone pics, sorry).

In December of 1999, Emil finally moved out of his parents' house to an apartment in Husby, north of Stockholm. This, of course, rendered him drumless! His life as a solo musician was over! Luckily, his next ally, SoundBlaster Live! Platinum, provided him with great drum-programming tools with the soundfonts system, and his career could continue.

He bought a huge Roland V-Custom electronic drumkit, but the rumble from the double bass drum pedal made him unable to use it in the apartment and he finally ended up selling them to a drum student.

The equipment keeps getting upgraded and changed all the time as technology gets better and cheaper and Emil's demands get higher.

In addition to his solo stuff, Emil also utilizes his pro audio equipment to help band make pro quality sounding demos at a low cost.Emil P.W.S Holmgren