Question and Answer

Hi Pat, You self-produced One Quiet Night and What’s It All About. It is quite a challenge to capture great performances while also being the recording engineer. Would you please share your recording chain (mics, pres, recorder, etc.) and just a little of your process as simutaneous artist/engineer? Thanks!

Hi Marc, That is a really good question that I have not talked about much. In the past 10 or 15 years the boundaries between playing and all the other stuff required to make a record have really blurred for me and that is especially true when I am doing everything from the beginning all alone. I really love that the barrier between what I imagine in my head and what I can offer as a final result to you has gotten a few steps more immediate in that I don't have to rely on going to an official studio for projects like these. The process in the case of the two records was the same but with a big difference. For OQN I really had no sense that what I was doing would ever come out as a record. I was literally learning a new version of Digital Performer and decided to just record a whole bunch of stuff for myself only. (I have given the background on this record lots of times so I won't repeat it here) - while with WIAA I really set out to make a record and actually set up the mics in a good spot and paid atttention to things a good bit more. To answer your question, it is basically the DI right off the guitar, a Shure Stereo mic (VP88) right in front of the guitar sound hole, an internal AMT mic and an RE20 down at the bottom of the instrument. At the mix we find a good combination of everything but most people would be surprised at how much the DI leads the way with the mics filling in around it. Everything stays in DP until mastering. For WIAA I got a Briscati reverb unity which sounded great, but the built in MOTU ProVerb is my favorite at the moment. The process for me also includes editing which I sometimes do almost as I am going. I do set up some quick keys so I can do takes and new tracks easily and quickly and have also used the Pok pedals for quick undos and various other things. All in all it is something I really enjoy and find the process of recording to now me a real extension of music making.