RECORDING
WHAT MAKES A GREAT RECORDING GREAT, PART 2
Doug Doppler with Pat Barrett
photos by Mary Claire
In the first installment of this ongoing series that moves audiences on an array of levels. of singer-strummers and the finite group of
we touched on what is collectively referred to Most audiences are not made up of vocalists, artists who draw people in the moment they
as critical listening – listening for the nuances songwriters, arrangers, and instrumentalists, start singing and strumming. It’s not like Pat’s
of all the elements of instrumentation and so the danger in rabbit trailing on any of these the first person who picked up an acoustic and
arrangement, not just the ones that float your can make us ear blind, so keep that in mind. started crafting worship songs, but he brings
boat. Using John Mayer as a mainstream
something fresh that moves me at the deepest
example, vocalists might be tempted to Last month I mentioned that even a great song of levels. With Pat, it’s all the elements are
focus on how the quality of his voice comes can get “lost in the mix”, so I wanted to take a working in harmony, and that’s the point here,
through, even on an SM58 mic. Songwriters moment and share an example of a song that making sure that recordings are firing on all
and arrangers might focus on his lyricism and has moved me on a number of levels. When cylinders.
arrangement skills. Guitar players on the other Pat Barrett’s PR team reached out to me hand might be tempted to fixate on his guitar about his self-titled debut release, I told them Another thing I mentioned last month was
sound and which combination of pedals he that if Pat didn’t break, and break big, I’d eat the number of times the people we interview
might have been using. All of these elements my shoe. As an artist he gracefully crosses have mentioned that a great song sounds like
come together to create the tapestry of music the divide that separates a nearly infinite sea a great song long before heaps of production
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June 2019
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