Artist Name: Joseph Harter Title: Barlos Cantina Genre: Rock Rating:
Equipment
Cakewalk Sonar 8.5, Langevin DVC, Yamaha 1221 guitar, Yamaha BB300 Bass, Tube Works 6150 Amp mic’ed with Audix I5, Echo AudioFire 8, Beta Monkey Drum Loops, Yamaha HS-10 monitors,.. I think that’s about it..oh, Dunlop Stubby 3mm picks…
Music
“Barlos Cantina” is a Latin tinged Rock instrumental, written, performed and recorded by Joseph in his home studio.
Reviewed By Marty Peters
This month’s Spotlight is a rocking, guitar centric song that showcases great overall versatility along with some monster chops. Starting from the ground up, the track features quite a few arrangement twists and turns. Sections of twin electric guitar harmony parts give way to nylon string breakdowns, which in turn give way to sections of high powered electric shred and visa versa. Let’s take a closer look. Starting from the bottom up, the drums and bass make a formidable team here. We love the deep snappy kick drum and even more so the snare, with it’s ideal room ambience. The up front bass exhibited a fairly aggressive growl through our monitors, with plenty of mid range punch to propel the track. Whether by design or not we got a great early Allman Brothers vibe from the bass, classic Berry Oakley style that brought a smile! The nylon string guitars were beautifully performed, recorded and seated in the mix, and their integration at the intro from the primary to secondary sound source was handled seamlessly in our opinion. As we mentioned earlier, Joseph has some crazy good skill on the guitar, and he spreads it around the arrangement at will. Speaking of the Allman’s, how’s about those sweet harmony guitar parts here. The performance, tone and panning/placement were all top notch in our book. Rising up from an already impressive guitar display, the shred parts confirm Joseph’s dexterity on his primary instrument, and he showed admirable restraint in our opinion. As the saying goes “ just cause you can doesn’t mean you should”, but unfortunately in many cases, caution gets thrown to the wind. Fortunately, Joseph integrated what could have been an over the top moment into his arrangement without losing sight of the overall picture, not the easiest thing to do when you are wearing all of the hats on a project! Lastly, it’s rare that an OMB project manages to capture the excitement level of a live band given the part by part nature required in the recording process. Kudos to Joseph for creating and constructing a passion filled song that truly has a “band” feel to it.
Suggestions
It’s clear that a good deal of effort and planning went into Joseph’s recording, from the involved arrangement, to the guitar performances, to the mix. We encourage you loyal readers, particularly those of you one man/woman recordists to give “Barlos Cantina” a serious listen, the possibilities are limitless with the right combination of skill, passion, and commitment.
Summary
Ique Bueno!
Contact
Joseph Harter, [email protected]