The Simple Things E.P.

2006-08-30T11:52:00.000-07:00

Go to Great Magnet Recording's Official Website
Check Out a Sample of Brent's Music

Brent discovered me by way of Paul Bertolino and wanted to record an E.P. with me of primarily acoustic material with simple arrangements and very little in the way of instrumentation. The album is basically Brent's tribute to life with his new family (wife & toddler). The crazy bastard commuted from Sacrament to Petaluma (a two hour drive each way) at least 1/2 dozen times.

Most of engineering efforts on this one were dedicated to getting a nice, full acoustic guitar sound that would stand on it's own withut anything else around to "mask" it's imperfections. I think for the most part we pulled that off. We recorded to analog of course, and quite by mistake Brent picked up the wrong tape bias—499 instead of 456. Allegedly this is supposed to fuck things up but the tones were great so we went with it.

Here's a picture of Brent looking really enthralled in the control room while we listen to playback of Paul "Little Wizard" Bertolino's drum track on The Simple Things

We recorded his acoustic guitar primarily with an x-y pair of small diaphragm condenser mics: one pointing directly at he 12th fret, the other pointing basicallt at the guitar's "shoulder" where it meets his knee. Not a lot of pictures as it was mostly just him and me hustling.

Brent plays a mean 6-string and sings with beautiful pitch-perfect softness and a delicate vibrato. He prefers to record much as he plays at home...sitting down and bent forward. He wants his vocal mic a good four feet away and sings very softly so there's a bit of tape hiss on this album but who gives a fuck?

The live room after we were done for the day in it's usual 6:00 p.m. Saturday "fucking mess" configuration

Brent Ratkovich: The Great Migration

The Simple Things E.P.