PATRICK
O’HEARNPATRICK
O’HEARNIn the early-’80s, O’Hearn endured a brief foray into the cut-throat, disposable world of pop as part of Missing Persons, comprising vocalist Dale Bozzio and her then-husband Terry (now an in-demand drummer), plus guitarist Warren Cuccurullo, who went on to find fame and fortune revitalising Duran Duran. As for O’Hearn, the boy did good. Parallel to that blossoming session résumé, he became a successful recording artist in his own right – twice-Grammy-nominated to boot. For many, his name remains inextricably linked with former pivotal Tangerine Dream member Peter Baumann’s Private Music label, heady digital days when O’Hearn and stablemates Yanni, Suzanne Ciani and later Tangerine Dream themselves regularly jockeyed for position on the Billboard New Age Albums chart. Needless to say, all were regular visitors to its hallowed heights.
One thing’s for sure: O’Hearn’s a man of many musical parts, all of them talented. And nowhere do those talents shine more brightly than on So Flows The Current, his first solo album in over four years and the first on his new Patrickohearn.com independent. Call it Contemporary Instrumental Music – of the highest order. Let’s face it: New Age has become something of a passé blanket marketing term, right?
Yet O’Hearn’s initiation into inadvertently sowing the seeds of the fledgling New Age field was both unexpected and spontaneous, helping launch Baumann’s visionary, idealistic and ultimately successful Private Music venture with his Ancient Dreams solo recording debut, about which his current Website (www.patrickohearn.com) boldly declares: “The album that stood the test of time and served to announce a new artist with a distinctive sound and helped create a whole new genre of music.” That much is true. Some 16 years after the event, the artist in question remains somewhat bemused by the fairytale-like events that befell him.
“I met Peter Baumann in NYC in 1984,” O’Hearn begins. “He had been hired by Capitol Records to produce a ‘dance mix’ version of a song I had contributed to the band I was then a member of, Missing Persons. As it was a synthesizer-centric track, in which I had done the keyboard work, I dropped by the studio – The Power Station, as I recall – and checked out the remix to see if I could be of any assistance. Peter and I got talking during a break in the session, and he spoke about his plans for what became Private Music – an avant-garde, eclectic, electronic-based, more experimental label – and invited me to send him any material I might have for consideration of future release. I took up his offer and sent him some sketches that I had been working on. Peter immediately suggested that we book into a studio and get going. I felt that I did not have an album’s worth of material together at that time and further work was needed before recording. Baumann responded by throwing down a creative glove, insisting, ‘It will happen in the studio.’ Well, being a long-time jazzman, I accepted the challenge and said, ‘Let’s carve! I’m ready when you are.’”
Upmarket studio time was duly booked, and O’Hearn promptly strutted his musical stuff under Baumann’s watchful gaze. “I was living in Los Angeles at that time,” continues O’Hearn, “and had worked extensively at both West Lake and The Music Grinder, which is why I chose those rooms. Peter’s vision for the music on his new label was for all-digital releases, exclusively on the then-new Compact Disc, a stipulation that was soon amended to include both cassette and vinyl. Digital multitracks were scarce in 1984, so we hired a 3M 32-track, and had it shipped out to LA from NYC and moved between studios as needed.”
O’Hearn’s new-found digital penchant extended to his choice of instrumentation, too. “The cornerstone of my electronic sound at that time was a synth that I’d picked up while on tour in Germany the previous year – the PPG Wave 2.2,” he reveals. “This new digital/analogue hybrid was a unique instrument, capable of interesting textures when processed by outboard gear.”
Not that a seasoned session pro of O’Hearn’s standing was ready to completely ditch old school recording techniques just yet, mind you: “In addition to the compliment of outboard gear, the aforementioned studios had fine live chambers and plate reverbs that we took full advantage of to create the tones. The whole album was done in about 15 working days, over a four-month span.”
But would Baumann and O’Hearn’s risky business venture pay off? No-one knew for sure – least of all the jazzman. “I had no idea of whether anyone would be at all interested in the album,” confesses O’Hearn, before adding, “but I loved it, and that was all that mattered to me. As it turned out, lots of people loved it, which was a pleasant surprise. When completed, I took the record to my friend and former bandleader, Frank Zappa, who said, ‘Good work, Pat. Who knows? You may get a 10-year run out of this.’ His prediction fell short by six years, as the recording is still available today. However, BMG gave it its marching orders to the out-of-print void in 1998, so those Private Music copies that do remain in circulation are the last of the Mohicans.”
Clearly, the impromptu studio gamble that was Ancient Dreams paid off, big time – so much so that Private soon called for a second album. While happy to oblige, O’Hearn’s ongoing hectic session-playing schedule dictated a different approach, an approach revealed to the outside world on 1987’s Between Two Worlds’ sleeve liner notes, where the composer thanks, “Sid Zimet and Audio Force who temporarily transformed a ’60s ranch-style house into a ‘state-of-the-art’ 32-track digital studio” – namely, the intriguingly-dubbed Now you Simi, Now You Don’t. Yes, it’s that digital thing again, but this time it’s digital with a difference…
Says
O’Hearn: “I was busy rehearsing and recording with three different bands – Rod
Stewart’s, ex-Duran man Andy Taylor’s and Missing Persons, as well as doing
various session work, and I did not feel like jumping into the studio again
for another ‘action art’ album. So, the solution was to install a rented console
and multitrack machine into a spare bedroom in my home. Actually, the spare
bedroom was not large enough to accommodate the console, so my dear wife and
I moved the furniture out and used our master bedroom as the control room; the
attached bathroom was the iso booth! Sid Zimet, a wonderful chap and then-owner
of Audio Force equipment rentals, flew out from NY and brought in a Mitsubishi
X800, which was placed in our laundry room. He ran mucho cable snakes through
our hallway and hit the local hardware store to purchase and install ‘breakers’
in our home’s service panel to provide clean juice for this ‘impromptu’ studio,
which, by the way, was in the LA suburb of Simi Valley – hence the corny wordplay!”
Corny it may well be, but the fact remains: thanks to the efforts of all concerned – not least O’Hearn’s “…wife and children for putting up with severe ‘cable hell’ for three months,” to once again quote those appreciative liner notes, O’Hearn was justly rewarded with his first Grammy nomination for Between Two Worlds, proving in one fell swoop that Ancient Dreams was no one-off. To this day, O’Hearn is admirably quick to credit where credit’s due. “Gary Epstein, engineer, friend and then-neighbour, offered to help out getting things on tape,” he concedes. “My family were all good sports about the inconvenience, which remained for some time. During this experience I was able to further develop my basic engineering skills and working at home on that album was the point where I knew, once and for all, that a serious project studio was, for me, the way to go in future. We all had a lot of fun making that record; it was state-of-the-art bohemian! However, Peter Baumann and I did mix the album at a couple of ‘legitimate’ studios, like The Enterprise in Burbank, California.”
Though conceived in a similar fashion to Between Two Worlds, O’Hearn took another step towards achieving his project dream studio with 1988’s Rivers Gonna Rise, his third Private Music outing. Parallels can further be drawn in the sense that both albums credit the high-end, up to date equipment on which they were recorded, a practice that was upheld on 1989’s Eldorado, where it is proudly proclaimed, “This music was digitally recorded on Sony’s PCM 3324 and 1000ES DAT.”
“Sid brought in another Mitsubishi for the third album,” concurs O’Hearn, “but by this time I had purchased a second-hand Harrison MR2 console. Gary Epstein and I made the next step by mixing at home as well, renting outboard gear comparable to a commercial studio. However, by the forth album, Eldorado, I had made the hefty investment in an open reel digital multitrack as well – a Sony PCM 3324, so my home studio was pretty happening. As far as Private was concerned, they had always been pro-digital, marketing-wise, but by 1989 they were satisfied in being able to print the all-but-forgotten DDD logo on the cover.”
In hindsight, O’Hearn appears a little self-conscious about those exclusive equipment credits. “I don’t know why I chose to credit, or allowed credit to be given, to the tape machines used on my records in those days,” muses their creator. “Perhaps the novelty of the times, I guess? Seems silly by today’s standards. That exclusive ‘le club digital’ faded away with the 1980s and the coming of MDMs and more potent computers.”
And as the high-flying ’80s drew to a close, with Private Music cross-country transiting from New York City to their final Los Angeles resting place on Melrose Avenue – in time for what was to prove to be O’Hearn’s full-length studio epitaph for the label in 1991’s well-received Indigo, the O’Hearn family paradoxically headed South, relocating to Atlanta, GA. Expansion, of a more pressing kind, was on the cards…
“Our family moved away from Los Angeles in 1989 because we were growing in numbers and needed a larger pad,” states O’Hearn, matter-of-factly. “And being that that year was a peak in the ever-cycling Southern California real estate market, we decided to strike the tents and eventually headed to Atlanta, where my wife is from, and where we could afford far more crib for the dollar.”
For O’Hearn, a new home also meant a new home-based studio – the equally enchanting Factory Ruins, in the case of Indigo. “A total change of scenery just felt right,” he maintains. “I packed up the studio and moved it into the daylight basement of our new home. We lived next to an 18,000-acre State Park in which we took frequent hikes. In the park were the old ruins of a Civil War-era mill where much of the South’s Confederate grey uniforms had been produced. It was ransacked by the Union Army as the region fell. I enjoyed spending quiet time at this lonely site and used the namesake for my new studio location. Perhaps some of the area’s sorrowful history was transmuted into the making of Indigo. Half of Indigo was mixed at Studio Ultimo in Los Angeles, as was all of the White Sands score.”
Since
the US motion picture and television industries in which O’Hearn had evidently
been making inroads so obviously revolve around LA, the Atlanta move could have
been viewed cruelly from some quarters as a career killer. Understandably, this
cuts no ice with this upbeat scorer, who playfully retorts: “As far as bad career
moves go, that could well be my middle name if I cared too much about such things!
There are so many talented composers in LA competing over the handful of good
gigs that don’t go directly to the ‘A-list’ gang, so I made the decision to
tread another path, much to the frustration of my then-agent. Oddly, I got more
film work in the first four years after leaving LA than I’d ever had while trying
to be ‘Johnny-on-the-spot’ before I left! There are many chance and arcane factors
involved in getting film work besides just having a well-connected agent hammering
away on your behalf. There’s really no logic in it.”
That O’Hearn was invited to score playwright-cum-filmmaker-cum-actor Sam Shepard’s 1994 stage play Simpatico illustrates this perfectly: former Police drummer Stewart Copeland – himself no stranger to Tinseltown – landed its lucrative 1999 big screen adaptation gig. O’Hearn knows the score only too well. “The rights were licensed,” he sighs, “and I don't believe Sam was involved in that production. I did contact the director when I learned about the film version, but they had already signed another composer. Clearly, being so far removed from the scene is a big disadvantage for remaining active in that field.”
As the song lyric goes: “That’s just the way it is.” Nevertheless, excerpts of O’Hearn’s original sympathetic ambient jazz treatment (featuring Mark Isham on trumpet, Steve Tavaglione on tenor sax, Peter Maunu on guitar and Kurt Wortman on drums, with himself doubling up on piano, synthesizer and acoustic bass) can be downloaded from MP3.com. O’Hearn plans to officially release this music on Patrickohearn.com sometime this year and if those MP3s are anything to go by, it’ll be well worth the wait.
In the meantime, O’Hearn’s take it or leave it attitude toward all things Hollywood makes for refreshing reading. “Although film work is not something I do a lot of, I’m fine with that,” smiles the composer. “I was never interested in it as a full-time career. Having said that, I really enjoy the occasional scoring gig that comes along and it’s always a welcome change up from making records. You have the storyline before you and so it’s a matter of intuitively finding what will enhance the production – conceptually, not that unlike a good session player who comes in for overdubs and creates parts and performances that takes the track to another level. It’s quite different to pulling an album out of thin air, which can be either liberating or a challenge, or both.”
Come 1994, another studio album was O’Hearn’s want, but its entrance into the world – courtesy of his newly-launched Deep Cave imprint – and that of its high-flying predecessors were, quite literally, poles apart. As far as this compelling musician was concerned, Private Music’s river of dreams had long dried up, a feeling apparently shared by Suzanne Ciani, who likewise boldly set off down her own independent tributary that same year with Seventh Wave. A retrospective observation sharp brings these independent enterprises into focus: “We’re committed to shifting the way a record label does business – with no evidence that it could work,” said Ciani. “Maybe we’d find out that you have to exploit the artist in order to really make a viable business, but I knew that in the long run this wouldn’t work, because when an artist becomes unsupported and unhappy, they cease to produce. Patrick O’Hearn left Private for similar reasons. In fact, I think he had a worse time than I did and was more hurt because he was with them from the beginning.”
O’Hearn delicately puts it this way: “By late 1994, I was finally ‘pardoned’ from my recording contract and free to do as I pleased. Artist-owned ‘vanity’ labels had become commonplace and I, too, joined the new school with my own label. I had high hopes of picking up the pieces and putting the darker Private days behind me. Things initially did get off to a fine start with my D.I.Y. enterprise and I was quite enthusiastic.”
Indeed they did, for Deep Cave’s 1995 inaugural release, Trust, O’Hearn’s eighth solo album, went on to be nominated for a Grammy (Best New Age Album in 1996) and succeeded in picking up two NAIRD Indie Awards (for Best Album and Best Cover Design – Emil Shult, famed for his longstanding association with Kraftwerk’s innovative album artwork, playing a part in the latter’s creation). Despite this encouraging start, O’Hearn’s enthusiasm was to be severely tested. “Wicked storm clouds were gathering over the retail and distribution area of music and 1996 brought forth a raging tsunami of financial woe to the record industry as a whole,” he laments. “No-one was immune from its effects – not the majors, and certainly not Deep Cave – which I believe are still being felt today.”
Suzanne Ciani’s take on the situation was similar, albeit with a more colourful choice of language: “My female intuition tells me that this was no accident – that the majors were behind unplugging the system that was strong enough to bother them. Basically, Alliance bought up all these vibrant independent companies for good money, and then kind of flushed them down the toilet so they all but disappeared. Our distribution never fully recovered.”
“Both our labels were distributed by the same outfit,” deadpans O’Hearn. “Large record retail chains had begun moving into bankruptcy protection the previous year as a result of aggressive over-expansion, which had artificially goosed distribution and label expansion, in large part due to the back catalogue vinyl-to-CD conversion bubble that had finally run out of steam. I remember hearing a key speaker at a 1997 NAIRD/AFIM convention deliver the sobering news that approximately 25,000 titles were released domestically in 1996, and of those titles, 95 percent had soundscanned less than 500 copies each! The market was flooded with mountains of CDs that were not selling through. Unfortunately, before this fact became painfully clear, distributors continued shipping to the struggling stores and calling for more product from labels, which, in turn, manufactured more CDs to fulfil non-existent sales. This of course is my over simplification of a complex problem, but you get the idea. The stores returned the product to distributors, which returned the product to the labels, which had margined themselves to manufacture the unnecessary product. A lot of businesses crashed and burned between ’96 and 2001. I decided to cut my losses and leave the poker table.”
Weathering this unfavourable climate proved nigh on impossible and so 1996’s critically-acclaimed Metaphor proved to be Deep Cave’s second and last release; thereafter, all fell eerily silent in the musical world of Patrick O’Hearn – at least to the outside world – with the subsequent on-line demise of the Deep Cave website sometime in 1998. While Deep Cave’s diminutive yet superlative catalogue remained sporadically available, both in retail stores and online elsewhere, O’Hearn was already planning ahead, looking to re-enter the music business on his own terms. First, though, he still had to fully realise that serious project studio of which he’d been dreaming for so long. That dream was about to become reality…
Prior
to the release of Trust, the O’Hearn family were
on the move again, this time for the small-town country lifestyle offered by
Bat Cave, NC. It’s an increasingly commonplace scenario. “By 1994, Atlanta had
rapidly spread out around us,” explains O’Hearn. “What had originally been our
rural fringe of the metro area was now being swallowed up in suburban sprawl.
We were always taken with the scenic beauty of nearby Western North Carolina
and so we decided to ‘head for the hills’. I figured, ‘Hell, I’m so far removed
from Hollywood now, what difference is 200 more miles up into the Blue Ridge
Mountains going to make?’”
Which brings us neatly on to Studio A.O.T., finally credited on this year’s So Flows The Current. O’Hearn obligingly picks up the story: “Trust was began in Atlanta and continued in an interim workspace – a rental loft space, I guess you would call it – that I worked in between ’94, when we moved, to early-’97, when my new studio was ready. My wife convinced me in late-’96 that it was high time I had my own ‘detached’ freestanding structure in which to work. She had an architect friend whom agreed to design me a workspace based on a 30x30 footprint. I called my friend – engineer extraordinaire Bruce Swedien – to ask a few tips on the matter. As soon as I mentioned the 30x30 figure, he broke in and said, ‘For God’s sake, man; whatever you do, don’t build a cube!’ Bruce gave me important insights on creating non-parallel, non-plumb walls, and being conscious of setting up the interior in such a way as to reduce potential standing waves, all of which was most helpful.”
Light, bright and ergonomic, the finished product certainly makes for a comfortable and inspirational composition and recording environment. “I wanted a large open space without a ceiling and so we used a traditional hip roof, or pyramid design, and included an office, storage and machine room of dissimilar dimensions to offset the main room,” explains O’Hearn. “The structure sits atop a three-foot foundation, which enables me, if and when I get around to it, to run all cabling under the floor. I’m also wired up in such a way as to have plenty of discreet juice from the service panel to all of my equipment, with total isolation from any lights or appliances. None of the finishing carpentry work is done; I sort of hit that myself from time to time, but it’s a lovely space, and I like the unfinished ‘garage’ aspect of it that I’m so long-time accustomed to!”
Geography exerted an inescapable influence when it came to kitting out this idyllic workspace, as its principal occupant elucidates: “When we left Atlanta I decided to cut loose the Harrison console and Sony 3324. The Harrison was a great board, but it required regular maintenance – no sweat in Atlanta, but out of the question where we were headed. The Sony, too, was not going to be practical in a ‘coon skin’ cap, so I replaced them with three Tascam DA-88s and an expanded Mackie Analog 8•Bus. Although the Mackie is well designed and its EQ sounds great, it was a big step backwards in terms of overall console. In fact, not until I replaced the 8•Bus with Mackie’s newer D8B did I regain the flexibility lost with the Harrison. This phase of my home studio experience also cast me out of the secure XLR world that I had happily heretofore dwelled in to that of the mixed bag cabling gumbo that is much of today’s project studio fare.”
Tech-talk aside, does O’Hearn’s musical current still flow strongly? Damn right it does! O’Hearn’s latest and greatest platter was already generating encouraging on-line reviews in anticipation of its New Year release, with Amazon.com remarking, “So Flows The Current …creates a rich blend of compositional texture with closer focus upon acoustic instruments than his previous electronic-oriented works.” A fair assessment, one shared by the man himself. “In making this album, I finally kicked the habit and detoxed from using MIDI, SMPTE timecode and software sequencers as a basis for everything,” O’Hearn confesses. “Not since recording Ancient Dreams, some 16 years earlier, had I done this. I got so hooked into MIDI and MTC over the years – especially when doing film work, where it is all but essential – that it had become my de facto way of composing and recording, so it was tough to let go.”
This
‘shocking’ revelation is backed up by O’Hearn’s current website: “So
Flows The Current is an album which slowly coalesced over time, and its
more ‘live and acoustic-orientation’ was, for me, a welcome return to ‘pre-MIDI-centric’
recording. Microphones and live performance, the absence of sequencer and samples
was the order of the day, and a good time was had by all.”
That said, the hypnotic, dreamy piano-based part that underpins the album’s title track does a mean sequencing impression, an observation that would appear to be borne out by the fact that a large, rack-mountable Doepfer Schaltwerk MIDI Trigger Sequencer is discernable on O’Hearn’s homepage. It ain’t necessarily so, pronounces its proprietor. “Along the way, and in my effort to shake loose the software sequencer, I had purchased two wonderful Doepfer boxes, the Schaltwerk and the MAQ16, neither of which are featured on this album, but will, however, shine on future tracks,” divulges O’Hearn, before expanding upon his current modus operandi. “I also switched from tape to direct-to-disk recording, using Sonic Foundry’s Vegas Audio and three Echo Layla boxes, a transition begun in ’93 with an early Pro Tools system, but later abandoned. Using Vegas Audio, I recorded myself playing bass, piano, synthesizers and percussion, as well as the other musicians and their respective instruments, live. Although some cut-and-paste editing was done – in particular the looped piano phrases you point out on the title track – almost everything is performed as heard.”
Live performance recording implies mucho microphones and here Studio A.O.T. does not disappoint. “I used Neumann M147s, AKG Solidtubes and 414s, and Shure 57s,” reveals the master of recording ceremonies. A modest yet classy collection of desirable outboard spiced up the production proceedings: “Some of the tracks were recorded through outboard Neve 1073s, API 312s and 550s, but much of the recording was done straight into the Mackie Digital 8•Bus or Analog 8•Bus and on into the computer. I recorded click-tracks and worked in the visual ‘bar/beat’ format of Vegas to navigate around the tune’s different sections in a familiar visual format and with the aid of markers. Effects used were an Eventide H3000SE, Lexicon PCM 90, ’80, two PCM 42s and two PCM 70s, some D8B internal effects, a Urei 1178 and a Line 6 Pod. Monitoring was handled through the trusty old Genelec 1031s and a 1092 sub.”
Speaking of speakers, O’Hearn has a few more tucked up his studio sleeve, for while So Flows The Current was mixed down in good old stereo for its initial release on the now not-so-new CD format, Patrickohearn.com states work is underway on a 5.1 surround sound version: “The project will be authored in the Dolby Digital AC3 format and released on DVD-Video. Although the disc will have little, if any, video content, this format seems to be the best way to go at present given the fact that so few DVD-Audio or so-called ‘universal’ players exist. The DVD-Video disc will be playable on all DVD players and anyone who has a Dolby Digital-equipped player or receiver and a 5.1 home theatre speaker set-up will be able to listen in this most enjoyable new format.”
Clearly, it’s a conundrum, yet O’Hearn resolutely refuses to have his spatial spirits dampened. “Multi-channel mixing is, in a word, wonderful,’ he enthuses. “It certainly offers a lot of new sonic possibilities for the engineer, composer and record producer. I’d done surround film mixes over the years, but that’s a whole other animal with restrictive rules to co-exist with dialogue and sound effects. But to have five discreet music channels all to oneself – if we’re talking 5.1 – is righteous! It’s certainly got me thinking about staying set up in this mode for composing and recording my next album. No matter what approach is taken mix-wise, whether it be humble and static, or dynamic and psychedelic, the greater sense of space is really a treat to the ears. Will it catch on with the public? I sure as hell hope so, because I’m sold!”
A little gentle prompting soon gets O’Hearn talking about his debut 5.1 album mixing experience with candour: “As far as additional equipment goes, I’m still trying to puzzle it out, as I’m sure many whom are just getting into this format are. I’m using five matched speakers, Mackie HR824s and a single Genelec 1092 sub, although I believe I’ll soon upgrade to a larger 1094 sub for the LRC and perhaps use the 1092 for the surrounds. I’m not using the discreet sub channel, and with the LRC speakers running through the 1092, and its internal crossover, a quasi-bass management is achieved for monitoring. My set-up is modest; I don’t have a master matrix control, such as a Martin Sound Multi-Max, which would provide options such as fold-down, master volume, calibration and bass management. But, armed with Tomlinson Holman’s excellent reference book, 5.1 Surround Sound Up And Running, I’m making do with what I’ve got and slowly feeling my way into this interesting new realm.”
O’Hearn knows his limitations, and is not adverse to accepting outside assistance, where needed, as in days of yore: “I’ll listen back to my mixes through a home theatre receiver with analogue inputs and get an idea of how things may shape up, but it will be Gary Epstein, whom figures into our conversation earlier and is a DVD/DTV engineer at Dolby Labs, that will soon take copies of my DA-88 surround mixes, encode them, play them back at Dolby’s studio and break the news to me as to technically whether or not I’ve got problems before heading on to mastering and authoring.”
The viability of DVD-Audio remains open to question with some sceptics arguing the perceived sonic improvement over CD is insufficient to entice consumers into buying DVD-A players. Not only that, existing DVD-V players already in use may even act as a deterrent to the new format, because first-generation DVD-V players are unable to access the full-bandwidth, multi-channel audio layers on DVD-A discs. With this in mind, O’Hearn’s mind is set – for now. “I’m going the DVD-V route for this first outing,” he maintains. “As DVD-A progresses and more people actually own such players, I’ll move toward the Hi-Res format. I think we’d all like to be producing music in the best possible medium, but as I’ve yet to release any multi-channel music, I have no idea as to how either of these formats will do. It’s all very new, so, one step at a time.”
With So Flows The Current O’Hearn is demonstrably embracing the future with relish, both in terms of technology and with its Patrickohearn.com release. Of the latter, he’s learnt his independent lesson well: “This time around I leave behind the ‘old school’ model, manufacturing only what is necessary, and even then, ‘on demand’, which was not-so-doable just five years ago. As intriguing and encouraging as direct on-line sales and distribution is, I think it’s got a ways to go before it supersedes tradition. So, I’m finding ways to get the music into stores and trying to figure ways to let people know that I continue to make records, all the while trying to slowly build an Internet presence in the hope that one day I’ll be able to offer my music ‘straight from the source’ to anyone interested. The greatest challenge to me is in making time to make music! That’s the Catch 22 of D.I.Y. I’m not a salesman or businessman and I don’t enjoy seeing days becoming weeks, melting into months of tending to details associated with releasing records. But, such are the dues for the micro-managed, low-overhead independent without a staff in employ.”
Strangely
enough, when it comes to future recording output, O’Hearn finds himself looking
increasingly to the past. “I’ve been fascinated with electronic sound sculpting
since I was a kid,” he concludes. “Hearing Wendy Carlos and Morton Sobotnic
further intrigued me, as well as Joe Zawinul’s wonderful approach to electronic
instuments on the early Weather Report albums. But it was Mark Isham, with whom
I had a band in the ’70s, that truly opened my eyes first-hand to the skill
and taste of studio tone sculpting on his ARP 2600, Oberheim 4-Voice and Prophet
5. I bought my first Moog in 1978 and have been hooked on synths ever since.
Most instruments I’ve collected over the years I do still own and use. I try
to keep up on what’s being developed, but I don’t much care for the pre-defined
closed in architecture of many newer instruments. So, last year, continuing
on my retro theme, I put together a custom analogue modular rig from an English
outfit called Analogue Systems – no microprocessor, no keyboard and no sound,
unless you grab a wad of patch cables and start experimenting; very open and
refreshing; that instrument, when controlled with the Doepfer hardware sequencers,
becomes most enjoyable and may well be the basis for my next record.”
Which just goes to show: there’s room for everything in our increasingly varied recording world – including innovative, independent artists like Patrick O’Hearn. As Amazon.com posit: “Those new to his work will discover a unique artist long recognized as a leading pioneer in the field of Contemporary Instrumental Music.” And they’d be right.
CONSOLE: Mackie Analog 8•Bus (48-channel) • Mackie Digital 8•Bus
MONITORS: Genelec 1031 with 1092 sub (mid-field stereo) • Mackie HR824 x5 with Genelec 1092 sub (surround) • Yamaha MSP5 (near-field stereo)
RECORDING: Echo Layla x3 (24-in/30-out) • Fostex CR-200 • Panasonic SV-3700 DAT • Tascam CD-RW 5000 • Tascam DA-88 x3 • Tascam IF-88AE interface
OUTBOARD: API 312 mic preamp x4 • API 550 EQ x2 • DBX PB-48 patchbay x4 • Electro-developments Strate Gate x2 • Eventide H3000S Harmonizer • Lexicon PCM 42 x2 • Lexicon PCM 70 x2 • Lexicon PCM 80 x2 • Lexicon PCM 90 x2 • Line 6 Pod • Neve 1073 mic pre-EQ x2 • Neve 2074 EQ x2 • Urei 1178 limiter x2
MICROPHONES: AKG C414-TL x2 • AKG Solidtube x2 • Crown PZM x2 • Neumann M147 x2 • Shure SM57 x2
COMPUTER: Custom-built Pentium III rig (with internal TEAC CD-R and various makes of multiple hard drives)
SOFTWARE: Sonic Foundry ACID Pro 2.0 • Sonic Foundry CD Architect 4.0d • Sonic Foundry Vegas Audio 2.0 • Steinberg Cubase VST 3.72 (with various DirectX plug-ins)
HARDWARE SEQUENCERS: Doepfer MAQ 16/3 • Doepfer Shaltwerk
MIDI: JL Cooper MSB 8x8 • MotU Micro Express • Roland MPU-101
SAMPLER: Akai S6000
SYNTHESIZERS/SOUND MODULES: Analogue Systems custom modular • Clavia Nord Lead • Doepfer MS-404 • E-mu Procussion • Oberheim 4-Voice • Oberheim Xpander • PPG Wave 2.2 • Roland JP-8000 • SCI Prophet 5 • Studio Electronics MIDI-Mini • Waldorf Microwave
ACOUSTIC INSTRUMENTS: Armstrong Silver C flute • Cello • Fender fretted and fretless bass guitars • Fender lap-steel guitar • Fender Strat and Kay acoustic guitars • German flat-back acoustic bass (c1720) • Music Man fretted and fretless bass guitars • Various ethnic drums and percussion objects • Various ethnic flutes • Various Western drums and cymbals • Yamaha acoustic piano
Ancient Dreams (Private Music, 1985*/One Way Records, 2000)
Between Two Worlds (Private Music, 1987*/One Way Records, 2000)
Rivers Gonna Rise (Private Music, 1988*)
Eldorado (Private Music, 1989*/One Way Records, 2000)
Mix Up (Private Music, 1990*)
Indigo (Private Music, 1991*/One Way Records, 2000)
The Private Music Of Patrick O’Hearn (Private Music, 1992*)
White Sands: O.S.T. (Morgan Creek Records, 1992)
Trust (Deep Cave, 1995)
Metaphor (Deep Cave, 1996)
Patrick O’Hearn: A Windham Hill Retrospective (Private Music, 1997)
So Flows The Current (Patrickohearn.com, 2001)
