StudioAuditions.com Handle: Joel Patterson

One day, Joel Patterson decided to build a barn, and make the top floor a recording studio. This was in 1995. The gear was humble but proud: dat machine, 16 channel Ramsa board, fine dbx compressors and lexicon reverbs. Persevering in the face of daunting odds, he pursued the bright, elusive butterfly of making a living recording the vibrant world of music that permeates the southern Vermont/ northern Massachusetts/ upstate New York area.

Haunting "open mic's" he persuaded the best and most talented of the performers to make their first serious foray into the world of professional recording. It was a magic time. "Working with Todd Stentiford and the guys who later became Catfish Blue, Jason Ennis, groups like Green Eggs & Hash and Yukon Cornelius, was a trip," Joel says. "They were all just guys, regular people, but they had this crazy, obsessive dream--they made music because they needed to. It was necessary for their souls, somehow."

As the need for "studios" to produce "demos" faded in the face of ever-cheaper laptops and just more accessible recording technology in general, Joel focussed on the high end market-- seriously driven musicians who needed no-compromise, superb recordings, whatever it took. Today, the gear is uber-ultra-modern, but the same passion for excellence and dedication to an extraordinary level of service means, in the end, that "these wonderful people I work with are getting priceless recordings, absolutely gorgeous stuff. There's such power in music, such an unfolding of real true emotion-- I'm in awe of people who can reach down and pull that out. Every day is a thrill."