Butch Vig has created a big name for himself in the recording world. In 1984 he and Steve Marker founded Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin, and started working with tons of indie bands (like...
A studio manager juggles responsibilities and must also find the time and space for creativity. It takes a level head and a scopic vision to stay sane and to be brilliant. Knitting Factory...
Jennifer Herrema and Neil Hagerty have led the Royal Trux for a number of years now. They pulled a coup of sorts when Virgin Records dumped a lot of money on them, put out two albums, and then...
Ray Carmen has been a part of the underground "cassette culture" for over ten years. As might be guessed by the heading, Carmen's main forte' is pop, as in Byrds/Beatles/Monkees, but he does venture...
Home recording has taken some serious leaps during the nineties. A four track and a couple of cheap microphones used to be the standard setup; nowadays it's just as common to find a sampler,...
While some of my favorite albums were made in huge studios with big budgets, I'm also very excited about records made under less ideal circumstances. I find it really inspiring when timeless records...
Who among us hasn't wanted to take a razor blade to our tapes for no other purpose than malicious destruction? Through the ancient art of manual tape editing and splicing, you now have a practical...
Neutral Milk Hotel began in the early 90's as a 4 track cassette project by Jeff Mangum. Since then, he's released a couple of albums on Merge records (On Avery Island, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea)...
In just a few short years, Scott Colburn's Gravelvoice Productions has been involved with a wonderfully diverse collection of artists and recordings. His Seattle, Washington studio offers an analog...
Tape Op gets a lot of CD's in the mail. Some are great, and we play them to death, but many just plain stink. Why? Maybe nobody is listening. The recording process is great. You can create amazing...
There's several ways to run a commercial studio. You can be outspoken, you can be highly visible on the local "scene" or you can quietly stay in and do some great work. In Portland, I sometimes feel...
When people talk to me about movies, I mention that I follow directors and rarely pay attention to actors. When it comes to records though, I don't think I'd pick music based on who "produced" it....
The first thing I noticed about this CD is that it is short. Less than 32 minutes, and that made me wonder. Would I know if it was on vinyl? Between flipping the sides and not having a digital counter...
People like Nicolas Vernhes and his Rare Book Room in NYC are the backbone of honest, real recording in this country. I'm not joking. There's million dollar studios with well-trained staff and full...
Plush is Liam Hayes, a keyboardist, song- writer, singer and Mellotron fanatic. Unlike his highly orchestrated singles, we get no Mellotron on this outing - just Hayes mostly singing and playing...
Joe Meek. The name haunts anyone who researches record production of the 60's. His secretive and forward-looking production techniques presaged what many others developed later on. I mean some of this...
Ever since the Apples (In Stereo) made their self-recorded splash on the indie music scene, a lot has been said in praise of Robert Schneider and his Pet Sounds Recording Studio and we here at Tape Op...
It took me some time to figure this out, but Holland is our pal, Trevor, formerly the Sea Saw/Magnetophone guy. Holland is in a similar vein - Kraftwerkian drum sounds, lush analog synths and sad,...
AMF's new one follows in the soft/loud direction of their first record, but manages to keep the some- times generic formula sounding fresh-inspired even. They push everything to the extreme; the low-...
I'm a big fan of Brian Eno. Not of everything he writes, records and produces, but of the way I perceive that he thinks about music and recording. Systems approaches, how a system (a complex effects...
Poole improvises on a Martin acoustic guitar using an alternate tuning of his own invention. He is concerned with the perfect fourth, the neutral third, and the micro uneven intervals between. This...
According to the disc technical notes, this music was "captured by veteran field engineer Gene Holder [ex dB's], in a studio/bohemian flophouse called the Jolly Roger". Sound is on the lo-fi side of...
The Ex on Touch and Go? While they do seem at first to be strange company (T & G don't exactly conjure images of anarcho-squatters and euro- improvisers), the union couldn't have been more...
