Billy Anderson recorded one of hard rock's most intriguing and fucking coolest albums in history — Jerusalem, by the now-defunct legendary stoner-rock band Sleep. It was a lengthy one-track...
The year was 1970. Hidden away in a London suburb with a Studer 4-track, Paul McCartney was clandestinely recording the songs that would form his first solo album, McCartney. 5,000 miles across the...
Dave Sardy is a rare bird in the world of rock production: A virtuoso on both sides of the glass. As the leader and producer of the groundbreaking New York post- hardcore trio Barkmarket, he mined...
Tony Levin is one of the masters of bass guitar and the Chapman Stick, having played with King Crimson, Peter Gabriel [Tape Op #143], James Taylor, California Guitar Trio, Paul Simon, John Lennon,...
In many a studio the Empirical Labs Distressor is as much a common sight — and sound — as a guitar amp or coffee machine. And for good reason — it works well, it's highly...
Though Emitt [see interview this issue] wrote the songs, played every note, and acted as his own engineer and producer, when mixing time rolled around the tapes were whisked away to Sound City where...
This article is about changing your perspective. Regardless of your personal preferences between analog and digital recording mediums, each have their own strengths. There's no question that digital...
Here's a ridiculously cheap and simple way to make a pretty nice microphone shock mount. Cost is under 10 bucks (way under if you build more than one) and it shouldn't take too much more than a...
A vital, cost-effective and often neglected step in attempting to put your music on tape is the concept of pre-production. Planning ahead can save money (and time) in the studio. Budget...
I was working on a two-week session for the upcoming fifth Richmond Fontaine album in November, engineering with J.D. Foster producing. One of the first things that J.D. did when we arrived at the...
Langevin was a manufacturer of consoles in the 1960s. Manley Labs has since purchased the name, and although they base some of their solid-state designs on the original Langevin topology, the original...
When I caught wind that Speck was working on a single-channel mic preamp, I was excited. I'm a big fan of Speck's reasonably-priced ASC parametric EQ. So I extrapolated and figured a Speck mic pre...
In my opinion there are very few mic preamps under $800 per channel that are any better sounding than an inexpensive console. Many of the "budget" mic pres are based on simple, cheap integrated...
Right from the start, I noticed that the Old School Audio MP1-A ($499) has an extended, "airy" top and sounds flat and accurate in the low end with very little coloration. Compared to the other two...
What a luxury TC Works, a TC Electronic sister company, has bestowed us native platform users. TC Works introduced the PowerCore several years ago and if you haven't had a chance experience the power...
Client storage is increasingly an issue as more and more recording projects and studios move into the digital domain. Most of the smaller budget studios I've worked with seem to send their clients to...
Whether you're an electronic musician who's searching for the right set of sounds to load into your software sampler or an analog bloke who's desperately in need of Amazonian crickets to lay into a...
Why do you need an Uninterruptible Power Supply? Here's a scenario. You've just hit record. The hard disk is spinning as it writes the track. The power suddenly goes out. The write-head on the hard...
D/A converters are often an afterthought in many project studios, but high quality converters are essential for both accurate monitoring and analog processing. Converter quality can be assessed most...
In Issue #30 I mentioned using "safe" ink pens when marking CD-Rs. The supposed issue is that Sharpies and their ilk can bleed through the plastic layer and eat away at the aluminum below, thus...
There are many reasons to need another eight channels of digital conversion, but the most common is if you have a Digi 001 or 002. You really need an ADAT Litepipe compatible converter to maximize...
See Issue #28 for my full review of Altiverb for MAS, a plug-in that I would consider the best software reverb I've heard. Well now it's available for RTAS and VST as well as MAS. You can check...
I have been wanting to audition a master clock for sometime now and finally had both the opportunity and reason to do so. November was a busy month at my studio with mostly digital sessions, giving us...
See Issue #30 for my review of the Mbox as most of my comments there on small to mid-sized studios needing Pro Tools compatibility also apply here. You've probably seen the ads and know that the Digi...
I'm a bag geek. Bags make up a big part of my lifestyle. When I'm in town, I commute by bike with a courier bag. When I'm on the road, I commute by plane with a carry-on bag. I'm also a gear geek, so...
The first thing you notice when listening to ADAM P11-A bi-amped monitors is the incredible detail. These aren't overly bright, thumping speakers with smiley-face frequency response curves-the...
I saw (and heard) a bunch of gear at the annual AES show this past Fall. With so many cool new products to discover, you'd think that it'd be hard for a gear geek like me to choose one product that...
The MOSFET (Metal-Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) was used in attempts to produce tube-like clipping in some '80s Marshalls, Carvins, and other high-powered guitar amps. MOSFETs never...
The Cornford Harlequin is a hand-wired, 6-Watt "recording amplifier" with a stripped-down design that utilizes two 12AX7s, a single EL84, and a sparse control panel (Pre-amp Volume, Treble, Bass,...
Ribbon mics are all the rage these days and deservedly so. With their sharp detail and warm, accurate sound reproduction, ribbons have become the new flavor-of-the-month in the audio world, especially...
If you read my review of the Shure KSM 141's last issue, you know that I rarely spend my own money on mics. Instead, I rely on the kindness of others for most of my transducing needs. The AT4050 is...
IBP stands for "In Between Phase." In other words, this box provides you with a continuously variable phase knob-as opposed to a fixed on/off 180-degree phase switch-allowing you to combine signals...
I'd been having problems with drummers and headphones for years. The headphones would fall off drummer's heads, they would bleed too much click track into the mics, and their output wouldn't be loud...
Metrophones Isolation Headphones feature heavy- duty earmuffs with Koss speakers inside. There are three models: Studio Kans (without metronome); Metrophones (built-in analog metronome); and...
I first heard this two-channel preamp from New Zealand's Buzz Audio on 3D Audio's 3D Pre CD. Compared to other "clean" pres on the CD, the MA 2.2 sounded more real on the takes of male vocal mic'ed...
OK, so this isn't a CD, but rather a documentary film about making a CD, this year's excellent Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Chicago's Wilco. About a third of the film is studio scenes in the band's loft...
What do bands do for fun in between albums? A collection of cover songs! Tunes by artists like The Cure, Papas Fritas, Steely Dan (!), Serge Gainsbourg, The Go- Betweens (my favorite) get the breezy...
Maybe out of respect to the dead, Jeff Lynne doesn't overproduce this posthumous release by the deceased Beatle. There's a sort of loose, low- key quality to these songs that lends a bit of mellowness...
I totally respect John McEntire, and have really enjoyed some of the records he's produced, but man is this one tight, controlled digitally- worked record. It feels like everything was labored over...
I dropped by Avast! Recording Co. in Seattle looking for Stuart Hallerman (who wasn't there) but Troy Tietjen was hanging out in the office. He mentioned that Steve Fisk was mixing a record, so I...
Phil Elvrum, of Olympia, WA, was profiled in last issue and is also the force behind The Microphones. Mount Eerie is his strange new record he made at K Record's Dub Narcotic studio. It's like a...
I wish people would name their records after my studio! Doug's soft songs were captured well at Portland's Type Foundry, with local musicians brought in to back him up. This is #1 in a series, and I...
Shimmering, lumbering, beautiful music from these Icelandic boys, recorded at Alafoss, their studio built in an indoor swimming pool that they bought. This was recorded on Soundscape, and mixed at...
Chris Butler, long-time Tape Op reader and formerly of The Waitresses, is a man after our hearts. Recording here was done on Studer J-37 4-track, Ampex A300 mono deck, Neumann VMS62 Special Lathe,...
