"It feels so good to be back on the road again," reveals a recharged Daniel Lanois, as the tour RV he's been traveling in merges onto highway 403 just outside of his former hometown of Hamilton,...
Adam Samuels is Daniel Lanois' [see article this issue] right-hand man in the sphere of sound. His youthful and attentive scholastic approach, hunger and ability to adapt are among his gifts....
This band down the street from me uses Digital Performer on their computer with tons of great plug-ins for their home recordings and it sounds great. Maybe I'm a little scared of technology, or...
Michael Brauer is the person who introduced me to subgroup compression. I had recorded a track with David Poe and, since Michael had already mixed the rest of the album, he offered to mix this...
Rock and roll can cause you to behave irrationally. I was working on a renovation project at my home and while carrying a bunch of lumber, I stepped on 2-inch nail that went straight through my...
Doug has been a proponent of high-quality, high-end tube recording gear for ten years now. His mic preamps, EQs and direct boxes are known as some of the best-built and greatest sounding in the...
Dan Snaith (aka Manitoba [and later known as Caribou]) might just have the makings of the best revenge of the nerds story yet (well, aside from Bill Gates). He's a Canadian-born, curly-haired...
Production techniques involving sound manipulation have evolved exponentially over the past few years as creativity, experimentation and the DAW, have paved the way for new forms of sonic abuse. Sound...
The first time I heard an MP3 I was completely unimpressed. I had received a CD of tracks from a new, hopeful digital music web site (now long gone) at a music conference tradeshow. Hillary Johnson...
About a year and a half ago I decided I needed to upgrade my modest home recording setup to something more professional. I have experience recording on analog gear as well as ADATs, and at home I'd...
Like a lot of people, I've been watching the trend towards DAW mixing "out of the box." Systems like the Dangerous 2-Bus were pretty appealing, but then I started seeing these old Neve broadcast...
I've had this headphone amp/mixer in my studio for over two years now and it's probably one of the best under $300 investments I've made. The Q-Mix is a 6 x 6 headphone mixer and amp with six inputs...
Is your home/project studio lacking the bitchin' control room features that only a high end console is capable of delivering? Are you tired of patching and re-patching your various sets of monitors?...
Once I realized I would be dragging my laptop with me nearly everywhere, the question became what to carry it in. My spacious messenger bag didn't offer the necessary protection. A nearby Staples...
This box was one of the first TR-909-style drum machines that appeared in the '90s, precipitating a flood of Roland TR-X0X-style hardware and software that has yet to subside. Of these, it remains one...
By now you must have heard some rumblings about what may prove to be the best-sounding type of reverb plug-ins: they're termed "impulse response" reverbs. In layman's terms (my terms too) these...
Two word review: Holy shit! That's what I said after listening to the first tracks I ran though this compressor. It's also literally what the next four people who heard it said. The bad news-it costs...
I am a HUGE fan of the Delta Lab Effectrons of yesteryear. I remember growing up in North Carolina, then moving to Florida, and it seemed like everywhere I went, there was one of those blue 1U delays...
I added this box to my rack for a two-month testing period and was impressed right from the start. It's pretty much a 2U channel strip with preamp, compressor, gate, and EQ sections. At first I was...
Ok, I know that last issue I reviewed a really nice high-end compressor (and I still love those Geoff Dakings), but compressors to me are the equivalent of spices to a chef. Therefore, you need a lot...
My control room has an open "A-Frame" ceiling with a single steel beam forming the horizontal element of the A. When we designed the room, not only did we choose to keep the ceiling open, but we...
My studio is inside a building that has three doorways leading to two different streets. Instead of wiring doorbells to all three doors, I decided to save some money (and time) and use a wireless door...
Every once in a blue moon a deal on equipment comes along that grabs me by the neck and just says "I'm good, and I'm affordable...ya simply gotta buy me!" Recently, one of these little screamers took...
First let's get one thing out of the way: I have never used a real Neumann/Telefunken U47. I wish-but it has never happened. I thought about renting or borrowing a vintage U47 to compare to the...
The AT3060 is a large diaphragm tube mic that runs on 48V phantom; there's no external power supply. There's also no frills: it's cardioid only, there's no low cut, no pad, no nothing. Just mic. It...
ADK was one of the first companies to offer low-cost condenser microphones. Today they offer a wide range of microphones, including the affordable A-51 Model A. The A-51 is a sturdy, Class-A, cardioid...
This was recorded on a portable Pro Tools TDM system in various studios and the bands homes in the San Francisco bay area. I'm intrigued by recordings like this and I think this is a great way to make...
So I'm chatting with the guys from Radar Brothers after the Tape Op Conference and Senon Williams (their bassist) tells me he's coming back in a few weeks to Portland with his other band. We wandered...
Canada's favorite pop/rock groovy band is back for a second album. Recorded at The Factory and JC/DC Studios in Vancouver by Howard Redekopp and band member John Collins who also mixed. Some of Neko...
I'm a sucker for retrospective compilations of pre-punk rock combos, so these tracks by Canada's SS from '74 to '78 fits my taste quite well. The main album represented here, Cyborgs Revisted, was...
Everyone likes a little mystery, so maybe I won't tell you exactly what this is except that maybe it's Grandaddy making the dumbest music of their career in order to baffle the folks at V2 after the...
Eric Tischler is one of our contributors, and his rockin' Lamps combo played at Tape Op Con #1. Their previous CD, Tilting at Windmills, was a little undercooked in my opinion, so it's nice to hear...
Hell yes, the first Quasi record in years that I had absolutely no hand in recording. I can put on this record and enjoy it 100% - never recalling the recording process or having heard the songs "a...
Several things are significant about this release. It is the soundtrack to a film called Young Adam. David Byrne releases a CD on an independent label. It was recorded at CaVa Sound Workshops,...
We get way too many CDs sent to Tape Op - making it impossible to listen to the all or sift through them even. One day I randomly picked up this CD and decided to listen to it. It's great instrumental...
Fred Cornog is East River Pipe, and we interviewed him years ago in Tape Op #1. Since then he hasn't changed hardly any of his recording gear, still happy to use his Tascam 388 1/4" 8-track in his...
Every week someone emails Tape Op to remind us that Chris Walla is a total genius. We know. Chris is in DCFC, and runs the Hall of Justice recording studio in Seattle (the space that used to be...
