Alex Newport first made a name for himself in the late eighties with the heavy, sludgy sound of Fudge Tunnel, an English band that was around from 1989 to 1995. He moved to the states in the early...
Brian Kehew and Kevin Ryan have long been on the Tape Op radar — Kevin conducted the fantastic Emitt Rhodes interview in issue 33, and Brian recently set up and helped with the Ken Scott...
Mike Patton keeps busy — that’s for sure. Since his early days with rock band Faith No More (pioneering the rap-rock genre with their seminal hit “Epic”), through the...
My love of Michael Penn's music so pre-dates my interest in recording that when I was preparing to interview him for Tape Op, I returned to his records — I felt I knew them by heart, to find...
Michael Gira, co-founder of the seminal, earth-moving band Swans, has developed his skills in the studio as an artist and producer. Searching for unexpected ways to create music while maintaining...
Swing open the door to the little wooden shed behind Brian Beattie's house in south Austin and wonder how it all hangs together. The walls are stacked floor-to-ceiling with what looks like a yard...
Danny McKinney is a textbook case of a very busy man with a whole lot of irons in the fire. Requisite Audio is his boutique outboard gear company. Standel is his company that designs guitar amps....
I recently installed a Pro Tools HD system and Pro Tools 7 in my studio to replace the Digi002 we've been using for a few years. I'd be lying if I said this was an easy task, but I'd also be lying...
I opened my studio a little over three years ago. I was forced to replace my console before I even opened the doors. I decided to not buy any other gear for a while figuring that a new room and a new...
Like most plug-ins these days, Z-Noise comes in RTAS/AudioSuite, VST, AU, and MAS flavors. It supports up to 96 kHz resolution (requiring 1 GB of RAM to do so). As a fan of Waves' preceding noise...
One of the coolest things I've seen in a while is the new TeaBagz panel from Modular Acoustics. It's a portable broadband absorber constructed of rigid fiberglass in a specially fitted "bag." The...
Using audio samples isn't just for rap artists anymore. With the proliferation of loop-based production software (e.g. GarageBand, Acid, Live, et al) more and more songwriters are using sound bites...
The first time I saw this sucker, I was a little skeptical. Why does just about every large-diaphragm condenser mic come standard with a suspension shockmount? Because a shockmount isolates the mic...
ShinyBox is Jon Ulrigg, a one man operation in Washington state. A musician and self-described electronics freak, Jon is a passionate guy who came to microphone design after a long period of...
There is no doubt that Groove Tubes understands vacuum tubes. Aspen Pittman, the owner of GT, is one of the most knowledgeable persons you could ever meet when it comes to the subject. As a follow-up...
Recently, there was a thread on the Tape Op messageboard linking to Plate-Sonics, a new company producing plate reverbs in Peoria, Illinois, only 40 minutes away from my studio. I immediately emailed...
Lots of companies are offering newfangled direct boxes these days. The old days of a passive direct box that gave you a clean signal have been replaced with direct boxes that offer many options of EQ...
I recently completed construction of a mixing room based upon designs by Ethan Winer and Wes Lachot. The room is 21 ft long, with an 11 ft front wall, 15 ft rear wall, and 8 ft ceiling. A space 4 ft...
The P1 is an all-analog mic preamp, instrument DI, expander, compressor, limiter, and headphone-monitor mixer in a 1/2-rack chassis meant for desktop use with a DAW. It was designed and is...
Under the Mercury Recording Equipment Company moniker, David Marquette has made a splash with a flurry of new, high- quality, vintage-style outboard gear. In Tape Op #49, I reviewed the initial...
Damage Control, a relatively new company started by a few Line 6 alumni, has made a splash with a pair of impressive high-end guitar pedals going by the very rock- and-roll names of Womanizer and...
Here's a pair of rad plugins for Pro Tools from Steven Massey, a self-confessed music and audio geek who had a hand in developing TL Aggro, TL Space, and other fine software from Trillium Lane labs....
Electronic musicians and controller freaks beware! The ReMOTE 25SL, one of the most tricked-out portable MIDI controllers, just hit the streets. This puppy sure packs a punch by cramming a ton of...
ART's Tube MP mic preamp line has been around for some time, but a recent evolution of the series gave us the opportunity to review this unit. The stock preamps on our mixer here at WMBR radio (a...
The Dangerous Master has taken my mastering console up quite a notch. Integrating it with the Dangerous Monitor (Tape Op #34) has truly given me the processing and routing capabilities I've always...
As an electronic musician who's been producing music in surround sound with Steinberg's Nuendo, I'm no stranger to instrument plug-ins. In fact, I've been amazed by new virtual incarnations as well as...
This is a versatile sampler/synth/workstation plug-in for Mac and Windows, running under RTAS, VST, DX, and AU hosts. On the surface, the user interface and overall concept seem to strongly resemble...
Occasional writer for Tape Op, Jeff Touzeau has a relaxed way of interviewing people about recording music. In his book Making Tracks, he visits eighteen studios and interviews people involved in...
Let me start by mentioning a few things about Pro Tools M- Powered 7 that Dana missed in his review of PT MP 7 and the M-Audio ProjectMix I/O. First of all, you can download a free demo of PT MP 7...
The ProjectMix I/O is a stellar FireWire audio interface and integrated control surface from the folks at M-Audio. It's fully compatible with any DAW supporting Mackie Control, Logic Control and HUI...
As an indication of how dependent my studio is on Pro Tools, the single most exciting thing I saw at the Winter NAMM show was Digidesign's Music Production Toolkit. MPT is a plug-in bundle that also...
Ah, upgrading, what fun! I'm paying for a product I already own, fixing something that isn't broken, and spending my time installing, authorizing, and configuring software when I should be making...
