There are few audio engineers and music producers as legendary as Bruce Swedien. If all he had done was engineer Michael Jackson's Thriller, the world would know his name. But he has done far more. In...
A slight drizzle on an August afternoon in Oslo, Norway, set the mood perfectly for a conversation with engineer Jan Erik Kongshaug at his RainbowStudio. The space is tucked away in a beautifully...
In a time when the term "audio engineer" has been watered down to such a generic title, David Boucher is a throwback to a different era. He is not merely a connect-the-dots kind of guy. He has taken...
"Sloooooooowly I turned...step by step, inch by inch..." so goes the old Three Stooges routine, the source of the name of Bruce Kaphan's Bay Area home-based recording studio, Niagara Falls. As a...
A while back I got an email from producer/engineer/drummer Butch Vig (Tape Op #11): "I started working with some musician friends a couple years ago on a side project, The Emperors of Wyoming. We...
A slight drizzle on an August afternoon in Oslo, Norway, set the mood perfectly for a conversation with engineer Jan Erik Kongshaug at his RainbowStudio. The space is tucked away in a beautifully...
A while back I had an interesting session recording auditions and providing camera audio feed over the course of three days for 24 instrumental and vocal performers, all of whom were hoping to get on...
SM's review of Scott Colburn's Practical Studio Construction DVD in this issue got me thinking about the difficulties of studio construction. On one hand, you need a room that is acoustically isolated...
QWERTY keyboards aren't exactly audio equipment, but when I work on audio, I spend a lot of time at a computer, and I can't live without a good keyboard. A typical $5 PC keyboard, or those modern...
Summing mixers. They really weren't considered a decade ago, and now it's one of the main product areas that seem to have constant growth and development. Although the debate rages on, many feel that...
With every recording session, there's one piece of the puzzle that never rests; it's constantly in use, informing every decision that you make - and that's your monitor controller. You'll use...
The Grace brothers (Michael and Eben) are well-known for their uncompromised designs. I've been a big fan of Grace since JB introduced me to the Model 101 preamp [Tape Op #27] five years ago, and I've...
New Zealand gear manufacturer Buzz Audio is best known for its REQ-2.2 mastering EQ [Tape Op #71], which some have compared to a classic Sontec. This impressive reputation made me curious enough to...
As anyone who's seen the TV show Portlandia knows, in our little city, the dream of the 1890s is still alive. People cure their own meats, roast coffee, raise chickens in the backyard, and pickle any...
I have not tried every pair of headphones on the market, but I have tried a lot. I think these Monoprice DJ Style Pro Headphones are the best value out there. Closed-back, high-quality build, great...
Mike Senior has written about a million things for Sound On Sound magazine, but I associate his name with their "Mix Rescue" column. Each month, he does a "makeover" mix of a reader-submitted song,...
In the world of boutique audio equipment, the classics are held in high regard. Manufacturers are praised for releasing the most accurate clones of gear from what people now consider to be the Golden...
Perhaps your car is not worth parking in the garage anymore? Or maybe you've cleared out your basement, deciding to generally complicate your life further by building a recording studio in your home?...
Long considered to be one of the great producer/engineers, Ken Scott [Tape Op #52] has written a wonderful memoir of his career in audio. Starting as a tape op at Abbey Road, he had his first...
I bought my first RME product, an ADI-648 MADI-ADAT converter [Tape Op #63] a decade ago, when my primary recording devices were an Otari MTR-90 2'' tape machine, a TASCAM MX-2424 standalone HD...
I can't believe this boom stand streets for $200, because its quality is far above what you'd expect from an affordably-priced studio boom. I've used plenty of boom stands during the many decades I've...
