I've wanted to do an interview with noted mix engineer Bob Clearmountain for many years. Ever since I first heard tales from artists who had worked with him about how he finds the heart of a song's...
Emma Ruth Rundle Recordist Sonny DiPerri has worked with Nine Inch Nails, Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors, Portugal. The Man, Emma Ruth Rundle, La Femme, Radiation City, and Protomartyr. The...
Joe Henry may be the deepest guy I have ever discussed music with. His insights and, in fact, almost every response to my carefully researched questions that came out of his mouth highlighted his...
Julie Kathryn is I Am Snow Angel, a sobriquet under which she composes, performs, produces, engineers, and mixes her own music. She also produces many other artists, such as Grace Lachance and ESS...
As you walk into the offices of ABKCO Music & Records on New York's Fifth Avenue, you're immediately aware that you are entering the center of a rock 'n' roll universe. Winding through the middle...
British-born, Nashville-living Jamie Lidell is a singer, beatboxer, recordist, producer, engineer, songwriter, code writer, husband, and father. He has collaborated with Beck, Cristian Vogel (as Super...
***This is a guest "re-post" from the SoundGirls website (courtesy of SoundGirls and Ainjel Emme)*** THE DOUBLE GLAZED GLASS CEILING: Women and the Grammy for "Producer of the Year, Non-Classical" by Ainjel Emme (originally...
Not long after I first opened my recording studio, (some 20 years ago, when people actually booked time via a landline), I got a call one day about a booking request. Client: "Hi, we'd like to book...
Let’s talk tape. In 2015, I wrote about my favorite “sort of sticky” tapes for labeling and repairing things [Tape Op #107]. Recently, I needed to measure the diameter of a mic, so I...
When I first started getting obsessed with recorded music as a teenager, I saw the recorded music I enjoyed in a magical light. A tune on the radio was a beacon from beyond, like some special jewel...
I've wanted to do an interview with noted mix engineer Bob Clearmountain for many years. Ever since I first heard tales from artists who had worked with him about how he finds the heart of a song's...
Joe Henry may be the deepest guy I have ever discussed music with. His insights and, in fact, almost every response to my carefully researched questions that came out of his mouth highlighted his...
Emma Ruth Rundle Recordist Sonny DiPerri has worked with Nine Inch Nails, Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors, Portugal. The Man, Emma Ruth Rundle, La Femme, Radiation City, and Protomartyr. The...
British-born, Nashville-living Jamie Lidell is a singer, beatboxer, recordist, producer, engineer, songwriter, code writer, husband, and father. He has collaborated with Beck, Cristian Vogel (as Super...
As you walk into the offices of ABKCO Music & Records on New York's Fifth Avenue, you're immediately aware that you are entering the center of a rock 'n' roll universe. Winding through the middle...
Julie Kathryn is I Am Snow Angel, a sobriquet under which she composes, performs, produces, engineers, and mixes her own music. She also produces many other artists, such as Grace Lachance and ESS...
While hardly a glamorous concept, room acoustics represent a critical link in the recording or playback chain. While comprehensive room design is a complex cocktail of science, math and chance...
In the disembodied world of today's computer-based multitrack mixing, one can spend a lot of time crafting a unifying sense of "space." Despite the dozens of reverb plug-ins and rack devices...
I have been a big fan of spring and plate reverbs for decades, and over the past three years I have spent a significant amount of time diving into the wormhole of designing and building them,...
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 half...
With news of Neil Young pushing to get studio quality audio out to the consumer, it occurred to me that it would be good to get some perspective on how we go about comparing audio quality. One of the most problematic issues surrounding audio...
Expect to see more changes in the music purchasing/acquiring habits of teenagers as time goes by. Courtesy of the NPD Group's press release: "teens (age 13 to 17) acquired 19 percent less music in 2008 than they did in 2007. CD purchasing declined 26...
Everyone has been talking about Dave Grohl's new documentary Sound City a lot lately. That's cool; it's a fun romp of a movie, even if Dave can't decide whether he's making a film about a Neve console, a dying studio, a rock star jam session or an...
I'm about to write something that at first will seem like another gray-beard waxing nostalgic for a by-gone analog era. But, stick with me, because I think the tables are turning to where going analog might be as forward-thinking as it gets. Let's...
In a fascinating and really open Facebook debate initiated by fellow producer, cycling enthuiasist, and coffee-drinking pal, Eric Ambel (www.ericambel.com), I was alerted to what was finally a clear insight into how and why Spotify could possibly...
Over the last few years we've seen an explosion of online music services. Pandora, iTunes, Spotify, Rhapsody, Soundcloud and dozens of other platforms are touted as groundbreaking ways to deliver music to listeners. But this success is on the...
Richard Kaplan, owner engineer of famed recording studio Indigo Ranch [Tape Op #103] is selling the remainder of his classic equipment collection. It includes vintage and rare pieces by API, Aengus, Fairchild, Teletronix, Neumann and...
Wall Street PR reports on the woes of Avid, the company behind Pro Tools. What does the future hold? I'm just terrified of having to learn a new platform, buying more gear and software, and there not being a de facto DAW standard for professional...
A reader just informed me that APPLE's recent Logic Pro X includes "Drummer", a virtual drummer plug-in. One of the virtual drummers is named "aidan", who apparently cannot find the CAPS key on his virtual MacBook. In Aidan's "Portland Kit" we...
Carol Kaye is one of the most recorded bass players of all time, with 10,000 sessions and 40,000 songs under her belt, including a staggering list of hits for Ray Charles, The Righteous Brothers,...
