Bill Schnee has earned his place in the pantheon of recording engineers, with credits like Three Dog Night, Ringo Starr, Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Marvin Gaye, Whitney Houston, Boz Scaggs, Huey...
Ben Baptie is a London-based producer and mix engineer. After working with Tom Elmhirst at Electric Lady Studios in New York, Ben went freelance, working on records by Albert Hammond Jr., U2, and...
A multi-instrumentalist, performance artist, educator, programmer, and author, Sandy Stone’s lived a full enough life to fill several books. With a list of credits that includes Jimi Hendrix,...
If you look at the history of Tears For Fears, the original duo of Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith only made three albums – The Hurting, Songs from the Big Chair, and The Seeds Of Love –...
With her eighth album, Songwrights Apothecary Lab, vocalist, bassist, and fearless explorer Esperanza Spalding blends input from various disciplines and asks the question, “What do we need a...
Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe is one the most innovative composers working today. With his experience in punk and metal bands, and as a vocalist, his compositions are grounded in a way that is usually...
Wally De Backer (a.k.a. Gotye) has put together an extensive collection of information and photos about the Ondioline, a electronic musical instrument from the 1940's, on a new website www.ondioline.com!
In an incredibly saturated market, where there is a piece of equipment for every possible scenario – like a mic pre or EQ for hi-hat top and bottom on a full moon with 57% humidity – I am...
HEAR360 has modeled the Ecoplate I, a well-known analog plate reverb designed by Jim Cunningham in the ‘80s. At the time, it was not uncommon for producers and engineers familiar with the...
Eventide has released its new innovative EQ plug-in, SplitEQ. I use the word “innovative” because, after only a few minutes of messing around with it, I couldn’t help but wonder how...
When a pair of Audix’s new high-end A127 omnidirectional small diaphragm metal film condensers arrived in the mail, it took me a minute to put them into rotation; I felt as if I was waiting for...
API consoles, 500 Series modules, and their underlying technologies have been a staple of professional recording studios for over five decades. In 2021, API unveiled a new sub-brand called API Select,...
Subtitled “Recording the Stars in a Golden Era of Live Music,” this book follows the mobile recording career of the esteemed engineer David W. Hewitt. With early days at The Record Plant...
RME has raised the bar on value with the Fireface UCX II. This German-made ADC/DAC is an all-in-one recording tool of bits and bytes, with no compromises on hardware quality or software functionality....
Recording and DIY electronics have a long history together, as most early studios had custom-built consoles and in-house technical departments. Even though a near-comprehensive array of commercial...
Cables are the brakes of our “studio bus” – necessary to get anywhere and ignored until they malfunction. There are numerous ways to troubleshoot: continuity meters, known good...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
April 15th marks the 25th anniversary of Tape Op Magazine! To mark the occasion, Tape Op founder and editor Larry Crane is making a series of short videos talking about the journey of the mag and some of the memories had along the...
During one of the many calls I have on a regular basis with my musician and audio professional friends, it dawned on me what a priveldge these conversations are and thought it might be a good idea to share them with a larger audience as a way to take...
Here is a list of some of the books on recording and music that we have added to the reading (or re-reading!) queue recently. Are We Still Rolling?by Phill BrownGreat studio session stories about The Rolling Stones, Talk Talk, Hendrix, Led...
Tape Op contributor Thom Monahan dug up this gem. Enjoy!
Read the review of the RND 5088 Console
There has been a heightened interest lately in using stompboxes and pedals as part of the mixing process. There are a few ways to interface your pedals with your system, but here is a quick video on how I do it using the Meris 440 500 series mic-pre....
Convention Report. Man, that old Disneyland hotel was awesome! I'm in the process of moving and was cleaning my office earlier today. I have a large collection of vintage audio magazines and books that I use for clip art when working on Tape...
by John Baccigaluppi The music industry trade shows, and the NAMM Show in particular, have always been a mixed bag for me. Every year, for the last 20 years or so, Larry and I, along with Geoff, Scott, and Marsha (We miss you Andy, Dave, and Laura!)...
Dear Tape Op Readers, We are feeling overwhelmed and deeply saddened by the death of George Floyd. Unfortunately this is far from an isolated incident. Our voices and collective action have never been more needed than right now. Human...
Check out the latest gear giveaways from our advertisers and enter to win! Retro Intruments 500 Pre Giveaway! Enter to Win a 500PRE Here! Audix Mics and Headphones Giveaway! Enter to Win Audix Mics and Headphones! Baby...
