Brian and I drove to Philly on Sunday, December 3, 2017, to attend the first of two world premier performances and recording sessions for Symphony for a Broken Orchestra by composer David Lang, a...
A young intern fresh out of Full Sail University gets a big break (and a nickname) from Missy Elliott, works alongside producers and engineers like Timbaland, Jimmy Douglass [Tape Op #130], Demacio...
From a not-so-obvious career path that began by servicing early samplers, to engineering parts of a Michael Jackson's HIStory, to his current life in England and mixing in the box, Andrew Scheps has...
by Alex Maiolo The term “linchpin” tends to get chucked around pretty liberally when we discuss music scenes, but Ed Ackerson, who succumbed to pancreatic cancer on October 4th, was the very embodiment of it. Ed was one of those...
Drummer, producer, and engineer Darryl Moore (aka: JMD, Jamm Messenger D, Jamm Messenger Divine) has helped seminal hip-hop groups Freestyle Fellowship and The Pharcyde develop their sound. As a...
Matt Rollings has been music's best-kept secret for some three plus decades, but that's slowly changing. A live and studio keyboard ace who has played on thousands of recordings and anchored the bands...
by Alex Maiolo The term “linchpin” tends to get chucked around pretty liberally when we discuss music scenes, but Ed Ackerson, who succumbed to pancreatic cancer on October 4th, was the very embodiment of it. Ed was one of those...
More good stuff from Brittany Howard and Shawn Everett on the making of Brittany's new album Jaime Read the whole interview with Brittany and Shawn HERE
Brittany Howard and Shawn Everett discuss Nate Smith tracking "Goat Head". Read the full interview HERE
It was a simple thing, really. Just a short one-page lease agreement I'd helped broker between a beekeeper and my adjacent neighbors, whose property I help manage. I had sent two copies of the...
A few nights before sitting down to write this column, I had a fascinating discussion about speaker design and acoustics with Eric Blackmer, son of the late David Blackmer (whose initials are in dbx)....
Is there a simple answer to this? Does a quick proclamation that explains everything one needs to know about music recording in a nutshell exist? I keep deluding myself, thinking that I can somehow...
Thom and John had a great time at Loop 2018, so we wanted to let everybody know that Loop 2020 is open for registration now. This event always sells out way in advance, so don’t...
Thanks for this guest post by John Morand I wasn’t surprised when I heard that Daniel Johnston had died. It was 9-11 and for me, there would always be a connection between Daniel and 9-11. In the days after the attack, when...
I have a habit of getting low key obsessed with certain artists, especially producers and engineers. For months I just can't stop listening to records they've touched. Earlier this year I had a few...
We first interviewed Eric Valentine in Tape Op #45 and discussed his production career and techniques. Eric is well known as a producer and engineer for working with Third Eye Blind, Smash Mouth, 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 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...
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...
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...
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,...
