There are too many bands Fred Thomas has touched in his 30 years of touring. Ask him for a count on projects, and he'll tell you he doesn't keep track. The end of 2023 saw Fred's departure from...
Born Lance Howard, Lance Skiiiwalker was "discovered" by Kendrick Lamar and signed to Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) a number of years back. Lance's first full release, Introverted Intuition, and his...
Belleville, New Jersey, is a deceptively quiet enclave up the river from Newark. A beautiful mural here, a grungy secondhand shop there – it’s a collision of worlds. A bit like the...
Across more than 100 tracks, MEMPHIS captures Elvis from the earliest stages of his career at Sun Records/Memphis Recording Service to his final recordings in Graceland’s Jungle Room, with stops at other iconic studios such as American and...
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Here’s a fun and upbeat track from an unlikely collaboration between John Legend and Sufjan Stevens. Check out the first single “L-O-V-E” that features Legend’s wife Chrissy Teigen and their children along with Sufjan...
Larry interviewed Jack White back in Tape Op #82, and we went inside his Third Man Records pressing plant in issue #127. White just released his sixth solo album, No Name. It is a great listen filled with whisps of Zeppelin, swamp blues, Detroit...
I dropped by Powell’s City of Books last night to say hello to Daniel Levitin and hear him talk about his new book, I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine. I interviewed him in Tape Op #74 way back in 2009. There’s a lot of...
Bay Area native Scott Hansen, a.k.a. Tycho (Tape Op #123), has just released his sixth album, Infinite Health on Mom+Pop Records/Ninja Tune. Fans familiar with Tycho will hear Infinite Health as a logical progression in a sequence of...
Woodland is the name of Gillian Welch and David Rawling’s studio in Nashville, and it’s also the name of their new album. On Woodland, the duo continue to show their deep connection as collaborators. The album has a wide open sound that...
August 17th marked the release of a new Joe Meek restrospective. The full album's title is Joe Meek: From Taboo to Telstar 1962: A Year In The Life of 304 Holloway Road (Joe Meek's Tea Chest Tapes). This is not necessarily "new" music from...
Bassist, singer, and songwriter, esperanza spalding, (Tape Op #147) has just released new music, a collaboration with Brazilian legend Milton Nascimento. Milton + esperanza is a delightful listen that has foundational roots in Brazilian...
Across more than 100 tracks, MEMPHIS captures Elvis from the earliest stages of his career at Sun Records/Memphis Recording Service to his final recordings in Graceland’s Jungle Room, with stops at other iconic studios such as American and...
Here’s a fun and upbeat track from an unlikely collaboration between John Legend and Sufjan Stevens. Check out the first single “L-O-V-E” that features Legend’s wife Chrissy Teigen and their children along with Sufjan...
No secret that I am a big fan of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. They first caught my ear in 2017 with their Turkish Psych-Rock flavored album, Flying Microtonal Banana, and I have been a fan ever since. If you asked me what the definitive KGLW...
Larry interviewed Jack White back in Tape Op #82, and we went inside his Third Man Records pressing plant in issue #127. White just released his sixth solo album, No Name. It is a great listen filled with whisps of Zeppelin, swamp blues, Detroit...
NYC-based duo Cults have just released their fifth album, To the Ghosts. The album was co-produced by the band's Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin with Shane Stoneback, mixed by John Congleton and mastered by Heba Kadry. Check out Cults on the...
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,...
When asked to come up with a "do it yourself" tube mic pre project, I thought long and hard about what topology to go with. I designed a number of different hybrid tube/discrete class A designs...
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...
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
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...
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....
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...
