For the better part of three decades, Butch Walker has simultaneously been a rising and continuous presence in music-making. From his early days in the late '80s glam metal band SouthGang, to...
I wrote a review of the Buff Multifunctional Headwear for issue #138 of Tape Op, but based on a study done at Duke University and reported on by the Washington Post today, I am retracting that review and recommending that you do NOT use the Buff...
It's 1970, and a man runs a respected barbershop in inner-city Philadelphia. One day his five-year-old son asks him for a timeslot to DJ for the patrons. (He also wants to borrow some records). Most...
A frequently overlooked part of hip-hop history and culture, the story of the mixtape deserves to be archived, preserved, and celebrated. Beginning with cassette-recorded board tapes of early...
The second half of the 1960s saw a dramatic shift in the way albums were recorded, not only technically, but artistically as the roles of producer and musician morphed into new conduits for freedom...
I first met Randy Kohrs years ago at the Summer NAMM tradeshow in Tennessee. Randy is known as a hotshot player; a multi-instrumentalist who's respected for his resonator guitar/dobro abilities. But...
I wrote a review of the Buff Multifunctional Headwear for issue #138 of Tape Op, but based on a study done at Duke University and reported on by the Washington Post today, I am retracting that review and recommending that you do NOT use the Buff...
One of the cities in the United States that changed the face of popular music more than anywhere else has to be Memphis, Tennessee. It’s also a very important story of racial integration; of...
In one week, I'll be helming my first attended studio session in over three months. It's with one of my favorite long-time clients, and we're knocking out basic tracks for a single song; a short,...
I imagine many of you have utilized extra shelter-in-place hours to work on DIY projects in the studio or home. I certainly have, and despite all the hours I've dedicated to these tasks, my fixit list...
For the better part of three decades, Butch Walker has simultaneously been a rising and continuous presence in music-making. From his early days in the late '80s glam metal band SouthGang, to...
It's 1970, and a man runs a respected barbershop in inner-city Philadelphia. One day his five-year-old son asks him for a timeslot to DJ for the patrons. (He also wants to borrow some records). Most...
Ian MacKaye and I have been friends for over 20 years, ever since I convinced him and the band he was in, Fugazi, to come and play at the "Food Not Bombs" 20th anniversary free show in San Francisco...
A frequently overlooked part of hip-hop history and culture, the story of the mixtape deserves to be archived, preserved, and celebrated. Beginning with cassette-recorded board tapes of early...
The second half of the 1960s saw a dramatic shift in the way albums were recorded, not only technically, but artistically as the roles of producer and musician morphed into new conduits for freedom...
I first met Randy Kohrs years ago at the Summer NAMM tradeshow in Tennessee. Randy is known as a hotshot player; a multi-instrumentalist who's respected for his resonator guitar/dobro abilities. But...
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...
Subconscious Auditory Effects (SAE) is a term I have cobbled together to encapsulate a broad range of phenomena in this barely-studied field of inquiry. An SAE is any measurable effect on a person caused by a sound, or change in sound, that is...
