For over 15 years, drummer/producer/engineer Danny Reisch’s analog-centric studio Good Danny’s has been a hub of Austin, Texas’ thriving music scene. Danny cut his teeth making...
Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours came out right before I started high school. I remember most of my graduating class (not including me!) singing “Dreams” at our ceremony in a park by a...
Who is Steve Lukather? The guitarist, vocalist, and one of the songwriters of Toto. A session player with ridiculous credits, like Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Lionel Richie, Boz Scaggs, Earth,...
With over four decades of experience, Lenise Bent has worked in almost every field of audio engineering, from studio recordings, to post-production, to film sound and foley. Lenise chats with Lisa...
Looking at, and listening to, U.K.-based mixer Nathan Boddy’s seemingly endless credit list puts him at the top of this game. He’s mixed everyone from Gary Numan [Tape Op #125] to...
When John Baccigaluppi and I interviewed Trevor Horn [Tape Op #89] in 2012 at his SARM West Studios, the name Stephen Lipson continually came up. For six years Trevor and Stephen worked together on...
Josh Kaufman has been busy. A producer, co-writer, and sideman to the likes of Bob Weir, Hiss Golden Messenger, The Hold Steady, and more, he’s been showing up in all my favorite music lately....
I stumbled across Beauty Pill on Bandcamp while poking around the internet looking for new music. There were a few tracks posted from a forthcoming soundtrack to a play called suicide.chat.room. It...
We first interviewed Mark Linett in Tape Op #47 about his work with Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys. Since then he’s overseen an extensive amount of The Beach Boys’ archives, and with...
Stand at the console Stan Shaff’s fascination with the use of sound movement as a compositional tool grew out of his roots as a jazz trumpet player. In 1960, he began staging the first of...
In 2016, Jason Hughes and his solo project, The Camera & Film, released an LP titled You & Me. As he’d recorded the record alone in his basement home studio (with mixing by our friend...
If you operate a studio or enjoy tinkering with things that involve electrical signals and wires, a precision crimper should be in your toolbox. Over the decades, I’ve worked on countless...
A problem I find with many plug-ins is either a lack or overabundance of controls. I’m either one parameter short of accomplishing a goal, or I tweak functions just because they are available...
Dachman Audio is a New York-based company that began by importing and selecting mic capsules for upgrading, replacing, and DIY, and has now added additional premium capsules using American-made...
The allure of a classic microphone design is powerful, and the emotional tug of a modern clone, that closely resembles its forerunner is undeniable – probably more valuable than many of us would...
We’re truly living in the golden age of digital synthesis. I’ve said this before, but I’m bored with skeuomorphic, digital recreations of vintage analog synthesizers such as the...
The Epic 5 is a fascinating powered near-field studio monitor from reProducer Audio Labs of Laupheim, Germany. Its noteworthy appearance features an anodized aluminum front panel that is trapezoidal...
Goodhertz is on a mission to help give your recordings vibe and character, and they’re doing a stellar job with the plug-ins they’ve put out so far. Tupe is another brilliant addition to...
Let me start by saying that I am a firm believer in “real drums,” and I’ve spent countless hours tracking and mixing them. The main thing I’ve learned is that everything...
As soon as you get your hands on a dialtune Maple snare drum, you know it’s a serious piece of equipment. At 21 pounds, the weight alone will give you an indication of how sturdy and robust this...
FabFilter has a reputation for taking common effects plug-ins, such as compression and EQ, then elevating them to new, mind-blowing levels of utility and complexity. I’m used to thinking,...
This book, subtitled Bridging Science and Creativity, covers everything that its title implies: How do drums work? Why tune them? How can we record them? What about mixing drums? Author Rob Toulson is...
It wasn’t until a few years ago, that I finally built my own mixing template for mixing in the box with Pro Tools. I based it on workflows I’d built up in the analog realm, with the goal...
A few months after releasing the MC-3 multi-band compressor plug-in [Tape Op #142] for APB (Analog Processing Box) users, Colin McDowell and the rest of the McDSP crew introduced the Royal Q...
Here’s a new affordable, CPU-friendly, and intuitive distortion and saturation plug-in available for both Windows and Mac environments. Fold is from US-based indie developers Delta Sound Labs,...
Focusrite continues to grow its professional line of studio products by introducing the RedNet R1 desktop remote source selector and monitor controller for their Red range of interfaces. Building off...
This new box from Radial has saved my bacon. I’ve become a bit of an effects pedal hoarder, with a desktop pedalboard rig that has grown to an unwieldy size and become somewhat of a staple for...
Raise your hand if you like gear that sounds colorful and big. Funnily enough, a lot of early engineers would have killed for sounds we take for granted these days, the clean ones that might seem...
The Boss GT-1000CORE is mainly marketed as a new cornerstone for a guitarist's effects pedalboard, but its compact form-factor and advanced functionality make it an exceptional desktop recording and...
Recently, I reviewed Earthworks Audio's USB broadcast mic ICON [Tape Op #142] and stated in so many words that it looked and sounded incredible while being easy to use. Since my initial review, I've...
