Bob Clearmountain is no stranger to the pages of Tape Op, as we’ve chatted with him in issues #84 and #129. But when Marlene Passaro at Apogee Digital asked us if we’d be interested in a...
Niko Bolas is a class act. For over 40 years he has operated as an engineer, mixer, and producer. One look at his extensive discography immediately evidences the fact that he is beyond skilled and...
Suzy Shinn was just a little kid in Wichita, Kansas, when she began exhibiting the instincts that have since made her a rising star producer and songwriter. “I forced all my friends to be in...
During the early pandemic lockdowns my wife, Jenna Zine, and I searched out interesting online streaming performances as a way to keep connected to the experience of going out to see live...
I first heard of Jacob Collier when I watched his arrangement and multitracked solo performance of Stevie Wonder's "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing" on YouTube almost a decade ago. Jacob's creativity...
Craig Leon produced a host of who’s who New York band debuts in the mid-1970s, including Blondie, Richard Hell the Voidoids, and Suicide. He went onto work with many stalwart artists such as Guy...
Will Yip’s rise to fame is the stuff of legend. After digging for production credits on locally-produced hip-hop by Schoolly D and Fugees, he discovered that Studio 4’s Phil and Joe...
I first heard about Shahzad Ismaily when our pal and Tape Op contributor, Eli Crews [Tape Op #88] told me he was moving to New York to help his friend Shahzad open a studio. Soon, I realized...
For Sam Cohen, what started as a means to an end as a teenager in a band has blossomed into a long, fertile career in record production. Sam and I spoke about his recent works with Curtis Harding, his...
With every new project comes something new, right? Every other record I’ve ever worked on – every single one – I’ve had another one happening in my mind, like I was working on...
The recent sale of Bob Dylan’s one-off recording of “Blowin’ in the Wind” for $1.7 million dollars has left me reflecting on a very different way of evaluating art and...
In my previous Gear Geeking roundup of true wireless earbuds [Tape Op #150], I mentioned how I prefer Google Pixel Buds A-Series for making calls and listening to news, since they’re very...
Why review a wireless speaker aimed at audiophiles? Well, because we record, produce, and mix music that people will ultimately listen to. More and more, what they are listening on are not the...
What if we wrote this review in a 1940s radio announcer mode? Where every sentence is obnoxiously alliterative... “The minuscule monophonic Moog Music’s Mavis makes many massive melodies!...
Introduced in the mid-1960s, the Neumann U 87 was a gift to engineers and producers because a separate power supply was no longer needed due to its tube-replacing FET (field effect transistor)...
Bounce Factory is an application that automatically bounces mixes and stems, using the SoundFlow [Tape Op #149] platform. It was created by mixing guru Andrew Scheps [#133] as a way for him to save...
Sound Particles is a software company based in Portugal, and is most known for the immersive audio software aptly named Sound Particles 2. Their new plug-in, Density, creates multiple sounds based on...
I was first introduced to Vanguard Audio Labs before they even brought a microphone to market. The gentleman who tipped me off about this company was a trusted friend in pro audio. He told me...
In the early years of third-party plug-ins, Poland’s PSP Audioware released the PSP VintageWarmer [Tape Op #29]. Although other saturation titles existed, PSP VintageWarmer was widely praised as...
STL Tones is best known for their guitar amp modeling software, AmpHub, ToneHub, Tonality, and Libra, which bring signature amp models, pedals, and cabinets, to user’s fingertips. In addition,...
While covering a place and time with far-reaching consequences, Richard Barone’s [Tape Op #54] new book is a delight to read. From civil disobedience to coffee house folk singers to confessional...
I’m going to immediately annoy a lot of people by describing this microphone with the worst cliché and overused marketing term ever: Innovative. The only difference here is that LEWITT...
When I was in the process of rebuilding our studio’s B-room last year, I began rethinking some of the racks we were currently using. I wanted to get something sturdier that would also fit the...
With the introduction of UAD Spark, Universal Audio’s new subscription-based native plug-in collection, longtime UAD users (like myself) now have access to a subset of our existing go-to UAD...
In my mind, microphones are much like colors on a painter’s palette or a chef’s ingredients. Each one has its own specific flavor that can be useful and powerful in the proper context....
Since setting up my mix studio in Portland, I’ve been a bit annoyed by the noise floor of my Ocean Way Pro2A monitors [Tape Op #116]. It wasn’t until I saw an ad for Black Lion...
