In our interview with Mike Bridavsky (see Mike interview here) of Bloomington's Russian Recording, he mentioned his very unique, heavily modified Sphere Eclipse Type III console. I was curious about...
If there was a Grammy awarded for comparing one's life with others and then suffering about it, I'd be a superstar by now. I have a long history of picking up a magazine, such as this one, comparing...
When my colleague, professor Amandine Pras of The University of York, visited Mali to study the regional recording studio industry, she was shocked to hear the same person’s name come up again...
I caught Margo on Zoom while she was gigging in Bozeman, Montana.
I dropped by to see John's studio, Bocce, and ask him about working with Sera Cahoone (see Sera interview here) and Margo Cilker (see Margo interview here).
As a member of New York City's The Strokes, Albert Hammond Jr. has been owning the downstroke for over 20 years. In addition to his work with that band, Albert has managed to find time to record five...
Known as a drummer (including the band Carissa's Wierd, for singer-songwriter Patrick Park, and in an early version of Band of Horses), Sera Cahoone received much acclaim as a songwriter once her...
In downtown Bloomington, Indiana, Mike Bridavsky owns and operates Russian Recording, where he's tracked, produced, mixed, and mastered local bands and artists from all over, including M. Ward, The...
Jarvis Taveniere is a producer, engineer, and musician working out of Los Angeles, California. His work with his own band, indie favorites Woods, as well as with artists like Purple Mountains, Surf...
L to R: Rebecca Young, Sera Cahoone, Margo Cilker, John Morgan Askew - photo by Adam Levy Sera Cahoone Interview Margo Cilker Interview John Morgan Interview
Every state and every region has its own unique music scene. However, it can be said that New Jersey has produced more than its fair share of popular music's most iconic, diverse, and influential...
Matt Parmenter is an Austin, Texas-based engineer and owner of Ice Cream Factory Studio, with over 20 years of experience producing, recording, mixing, and mastering music. He's been nominated for a...
I’ve been fairly obsessed with Promises, an album by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, and the London Symphony Orchestra that came out in 2021. Maybe "obsessed" is a strong word, but I put it on...
In 2023, I sold my Boston studio to Brian Charles, whose Zippah Recording facility was destroyed in a 2021 fire. Brian shared Zippah for many years with longtime Tape Op contributor Pete Weiss [Tape...
The importance of organization, functionality, and preparedness is central to the work we do when making music with/for others. From my perspective, DAWs are getting more comprehensive and less...
Former Eventide coder/engineer Dan Gillespie, who runs Newfangled Audio (distributed by Eventide), has developed some pretty wild plug-ins. We've reviewed the fantastic virtual synth, Generate [Tape...
For drummers, while playing it’s sometimes a challenge to change between brushes, sticks, and mallets. Of course, studio magic allows us to do that with punch ins, but if you are tracking live...
The first thing you see when encountering Alder Audio’s H44 online is their slogan: A Better Ribbon For Less. This statement may seem underwhelming against the backdrop of today's pro audio hype...
Earthworks Audio has always been known as a maker of extremely high-quality microphones, historically aimed at studio use. I have used their mics for years, including the kick drum mic included with...
Call me an AI pessimist, but my initial reaction was lukewarm when I considered trying out the Vocal Reverb plug-in from Antares Audio Technologies. Haven’t I already got enough reverbs? How is...
A few months ago, I was hired to work on the audio engineering team at a production camp put on by Sony. One of the events at this camp was a demo of Sony’s immersive audio tools, and this was...
There’s an age-old philosophical question in the audio community: “If a Fairchild compressor/limiter falls in the woods and loses over two dozen tubes and transformers, is it still a...
As part of the McDSP Analog Processing Box universe (APB-8, APB-16) [Tape Op #134], the BOB Bass Optimized Bias is a plug-in based on the original BOB module from McDSP's 6060 Ultimate Module...
In 2002, during an internship at Electrical Audio in Chicago [Tape Op #87], I was introduced to Bowers & Wilkins hi-fi (consumer) bookshelf speakers being used as studio monitors. Working on them...
Anyone who owns a few large diaphragm microphones has likely seen the common trouble with many shock mounts – failing elastic or rubber bands that cause the mic to droop, clamps that don't...
Last year, at least once a week, I heard someone mention Coil Audio. Even a few engineers I knew who never hype gear were straight-up saying, "These are the best preamps on the planet.” My...
Ostensibly a drum mixing tool especially built for kick drums, Subloom is one of those plug-ins based on a mixer's workflow, specifically Jesse Ray Ernster [Tape Op #151], and combines several...
The single-channel, three rack space Mercury 666 MKI is inspired by the Fairchild 666, a later cousin of the Fairchild 660/670 limiters. Unlike those units, the 666 was a hybrid solid-state and tube...
For those that don't know, Vance Dickason has been the editor of Voice Coil Magazine ("the monthly periodical for the loudspeaker industry") since 1987, and the author of the Loudspeaker Design...
In what might possibly be the sexiest review ever published in Tape Op, let’s talk about monitor mounts! I was recently in need of upgrading my Atmos monitoring, and I required a better solution...
As noted in my review of their new 32Classic console [Tape Op #159], in the of classic records, Harrison Audio had just as formidable a studio presence as console standard-bearers like Neve, MCI, API,...
We live in a time where ADC conversion is quite good. I remember when our studio was first getting into digital recording, the sonic differences between analog to digital/digital to analog converters...
Many studio monitors are based on what we call "2-way" configurations, featuring a woofer/driver (usually a cone speaker) and a tweeter handling the low and high frequencies, but a growing number of...
