I don't have a clear recollection of my first experience with Disney's Jungle Book, but it apparently made quite an impression. My parents took me to see the film and say my excitement was so great...
Every now and then a record comes out where the production and recording techniques work together with some really unique songwriting to make a masterpiece album. The kind you listen to hundreds of...
I first became aware of this Andy Hong fella after hearing the latest Karate record "The Bed Is In the Ocean." Besides having great songs and equally great performances, the recording is just...
Brooklyn, New York, has become a hot studio spot during the last few years. Free from the space crunch of Manhattan, rents are lower and smaller studios can survive. Nicolas Vernhes runs Rare Book...
Your ears are analog devices that convert sound waves into mechanical pulses the brain can understand. Your computer is a binary device, which means that it can only understand messages described in...
Joss — Billy Hwang's Roadside Con — Joss is Ambrose Liu, a singer/songwriter/home-recordist from West Windsor, NJ, who counts Tom Waits, Daniel Lanois, and REM as influences. Liu has been...
Larry Packer owns and operates Uncle Punchy Studios in Silver Spring, Maryland. His current setup includes 20-bit ADATs (32 tracks) as well as Pro Tools Mix Plus and a Yamaha 02-R digital console....
Tobin Sprout has been looming large in the basement recording scene for quite some time now. Since his early days with Figure 4 he's been crafting rock songs and laying them down on pretty much...
While most subjects of Tape Op interviews have discussed their interest in recording, Phill Niblock thinks far more about reproduction of sound. He composes his pieces, which are often described as...
Bias and equalization; you've probably heard and used the terms for years, possibly without really understanding their effect on the quality of your recordings. If you're an engineer working with...
We interviewed Phill Brown in issue number 12 of Tape Op. Over the years he's worked with some of the greatest artists ever, like Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, Traffic, Spooky Tooth, Jeff Beck, Led...
Years ago a friend of mine sent me a cassete with a live broadcast of the Go-Betweens, Downey Mildew and Glass Eye that he recorded off the radio from KCRW (public radio 89.9FM) in Santa...
Deep in the industrial wasteland of Red Hook, Brooklyn, Adam Lasus has turned an old firehouse into a recording outpost called Fireproof Recording. With the pole still intact, the firehouse proves an...
Now I know a lot of people established in the industry today say, "A school can't teach you about recording, what could a class possibly teach you about the complexities of the recording industry?"
25 REASONS NOT TO OPEN YOUR OWN STUDIO: 1. Freelance engineers. They always complain about your choice of gear, especially speakers. They also point out what's broken on a regular basis. damn. 2....
At the recent AES show, Digidesign was handing out postcards that promoed their new free version of Pro Tools. It's an 8 audio/48 MIDI track version of Pro Tools 5.0.1 that will run on a Mac or PC...
Many of the new large diaphragm condenser microphones coming out lately make the claim that their mic sounds just like a Neumann U-67 or U-87. Sadly though, none that I have tried even come close. The...
Recently I got to try out the Apogee Rosetta (street price, $1100). Using this in place of the DAT machine's analog to digital conversion seems to preserve more of the qualities of the mix so it...
It's amazing how one little box could change what I do so much. Simply put, this is an impedence matcher for going from the output of tape/board/line-level type signal to the input of guitar amps,...
When I first started Tape Op I wanted to only talk about inexpensive gear (PZMs!) and records that were done on small budgets. Now I find myself stretching out a bit - my 8-track studio is long behind...
I briefly reviewed this software in Tape Op #18, but now I have been able to really spend some time with it. Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first. This software, when compared to Cubase or...
This strange bass is none other than a 31 inch (with a 13-1/4 inch fretboard), rubber stringed, fretless bass guitar. You tune it like a regular 4-string bass (E, A, D, G), and it sounds absolutely...
Not the soon-to-be released one, but the standard-issue one has a built-in CD player. Most people who have come into contact with them know that. Some may even know that when you hit the "select"...
This is the first time it's happened. As I was packing up the loaner 4047 to send back to Audio- Technica I got kinda sad. I'd been using this $500 beauty on everything - guitar amps, vocals, drums -...
You don't usually think of blues records and innovative record production in the same thought. Or if you do, you might think of some yucky overproduced album run through Pro Tools like the recent BB...
While it has grown common for rock bands to record on cassette decks in houses, jazz artists still tend to capture their work in studios. In 1976, before most rock bands recorded themselves at home,...
Tim Bluhm is principal singer/songsmith for Northern California's Mother Hips, a band that's been playing great West Coast-style rock and roll for the past decade. Originally hailing from Chico, the...
Many current recordings employ an unnecessarily cartoon-like style that abandons natural instrument sounds in favor of exaggerated caricatures of these sounds. Recorded both with Nicholas Vernhes in...
An equal balance among all players provides a guiding principle for freely improvised music. Hef presents engineer Colin McClean the challenge of balancing electric and acoustic instruments. The...
Lozenge's music combines a powerful sonic density with carefully composed melodies. To capture this challenging mixture, they turned to Cheer-Accident guitarist Phil Bonnet, who until his untimely...
The Trio, actually a quartet since the addition of Jeff Parker on guitar, continues in their quest for the hippest sounds in new jazz. Straight up bop dominates on this disc with drummer Chad Taylor...
Whereas King Crimson present ground-breaking and challenging compositions, ProjecKt X is it's alter-ego, living in an alternate reality- in the land of exponential improvisation and discovery, where...
Studio owners make CDs. Shellac features Steve Albini, of Electrical Audio (Chicago), and Bob Weston, super engineer. It's raw lyric scenarios/characters are supported by pounding drums, crackling...
It's not that often a CD comes along that I really have to listen to closely and try and figure out where all the sounds are coming from. This is one. Where OK Computer had interesting textures and...
I've been buying all the Byrds' reissues, and just today completed my collection. There's some great music, of course, but in the process of being a completist there's always the glimpse into what...
