Dave Catching lives at Rancho De La Luna. Yup, a bed sits in the corner of a room that doubles as a space to isolate one's amplifier while tracking. Dave is also a guitarist, and his playing graced...
To some he is the leader of Masters of Reality, a band that has existed in many forms since 1981. To others he is a producer, known for his work with Ian Astbury, Auf Der Maur, The Duke Spirit, The...
Having worked with such diverse artists as George Harrison, Miles Davis, Stevie Ray Vaughan, L7, Sugar Ray, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Vandals, B.B. King, Zakk Wylde, Ike Turner, Stray Cats, Dwight...
Located near Mount Shasta in Northern California is a thriving complex known as RadioStar Studios. In four different rooms people are making music — mixing, tracking and overdubbing constantly....
The Books don't record like most of us. On a cheap PC with next-to-free software, Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong make sounds that are basically unaltered, yet sound foreign. They select from a huge...
Creative Commons, or CC, was launched in 2001 as a means to help artists and creators of intellectual property deal with the increasing pressure of a "Permission Society." In an effort to bypass...
I've been compiling notes over the last few months to give to artists who want me to do mixing for them — especially those who are relatively new to the process and who have purchased gear to...
From the time he invented the parametric EQ in the 1960s, to the founding and operation of his company, GML (George Massenburg Labs), and his current projects in electronic design, George...
I recently had the chance to interview one of my favorite musician/studio owners, Peter Gabriel. The situation involved me and three other writers sitting in a wooden shed with an SSL AWS 900+...
The 88RS console-inspired 8801 incorporates a mic preamp with hi and low-pass filters; four-band EQ; and a compressor and gate. You can reorder the functions as you like and assign the filter and/or...
Following on the heels of the success of the ViPRE, Groove Tubes has created another fantastic tube-based microphone preamplifier. Called the SuPRE, it looks like the twin little brother of the ViPRE....
I can't remember what I did with the first compressor I ever purchased-an Alesis 3630. But the second compressor I bought is still in my rack-an HHB Radius 30, the purple-colored rebadge of the...
I've been a fan of the UK band Senser ever since their first full-length (Stacked Up) was released in the US, around the time the band began to lose members. Now that the original lineup are back, I...
The ATH-M50 "Professional Studio Monitor Headphones", as Audio-Technica like to call them, really are usable for recording and mixing applications. They sound amazingly clear. The top end has a...
One of the main reasons I wanted to write this review is to highlight the strength of the unit's built-in DI, which I discovered accidentally. We were evaluating a new preamp for a separate review,...
In my "Gear Geeking" column in Tape Op #57, I discuss an ultraportable Pro Tools M-Powered system running on a handheld Sony UMPC connected to an M-Audio Transit USB interface. At the time, the...
What recording geek doesn't have a soft spot for analog synths? All those knobs and patch cables! All those textured sounds! Running audio through filters and ring mods! Good analog synths are a...
In Tape Op #60's "Gear Geeking" column, I discussed my very positive experience with Wave Arts MR Noise after receiving an email from Thom Monahan that he considers the MR Suite of plug-ins essential...
Please read this with the "movie guy" voice in your mind. Many years have passed since the invention of the compressor, and the world has seen many incarnations of this piece of recording history....
The Lauten Horizon is a cardioid tube mic with a shock-mounted, large-diaphragm capsule and a two-step pad. The mic ships with a shock mount, a hard mount, a power supply, and a 20 ft Gotham Audio...
We have a small B-Room here at The Hangar with a Digi 002 and a Rolls HA43 4-channel headphone amp. So when Aphex asked if we'd be interested in reviewing their HeadPod unit, I said sure, I can do...
This is one of the best sounding EQs I've ever used. I'm a big fan of passive EQs for their smooth sound, especially when boosting. The Pultec is one of the best-known examples of a passive EQ. In...
When given the opportunity to review Thermionic Culture's Phoenix 2-channel compressor, I couldn't help doubting the necessity of another entry into the high-end tube compressor market. But after...
I had to record an interview for an audio documentary and didn't want to lug around my laptop and Mbox. What could I use that would offer portability and decent-though not necessarily...
Warning: For those readers who get upset when we deviate a bit from matters strictly audio, you should skip ahead to the next microphone review that fits your budget. These next paragraphs will only...
The brunt of this review focuses on a shootout between the PreSonus FireStudio and the RME Fireface 800. Why? Because I already owned a Fireface and I needed a second interface. Not fair you say? The...
FLUX is a French company that specializes in high-quality audio processing tools. Solera is the company's flagship dynamics tool. And there is a reason for the name; it comes from solerais, which is a...
I always like having a lot of options in my mic closet. There are times that I lean heavily on my most expensive microphones, but I often find it far more helpful to have as many effective,...
A few issues back, I announced that I had sold my Pro Tools HD rig and replaced it with an Apogee Symphony (Tape Op #59) system running Apple Logic on a Mac Pro. The audio performance of...
A few months ago, while Neil Mclellan and I were having dinner at his place and listening to some tracks he'd been mixing on his home rig, he started to show me webpages of some big old synths that he...
Sometimes not knowing what you're getting into is a good thing. I don't know what Rick Wilkinson was thinking when he decided to whip up a ribbon mic from scratch, but it's a good thing he's not...
The inexpensive Zoom H2 Handy Recorder makes quality WAV or MP3 recordings on removable SD media. It's loaded with features, comes with many useful accessories, and is easy to interface with a...
If you followed my "Gear Geeking" columns in year 2007, you know the epic story of my move from Pro Tools HD to various native DAWs running on a souped-up Mac Pro, including Logic Pro 7. Well, soon...
I'm not a plug-in hound. I tend to stick to a few families of plug-ins that I know and trust. These days, I think I could do 99% of my work with plug-ins from Universal Audio and Wave Arts (Tape Op...
Shane Wilson's Guide to Mixing was produced by Chris Graffagnino, Russ Long, and Michael Valletta for Audioinstruction, LLC in Nashville, and in the interest of full disclosure, I should add that I...
I've been messing around with video game music since about 1997 with my good friend Joseph Majalca in Chicago under the moniker Royal Space Force. We started off by using sound tests and otherwise...
I've been messing around with video game music since about 1997 with my good friend Joseph Majalca in Chicago under the moniker Royal Space Force. We started off by using sound tests and otherwise...
I've been messing around with video game music since about 1997 with my good friend Joseph Majalca in Chicago under the moniker Royal Space Force. We started off by using sound tests and otherwise...
Along with other acoustic treatments, I've employed RealTraps bass traps (Tape Op #36, #38, #48) in my personal studio with a good deal of success. The payoff for careful placement of traps,...
