Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Public Enemy, Phish, A Tribe Called Quest, Super Furry Animals, Lou Reed, Jeff Buckley, Derek Trucks, Elvis Perkins, Bad Brains, Weezer, Ween and Wilco. These are just some...
Chris Owens has spent the last 15 years in and around Louisville, Kentucky's punk/ hardcore scene. At his wonderfully-named studio, Headbanging Kill Your Mama Music, he's made great records with some...
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I first became aware of Dave Criddle when I discovered the world of podcasts in 2008. Along with Australia's Andrew Brierly, Dave was the co-host of the Home Recording Odyssey. Andrew created HRO to...
Nashville's Chris Estes has been producing music for over a decade and, after years of frustration trying to replicate the analog audio of his youth in the digital realm, he conjured up CLASP (Closed...
To say Pensacola, Florida based artist Valerie George is not your typical recordist would be an understatement. Rather than fighting background noise, she embraces it. Instead of building a temple of...
Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Public Enemy, Phish, A Tribe Called Quest, Super Furry Animals, Lou Reed, Jeff Buckley, Derek Trucks, Elvis Perkins, Bad Brains, Weezer, Ween and Wilco. These are just...
Bob Holden is a Northwest recording icon. As a drummer he played with Don and the Goodtimes, The Invaders (the Portland version) and The Redcoats. In addition, he recorded many sides with Seattle's...
Anyone who has kids under the age of fifteen (and basic cable) has heard the music: sunny, sincere blasts of pop music overflowing with youthful energy. Hannah Montana (as portrayed by Miley Cyrus),...
Nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains resides a gem of a town known as Athens, Ohio. Home to Ohio University, it is also the home of numerous historical treasures, a burgeoning...
Recording involves several processes — preproduction, tracking, mixing, and mastering. The methods involved in each step have changed greatly over time. Musicians, engineers, mixers, and...
Last fall, the Magic Shop's Steve Rosenthal [Tape Op #66] and I restored and remastered Mickey Newbury's Looks Like Rainfor the four CD box set American Trilogy, released in May...
While hardly a glamorous concept, room acoustics represent a critical link in the recording or playback chain. While comprehensive room design is a complex cocktail of science, math and chance...
So you just graduated from recording school? Congrats to you! But here are a few things you might not have learned in school: You will initially blame the musician for not having the right sound,...
Back in Tape Op #69, I reviewed two products from CruzTOOLS - the GrooveTech T-Handle Drum Key and the Guitar Player Tech Kit — and I was impressed with the quality and engineering evident in...
This is a review of the Line 6 DT50 guitar amplifier, but, like most people in Hollywood, instead of telling you about the topic at hand, I'm gonna tell you about me. What can the DT50 do for...
The world of the digital DJ has undergone tons of changes in a relatively short time. Much like the realm of mobile phones, there are new technologies, hardware configurations, and...
How in the world do you get away from the stupid trackpad and keyboard while DJ'ing from a laptop? This has been one of the bigger questions since DJs began moving from CDs to computer-based...
Many of us have iPhones, your BFF when it comes to connecting to your tribe. That little dude, along with his bros iPod and iPad, also makes a good and very portable audio test set. There are...
Less than half the size of my iPod Touch 3G, Mikey 2G is the generation-2 model of Blue's Mikey external coincident stereo microphone. It works with most iPod models as well as iPhone 3GS and...
Few pieces of gear prove themselves indispensable to every session — something you’d pick to put first in your bag when you travel, that you can truly call “must-have”. The...
I’m a huge fan of Arturia and their virtual synth designs. They are, I feel, one of the best software synth developers around. I love using their “V” synths (Tape Op #41, 57, 67) in...
Ah compressors… those wonderful helpers that make our lives easier. It seems like the more you learn how to use compression to your advantage, the more you want different types and flavors to...
My musical tastes are relatively populistic, but I’ve got the merest hint of music snob in my bones. It’s the part of me that recoils when Antares Auto-Tune is used as an overtly applied...
The KSM line represents Shure’s premium recording microphones. The newest member is the KSM42, a fixed-cardioid side-address condenser mic. With a similar “giant almond” shape to the...
In a trend of 500-series this-and-that, many manufactures have responded to the question, “Can we get a tube module?” with, “Due to power supply requirements, it can’t be...
The Translator is an interesting little passive device that purports to add “vintage tone” to your stale signals. It’s a small, bright red, inline XLR coupler with a transformer...
I’ve used and/or reviewed almost every permutation of the UAD platform over the years, and let me say that I find the UA-developed plug-ins to be some of the finest sounding digital tools on the...
Universal Audio just keeps on coming up with great products for both the pro and home studio. Their latest entry is the 4-710d microphone preamp. It’s basically four channels of UA’s 710...
Are you completely happy with all of your mixes and see no reason to attempt to learn more or get better at this craft? Then read no more — you might not need this book.Foreword: I’ve been...
Usually when I get a microphone sent to me from a manufacturer, I’m allowed to keep it for a ridiculously long time, sometimes two months or more. Normally I return the mic within three or four...
A console review can be rather involved, so let me just say up front that I think the SSL AWS consoles are absolutely excellent. The sound is enormous, clear and strong; the functionality offers up...
As far as I know, these are the first custom-molded, in-ear monitors developed for pro audio engineers. As these are custom-molded to fit your ears, I first had to go get my ears molded by an...
During the last couple years, the 500-series format has developed into an industry standard among audio manufacturers, but over and over, I’ve found myself reading online that Neve clones would...
Black Lion is a small company best known for tearing apart and upgrading off-the-shelf gear. They also manufacture pro audio items. One of their offerings is the Micro Clock Mk2, a small footprint,...
Brad Kelly is YRLK. When I put on a partially homemade, self-released album I don't usually expect to hear something as big, epic and textured as an Elbow or Coldplay album (go ahead and chip away at...
It doesn't get more hypnotic than an hour of Detroit techno covers played by a band known for garage rock fun. Maybe the 21-minute take on "Bug in the Bass Bin" is a bit much, but overall this left...
This 10" EP limited edition vinyl and download release features Portland's 12-piece Typhoon, one of the many interesting bands around town right now. I liked the sound of this album; it's big and...
We reviewed the Lapins' previous album, Parlez-Moi d'Amour, in issue #63, and like that album, Amourettes was recorded and co-produced by Pat Dillett (Tape Op #79) at the now-closed Kampo Studios in...
This solo album from Ms. Björklund, a pedal steel session musician, showed up in the Tape Op PO Box and being a fan of her chosen instrument I put it on expecting at best some instrumental...
This long-lived project has become the sole vehicle for songwriter Ben Crum in the last few years. The country-infused songs feel very "natural" with a band-in-a-room sound, great pedal steel, strings...
