Welcome to issue #91 of Tape Op.

There are few audio engineers and music producers as legendary as Bruce Swedien. If all he had done was engineer Michael Jackson's Thriller, the world would know his name. But he has done far more. In...

A slight drizzle on an August afternoon in Oslo, Norway, set the mood perfectly for a conversation with engineer Jan Erik Kongshaug at his RainbowStudio. The space is tucked away in a beautifully des...

In a time when the term "audio engineer" has been watered down to such a generic title, David Boucher is a throwback to a different era. He is not merely a connect-the-dots kind of guy. He has taken t...

"Sloooooooowly I turned...step by step, inch by inch..." so goes the old Three Stooges routine, the source of the name of Bruce Kaphan's Bay Area home-based recording studio, Niagara Falls. As a membe...

A slight drizzle on an August afternoon in Oslo, Norway, set the mood perfectly for a conversation with engineer Jan Erik Kongshaug at his RainbowStudio. The space is tucked away in a beautifully designed modern business park. The lively stream running through the complex of buildings adds a well-balanced pastoral feeling to the surroundings. As I enter the building and am warmly greeted by the studio manager, I am introduced to the man that is at the center of many of the most beautiful jazz recordings of the past 35 years. He has engineered hundreds of recordings; many of them have been for the respected jazz label, ECM. The founder of ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music), Manfred Eicher, is an audiophile and producer who has been actively involved in creating the highest quality recordings possible. There are those that claim there is a signature "ECM sound" to the label's recordings, but the discerning listener is easily able to distinguish the uniqueness of each recording. If there is a continuum from one recording to the next, it is the ability to hear the dynamic range of the music, as well as the clarity and focus of the players. Artists such as Pat Metheny, Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, Chick Corea, Charlie Haden, Don Cherry, Charles Lloyd, Bobo Stenson, Arild Andersen, Jon Christensen, and Palle Danielsson, are only a few of the dozens of world renowned musicians that have made multiple recordings on ECM and have benefitted from the engineering of Jan Erik Kongshaug. Jan Erik Kongshaug in the studio with Terje Rypdal