I first met Retro Instruments' Phil Moore when he emailed me out of the blue about buying an old tri-band Gregg Labs broadcast compressor I had listed on my studio website. I was reluctant to sell it,...
In the fall of 2008 I was hired to help build a temporary home studio in the California coastal town of Bolinas, where Devendra Banhart was planning to start tracking a new album. I was excited...
As we wind our way through the crazy world of recording music and learn more, sometimes we look back and suddenly realize just how great some records we'd taken for granted actually sound. One day...
Ken Hirsch has had a varied career in live sound, studio recording, product support and electronics. These days he and Josie, his wife and partner, head up their original company, Orphan Audio, along...
I first became aware of producer/engineer Tony Doogan by reading the credits on albums. I soon realized the same guy had worked with Teenage Fanclub, Belle and Sebastian, Mogwai, The Delgados,...
Vic Keary and Nick Terry, along with partner Jon Bailes, are the people behind the UK gear company Thermionic Culture. Larry and I both have several pieces of their gear that we really like, so...
Look at the history of UK pop music over the last twenty-five years and you will invariably come across popular singles and albums that have seen the touch of producer/engineer Stephen Street....
In just a few short years and at a relatively young age Ryan Hewitt has become one of L.A.'s first-call engineers in a notoriously competitive and dwindling market. The son of a well-known remote...
The first thing you notice upon entering John Frusciante's Laurel Canyon home is the two Studer A- 800 two-inch machines that nearly block the front door and hallway, leaving just enough room to...
When John and I first started making plans to attend the May 2007 AES Show in Vienna, Austria, we talked about taking advantage of cheap intra-Europe flights and touring other countries. Having...
A few years ago, I was at the winter NAMM show, the insane dog and pony show of musical madness that it is. If you've never been, it's hard to imagine the spectacle of it all; death metalers...
I first met Dave Amels of Bomb Factory and Vocé in Nashville at the NAMM show last year. People kept telling me "You need to meet Dave and interview him for Tape Op." We ended up chatting for a...
