Behind the Gear

This Issue’s Lords of Listening Soundways

BY LARRY CRANE

Connor Reviere, Gebre Waddell, and Patrick Moss are Soundways. Their recent plug-ins, the Core Production Bundle, are a new way to help engineers listen, as well as hear details, in recordings and mixes. I met up with them in their hometown of Memphi...

Andrew Roberts

BY ANDY HONG

While motorcycling through the Appalachian Mountains, on my way to the 2015 Summer NAMM show in Nashville, I made an overnight stop in Jim Thorpe, PA, one of the most beautiful towns in the U.S., according to several national publications. Inside the...

Clarence Kane of ENAK Microphone Repair

BY GARRETT HAINES

Walk into studios anywhere in the world and the name Clarence Kane will have preceded you. One of the true greats in ribbon mic repair and restoration, Mr. Kane started at RCA after returning from the Second World War. Later, he set out to start ENAK...

Rob Chiarelli & Chandler Bridges (Bonus)

BY LARRY CRANE

For years Rob Chiarelli and Chandler Bridges have worked, together and separately, producing and engineering records for the likes of Will Smith, Madonna, Pink, Janet Jackson, J-Lo, Christina Aguilera, P- Diddy (Puff Daddy), Aaliyah, and Johnny Mathi...

Mateusz Wozniak

BY BARTLOMIEJ FRANK

VintageWarmer was one of the first "must have" plug-ins for digital recording. Mateusz Wozniak is co-founder and lead developer of PSPaudioware. Recent plug-ins include PSP 2445 (inspired by the EMT 244 and 245 early digital reverberators) and the PS...

James Demeter

BY LARRY CRANE

Since the early '80s James Demeter has been promoting the use of tubes in pro audio, and in his excellent amps as well.

Robin Ashley

BY LARRY CRANE

Phoenix Audio, maker of Class A, high-end audio tools for the studio, seeks to, "embody the classic British tone, but with a modern twist," which they successfully do. Since 1998, Phoenix has designed quality preamps, compressors, equalizers, and sum...

Rich Williams

BY LARRY CRANE

Burl Audio, under the direction of owner/designer Rich Williams, has developed some of the best new recording equipment over the last eight years. Their mic preamps, summing amps, and control room monitor are top-quality. But the company is best know...

Bill Whitlock

BY LARRY CRANE

Jensen Transformers was founded in 1974 by Deane Jensen as part of his quest for excellent studio sound. He believed the transformers of the era were of a substandard quality, and our field has benefitted from his research and dedication ever since. ...

Bill Whitlock (bonus)

BY LARRY CRANE

Jensen Transformers was founded in 1974 by Deane Jensen as part of his quest for excellent studio sound. He believed the transformers of the era were of a substandard quality, and our field has benefitted from his research and dedication ever since. ...

Larry Villella

BY LARRY CRANE

ADK Microphones began in 1997 as the dream of Larry Villella — recording engineer, piano expert, and vintage mic collector — to build quality microphones for his friends. ADK's extensive line of microphones now ranges from very affordable to top-of-t...

Bill Cheney

BY JOHN BACCIGALUPPI

Bill Cheney and Jim Romney are the men responsible for keeping the amazing legacy of Spectra Sonics, a legendary, if criminally unheralded, pro-audio company alive.

Bill Cheney (bonus)

BY JOHN BACCIGALUPPI

Bill Cheney and his partner Jim Romney are the men responsible for keeping the amazing legacy of Spectra Sonics, a legendary, if criminally unheralded, pro-audio company alive.

Vintage King Restoration Series, Part 1

Vintage King co-founder Michael Nehra shares some of his love, knowledge, and practical advice for diving into the world of vintage audio gear, and then takes us behind the scenes for a walk through of a laborious restoration of "The Holy Grail of Co...

EveAnna Manley

BY LARRY CRANE

Under the leadership and vision of EveAnna Manley, Manley Labs has created and built some of the finest studio equipment (and high-end home audio components) over the last two decades. Studios across the world count on their mostly tube-based EQs, co...

Wes Dooley

BY LARRY CRANE

Wes Dooley loves ribbon mics. He's carried the torch for these fine tools for many years, and his AEA Ribbon Mics company manufactures some of the finest microphones of this type, as well as specialized preamps and more. I love listening to Wes spin ...

Wes Dooley (bonus)

BY LARRY CRANE

Wes Dooley loves ribbon mics. He's carried the torch for these fine tools for many years, and his AEA Ribbon Mics company manufactures some of the finest microphones of this type, as well as specialized preamps and more. I love listening to Wes spin ...

John Peluso (bonus)

BY JOSEPH LEMMER

John Peluso has been quietly providing classic-styled mics to some of the biggest names in music for over ten years. Peluso's line of vacuum tube condenser, solid-state condenser, and ribbon microphones are hand assembled and tested, and surprisingly...

John Peluso

BY JOSEPH LEMMER

John Peluso has been quietly providing classic-styled mics to some of the biggest names in music for over ten years. Peluso's line of vacuum tube condenser, solid-state condenser, and ribbon microphones are hand-assembled and tested, and surprisingly...

Cliff Maag

BY LARRY CRANE

Some audio equipment becomes more sought after once it goes out of production. A small company from Utah called NTI (later known as Nightpro) introduced the EQ3, PreQ3 and EQ3D in the '90s and then disappeared. But the uniqueness of their AIR BAND eq...

Jamie Howarth

BY LARRY CRANE

A while back I was working on a restoration process for an album that was long out of print. The only materials I had to work from were a ridiculously scratched vinyl LP and some 7-inch reference reels from the original session. When I played back th...

Jim Williams

BY MIKE JASPER

Jim Williams has spent much of his 56 years working with some of the biggest names in the music business, including Frank Zappa, John McLaughlin and Stevie Wonder. He's the owner of Audio Upgrades, where he sells his transparent High Speed Microphone...

Rupert Neve Designs

BY LARRY CRANE

We last visited the legendary console designer and audio guru Rupert Neve in Tape Op #26, over ten years ago. In 2005 Rupert Neve Designs presented the world some amazing new Neve products, with the Portico Range of equalizers, mic preamps, compresso...

Phil Moore

BY JOHN BACCIGALUPPI

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, even though it no longer worked properly. After t...

Brian Eno (bonus)

BY JOHN BACCIGALUPPI

In doing the design for Brian Eno's interview in Tape Op #85 I had wanted to try and illustration instead of a photo for the piece. There is a Picasso drawing of Igor Stravinsky that I liked and I felt a similar feel would work well for the Eno piece...

Justin Ulysses Morse

BY LARRY CRANE

Roll Music Systems has been slowly bringing out pro audio products since 2003. Starting as a small recording studio in Minneapolis, this company (Justin Ulysses Morse and John Sommer, aka Johnny Smokes) has some unique and excellent gear.

Justin Ulysses Morse (bonus)

BY LARRY CRANE

Roll Music Systems has been slowly bringing out pro audio products since 2003. Starting as a small recording studio in Minneapolis, this company (Justin Ulysses Morse and John Sommer, aka Johnny Smokes) has some unique and excellent gear.

Chris Estes

BY LANCE MCDONALD

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 Loop Analog Signal Processor), a seamless interfac...

Rob Roy Campbell

BY LARRY CRANE

Years ago I ran into a guy showing his tube mic preamp at a booth in the basement of the 2005 NAMM show. He'd built the unit with metal brackets from Home Depot — I kid you not. Since then he's kept at it, and his one-man company, Electronaut, has re...

John G. Petersen

BY LARRY CRANE

Denmark's John G. Petersen has been designing and building audio equipment since the seventies, but is certainly best known for 25 years of producing the fine Tube-Tech line of equipment, seen in studios all over the world.

David Bock

BY LARRY CRANE

David Bock has fostered (and weathered) the changes in the microphone marketplace over the last 14 years, first as cofounder and main designer for Soundelux Microphones and now with his own Bock Audio Designs. Bock's goal of uncompromised design has ...

Ernst Nathorst-Boos and Marcus Zetterquist

BY LARRY CRANE

Ernst Nathorst-Boos and Marcus Zetterquist, along with Peter "Pelle" Jubel, founded Propellerhead Software in 1994. Propellerhead, based in Stockholm Sweden, has given us some unique software for audio creation and production, like Reason, ReBirth an...

Brad Avenson

BY LARRY CRANE

For years now I've been bumping into Brad Avenson, a real down-to-earth guy who's been building his Avenson Audio company up with small, ingenious little tools to help us all make better records without busting our wallets. He began building mics wit...

Jonathan Little

BY LARRY CRANE

From the first moment another engineer raved about a Little Labs DI to me, I knew that this company was onto something special. It turns out Little Labs is Jonathan Little, a man who lives and works out of a funky mansion in the Hollywood Hills where...

Ken & Josie Hirsch

BY JOHN BACCIGALUPPI

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 with the revamped Quad Eight and Electrodyne brand...

Gerhard Behles & Dave Hill

BY WALT SZALVA

Ableton Live is a program that has long been hard to define — is it a DAW, is it a DJ-centric program, is it a tweaker's toolbox or is it all (or none) of the above? A recent major update, Live 8, has brought more tweaks that bring it in line with a ...

Tim Spencer

BY GARRETT HAINES

Tim Spencer's TRUE Systems, based in Tucson, Arizona, has been quietly building a reputation as a manufacturer of quality mic preamps for the last 12 years. Tim's electrical engineering degree, and years of work for Burr-Brown and Hughes Missile Syst...

Vic Keary & Nick Terry

BY JOHN BACCIGALUPPI

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 when the chance to meet the Thermionic team at Nick's Lo...

J.J. Blink & Phil Paske

BY LARRY CRANE

About an hour's drive across the Netherlands from Amsterdam sits the city of Oosterhout. In Oosterhout is where you'll find RMGI, Recordable Media Group International, one of two places in the world (along with ATR Magnetics in the US) still making a...

Dr. David Berners

BY MATT ALLISON

In 1999 Universal Audio, the company founded by the esteemed Bill Putnam Sr., was re-launched by his sons, Bill Jr. and Jim Putnam [Tape Op #24]. In addition to re-creating some of the classic audio equipment that UA was known for, the company is als...

Steve Massey

BY THADDEUS MOORE

How many hours have we all sat staring at the GUI [graphical user interface] of our plug-ins and rarely, if never, thought about the people behind the math, form and function of these amazing applications? I had the chance to meet one of these very p...

Bob Heil

BY LARRY CRANE

When the name Heil started popping up around recording studios in conjunction with an interesting take on large diaphragm dynamic microphones a few years back, it was not a new name to those with a sense of history. As the proponent of the Heil Talk ...

Doug Rogers & Nick Phoenix

BY LARRY CRANE

In my own stubborn world of recording, sample libraries are slowly making inroads. Almost everything I work with involves real instruments recorded in a room, yet sampled strings, Mellotron and even percussion have found their way into my work as a p...

Christopher Moore

BY NICOLAS COLLINS

Christopher Moore was the man behind the legendary Ursa Major Space Station (SST-282) as well as several other notable innovations in digital audio. Ursa Major was bought by AKG in 1985. Chris was pretty quiet for most of the 1990s until he released ...

Dan Lavry

BY DAVID WEISS

It is the brave men and women fascinated by analog-to-digital (A/D) and digital-to- analog (D/A) conversion that make audio a reality today. Dan Lavry, founder of Seattle-based Lavry Engineering, put his music bug and his science bug together early o...

George Massenburg

BY TERRY SETTER

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 Massenburg has had a long and distinguished relationship with ...

Ken Bogdanowicz

BY WALT SZALVA

Ken Bogdanowicz is the man behind Soundtoys, the boutique software company known for their feature laden and very analog flavored effects plug-ins. Ken's history with designing effects goes back to the pre-plug-in hardware days when he was a key play...

Michael Grace

BY WALT SZALVA

Michael Grace started Grace Design in 1994, a boutique pro audio company located in Boulder, CO. The story of his rise as a designer is one born from a love of music. His need for a preamp to record Grateful Dead concerts drove him to design his firs...

Mike Castoro

BY MIKE JASPER

Mike Castoro, the 43-year-old owner and creator of Wunder Audio, lives quietly with his wife and two kids in the northern hills of Austin, Texas. Originally from upstate New York, he spent his junior high and high school years in Florida, then moved...

Michael Joly

BY ANDREW R. DELAPP

Michael Joly has quickly gained a reputation for ironing the wrinkles out of a well-designed but inexpensive microphone, at a "Bang- for-the-buck" price which most of us can easily afford. Even so, I found nothing low-budget about Michael's customer ...

Joe & B.J. Buchalter

BY GARRETT HAINES

I'm starting the see a trend with the subjects of Behind the Gear. In an industry where trade shows demand new models every year, sometimes every quarter, these manufacturers follow their own schedule. Metric Halo is clearly one firm that bucks the t...

Crowley & Tripp

BY DARRON BURKE

Chris Regan of Soundwave Research Labs introduced me to Crowley and Tripp microphones (Soundwave Research Labs is the parent company of Crowley and Tripp). He explained that the company had been developing ribbon mics and testing them at area studios...

Aspen Pittman

BY GARRETT HAINES

The name Aspen Pittman is synonymous with vacuum tubes. But it's one thing to hawk a product, and another to understand the physics behind its performance. While working as a salesman in the first Guitar Center store, Pittman noticed that players (an...

Ted Fletcher

BY GARRETT HAINES

Ted Fletcher can't get away from music. Originally trained as a civil engineer, he started taking gigs as a session singer at local studios. Before long, the gigs became full-time and he was working with legendary producer Joe Meek [Tape Op #100]. Co...

John Stephens

BY LARRY CRANE

Once upon a time, there was a company called Stephens Electronics. They went head-to-head with Ampex, MCI, Studer and 3M, building tape decks that some folks still worship as the best sounding in the world. A conversation with John Stephens, the man ...

Danny McKinney

BY WALT SZALVA

Danny McKinney is a textbook case of a very busy man with a whole lot of irons in the fire. Requisite Audio is his boutique outboard gear company. Standel is his company that designs guitar amps. And he also makes super high-end cables. We talked to ...

Jay McKnight

BY ALEX KOSTELNIK

Jay McKnight is the founder and operator of MRL — Magnetic Refer- ence Laboratory. If you've ever owned and maintained an analog tape deck you know MRL as one of the few sources for calibration tapes. Before that he worked at Ampex, Gotham Audio and ...

Nick Mason

BY JEFF TOUZEAU

Nick Mason's recent autobiography, Inside Out, recalls his unique experiences as the drummer for Pink Floyd during for over three decades — he is the only member to have remained with Pink Floyd throughout the complete duration of the group's career....

Lucas van der Mee

BY ROY SILVERSTEIN

Apogee Electronics recently celebrated 20 years in the business of digital audio. These days, 20 years in business is quite a long time. The following is a conversation with Apogee's lead analog designer, Lucas van der Mee. We talked about what makes...

Dan Kennedy

BY WALT SZALVA

To begin with, how did you get started in designing audio gear?

James Demeter

BY WALT SZALVA

One-time major label artist turned gear designer James Demeter talks about tubes, spring reverb and building gear for REO Speedwagon. Demeter Amplification was one of the first companies to re-embrace tubes for mic preamp and DI use in the early eigh...

Real World Studios

BY JEFF TOUZEAU

Real World Studios is an icon in the studio business, recognized internationally for its innovative architecture, high technology standards and, of course, its association with founder Peter Gabriel. Real World evolved following the success that Pete...

David Josephson

BY WALT SZALVA

David Josephson, of Josephson Engineering, builds microphones that are innovative, interesting and downright great sounding. We talked about digital audio, cheap mics and the future of microphone design.

Jim Odom

BY LARRY CRANE

PreSonus Audio Electronics is celebrating its ten-year anniversary of delivering high quality recording and live audio gear at great prices. The Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based company features over 20 products, and is soon launching a high-end yet reas...

Wade Goeke

BY WALT SZALVA

Wade Goeke is the man behind Chandler Limited, a boutique gear firm intent on taking the legendary designs of Rupert Neve and Abbey Road and updating them for present day studio use and abuse. Wade talks about how his quest for the ultimate in gear d...

Chris Muth

BY RICH WELLS

Chris Muth of Dangerous Music knows his stuff. Formerly a mastering gear designer at Sterling Sound in New York City, Muth now co-owns Dangerous Music with partner Bob Muller, a unique combination recording studio/boutique gear manufacturer. The Dang...

Bill Skibbe & Jessica Ruffins

BY GARRETT HAINES

Many of us would be fortunate to record national bands, build great sounding studios, or design our own line of pro audio gear in our lifetime. But over the past ten years Bill Skibbe and Jessica Ruffins have managed to do all three. Equally comforta...

John Schumann

BY DAWN LANDES

John Schumann makes crazy pedals. He makes them 10 to 12 hours a day, every day, in a shop at the back of Main Drag Music, a great independent store near Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Schumann walked in the very first day Carl Myers opene...

Bill Bradley

BY WALT SZALVA

Bill Bradley has been collecting, modifying and selling vintage microphones for years. He started as an engineer in Chicago and now lives outside of Nashville where his workbench at The Mic Shop sees a constant flow of traffic.

Bob Moog

BY ALEX KOSTELNIK

Bob Moog, inventor of the legendary Moog synthesizers, is a friendly, down-to-earth man with a sharp wit and a sense of humor. He's practical, too — while interviewing him I moved his plate to make room for my mic stand on our table and he looked ala...

Skipper Wise

BY WALT SZALVA

BLUE (Baltic Latvian Universal Electronics) builds some of the finest microphones available today. The company's commitment to manufacturing its own parts, from condenser diaphragms to the tiny screws that hold them together, helps ensure consistent ...

Dave Hill

BY WALT SZALVA

David Hill is the owner and designer behind the company, as well as the owner of a recording studio with a lot of customized components, not surprisingly. Compressors, preamps, digital converters, tape machine components — David Hill has had a hand i...

Greg Gualtieri

BY WALT SZALVA

Greg's Pendulum Audio has been building pro audio gear since 1998 and building high quality acoustic instrument preamps since 1988. All of the pro audio units he makes feature tubes, Class-A electronics, solid build quality and great sound. Recently ...

Doug Fearn

BY WALT SZALVA

Doug has been a proponent of high-quality, high-end tube recording gear for ten years now. His mic preamps, EQs and direct boxes are known as some of the best-built and greatest sounding in the audio business.

Tom Erbe

BY DOUGLAS REPETTO

If you were making music with a Macintosh in the 1990s, chances are SoundHack was an important part of your sound-mangling toolbox. It's an exceptionally rich and powerful tool, and it was one of the first attempts to make some of the esoteric "compu...

Geoff Daking

BY ERIC BROYHILL

A character, genius and great host are just a few of the words to use in describing Geoff Daking. A resilient man having survived an entire US tour with The Who opening for his band, The Blues Magoos, Geoff immediately strikes you as a man who could ...

Fletcher

BY WALT SZALVA

In pro audio circles and throughout the vast realm of the internet, Fletcher is a ubiquitous and highly vocal presence. Always quick with commentary and an endless font of knowledge regarding even the most obscure pieces of gear, he is also the owner...

Dave Derr

BY WALT SZALVA

In many a studio the Empirical Labs Distressor is as much a common sight — and sound — as a guitar amp or coffee machine. And for good reason — it works well, it's highly tweakable, and it sounds great. Could it be that the Distressor is the ultimate...

John LaGrou

BY IAN SWANKE

Most Tape Op articles feature the people behind the making of a record. But what about the people who make the gear that we make records on? "Behind the Gear" is a new column featuring interviews with engineers, businesspeople and innovators who are ...