Let's DIY

Back in July/August of 2002, I offered up a tube mic preamp circuit here in Tape Op, and provided a kit for a limited time to assist in building it, through my company Hamptone. For all of you I scared off with subtle warnings about hi voltage and serious death, this project may...

I have been a big fan of spring and plate reverbs for decades, and over the past three years I have spent a significant amount of time diving into the wormhole of designing and building them, initially for my own use and now for others. There are many amazing vintage units in...

Tape Op contributor Thom Monahan dug up this gem. Enjoy!

In the disembodied world of today's computer-based multitrack mixing, one can spend a lot of time crafting a unifying sense of "space." Despite the dozens of reverb plug-ins and rack devices available, you might like to experiment with some physical signal...

The Alesis 3630 is a very popular, full-featured compressor. It offers up RMS and peak compression, variable knee, adjustable attack and release times, and great metering for under a hundred bucks. But although it uses the same THAT 2150A chip found in dbx compressors, it never...

ADK and Marshall Electronics have been selling small- capsule capacitor microphones for the last few years, and I have done a tube modification to a few of them. The performance of the modified microphones is good enough that it seemed reasonable to share this modification....

Here's a ridiculously cheap and simple way to make a pretty nice microphone shock mount. Cost is under 10 bucks (way under if you build more than one) and it shouldn't take too much more than a half hour to put one together.

When asked to come up with a "do it yourself" tube mic pre project, I thought long and hard about what topology to go with. I designed a number of different hybrid tube/discrete class A designs (eliminating transformers because of their large expense) but ultimately...

You've had the idea — the sound was in your head. You've said to yourself, "Self, I'd sure like to make this voice (guitar, drum kit, etc.) sound like it was recorded with a telephone. But how?" Well, you can futz around with filters, EQ and compression...

I have always loved optical limiters, especially the classic Teletronix's vacuum tube LA-2A and its "solid- state" sibling, the Universal Audio LA-3A. Both were minimalist in terms of user interface as well as the relatively non-destructive way they processed...

For decades condenser microphones have been the staple for high-quality recording and live sound assignments. Unfortunately, not everyone can afford to own a good one. Well that's about to change. I've written this article so that anyone who wants a great condenser mic...