After the internet came along and made sharing of information easier, I noticed an interesting trend. Maybe it's because of that misguided impulse of "doing it the right way" that beginners attempt to...
I never went to school to learn how to become a recording engineer.* But, regardless, some studio fundamentals and skills took me years to learn, and every time I did gain knowledge it was often under...
For 25 years, I have owned and run a commercial business, Jackpot! Recording Studio, in Portland, Oregon. During this time, I have developed a set of particular ideas of how to present my studio...
I do a fair amount of one-on-one remote "teaching," many times working with folks running small studios, as well as a wide range of home setups. It's always fun to face this educational challenge, as...
It's no secret that ever since the internet took over our lives that we live in an "I want it now" culture. That is the opposite of how I started recording music and running a studio. It was 30-plus...
What are the personal rewards of making and recording music? Or, maybe more tellingly, what are the rewards of recording other people's music? Steve Albini & Lil BUB — Mark Pallman from...
My recording career did not begin in a professional studio. It began in high school, with a pile of cassette decks, cables, homemade oscillators, Casio keyboards, and cheap microphones strewn...
In this issue, we present the second of our interviews with recording engineer and producer Donn Landee, as first seen in issue #157. To say I was thrilled to get Donn into Tape Op is an...
Every issue of Tape Op comes together in slightly different ways. John Baccigaluppi and I will juggle different interviews to run, looking for some magical balance of genres, styles of recording, and...
I sat down to try and write an End Rant describing how to know when a mix is done, and then I became stuck. Everyone’s experience with this can be different, so I dropped a line to some...
Somewhere along the line, when working on any recording project, there are points where the "real work" needs to be done. Real work, to me, is the time where intense listening skills are brought...
In this issue, we were lucky to speak with friends, family, and bandmates of the late Mark Linkous, aka Sparklehorse, about his recently released posthumous album, Bird Machine. In 1999, we...
Photo by Roman Sokal, courtesy of Audio Crowbar Dynamics. Having recently spent more time working on the Tape Op Gear Reviews section of this magazine, one thought keeps creeping into my mind and...
