One of the biggest weak spots in every recording chain is usually right in front of you, and it's a very obvious one – once you think about it. How are you monitoring the audio that you're...
What would be the most important concept I would explain to someone just starting out recording music? There’re a lot of things I’d like to say, but one of the most salient is,...
One of the cities in the United States that changed the face of popular music more than anywhere else has to be Memphis, Tennessee. It’s also a very important story of racial integration; of...
The history of humankind shows that only in recent centuries have we have become less social creatures. I've long advocated in the pages of Tape Op that we all need to find time to get together...
Lee "Scratch" Perry The Crocodile, Seattle, WA, 2019. by GS. Our heroes are flawed. Our gods will let us down. But there is no substitute for music that resonates with the soul when the listener...
I've listened to music critically for most of my life. First, as a teenage music fan, I would sit with headphones on poring over masterpieces by Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Yes, the Beach Boys, King...
In issue #133 of Tape Op, I interviewed Andrew Scheps. "I take everything personally. I curl up in a ball," Andrew told me when we discussed dealing with mix revisions from clients. I've been...
It was a simple thing, really. Just a short one-page lease agreement I'd helped broker between a beekeeper and my adjacent neighbors, whose property I help manage. I had sent two copies of the...
I don't remember a time while growing up when there wasn't clay, glaze, and kilns in my house. My mother had studied art when I was a baby, and she began producing a series of decorative and useful...
A while back, Larry Crane – Tape Op's editor – tweeted an observation implying that many producers, engineers, and artists fill up their productions with tons of tracks simply because the...
Last year I bought The Beatles’ super deluxe 50th anniversary box set edition of The BEATLES (commonly known as “The White Album”). The new mixes that Giles Martin [Tape Op #103]...
Not long after I first opened my recording studio, (some 20 years ago, when people actually booked time via a landline), I got a call one day about a booking request. Client: "Hi, we'd like to book...
Is there a fine line between naive encouragement and pessimistic, dour warnings of possible failure? (i.e. "Just do it! DIY!" vs. "Give up. It's impossible.") Over twenty years ago I was making plans...
