Gear Geeking w/ Andy
by Andy Hong
16 years after first taking on my role here at Tape Op, I'm stepping aside, and starting with this issue, Scott McChane is the new Gear Reviews Editor. Scott has penned close to 50 reviews for the...
Gear Geeking
Sporadic and regular articles from our contributors.
Gear Geeking w/ Andy
by Andy Hong
In 2012, I wrote about the P-touch PT-1290 label maker in “Gear Geeking” [Tape Op #90]. I've printed countless self-stick labels with the P-touch, using its mini QWERTY keyboard and...
Gear Geeking w/ Andy
by Andy Hong
Joel Edinberg is a staff engineer at Q Division qdivisionstudios.com, one of the nicest studios in the Boston Area. He's also a gigging saxophonist, a music instructor, and the leader of gypsy-punk...
Gear Geeking w/ Andy
by Andy Hong
It's timely that you'll find a review of the Yamaha TF1 digital mixer in this issue. The TF1 is a 32-channel console featuring 16+1 motorized faders, with 16 fader and “OMNI Out” channels...
Gear Geeking w/ Andy
by Andy Hong
If you've been making music for as long as I have, I bet that some of the headphones relegated to your "box of broken cans" are in there not because they stopped working, but because their earpads are...
Gear Geeking w/ Andy
by Andy Hong
Years ago, I reviewed the Eclipse Tools 900-005 Cable Tie Gun [Tape Op #29]. If you’ve ever used a tool like this to tension and cut cable ties, you’ll never go back to using your fingers...
Gear Geeking w/ Andy
by Andy Hong
Until recently, I’d been relying on my headphone system to talk to the band in the live room, or sometimes a PA speaker I’d place on the floor, instead of a permanent set of talkback...
Gear Geeking w/ Andy
by Andy Hong
As consumers of audio gear, we tend to dissertate ad nauseam on the subtle sonic differences between thing x and thing y. Meanwhile, many of us are working in suboptimal listening...
Gear Geeking w/ Andy
by Andy Hong
Over the years, I've replaced most of the incandescent bulbs in my home and in my studio with LEDs. The incandescents ranged from 35 W low-voltage halogens, to 60 W standard "Edisons", to 75 W...
Gear Geeking w/ Andy
by Andy Hong
My laptop is a mid-2014 Toshiba Portégé Z30t touchscreen "ultrabook" with an Intel Core i7 processor and a 512 GB SSD. It's plenty powerful enough to run Pro Tools and Cubase; but these...
Software Utilities When Installing Windows
by Andy Hong
JB's End Rant and RADAR studio review in this issue inspired me to share with you a few of the software utilities I install whenever I set up a new Windows computer. If you're a DAW user moving...
Windows 10
by Andy Hong
The nascence of my music-technology career goes back to high school, when I wrote a 1-bit sampling drum-machine program for my Apple ][+, utilizing the computer's cassette-tape storage port as the A/D...