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 Box (remember Frampton Comes Alive?)...
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 producer. EASTWEST and Quantum Leap...
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 a digital clone of the Space Station...
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 on. Now he spends his days ensuring...
I've been compiling notes over the last few months to give to artists who want me to do mixing for them — especially those who are relatively new to the process and who have purchased gear to record with at home. To hear great, unique tracks obscured and marred by recording flaws...
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 the development of professional audio...
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 first piece of gear. We talked about how...
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 to Austin during the '80s to...
What would be a typical framework for how you go about producing, from having met the artist to a finished record?
Normally, when I first meet the artist we spend some time together, and then if it seems like a good match after the first meeting, I like to spend a couple of days with...
The first time I saw Lincoln Fong's name was in the EP credits for shoegazer escapees Moose back in '91, as the bass player. The next time I saw his name was in '93, in the credits for Moose's second LP, Honey Bee. This time, Lincoln was credited as the engineer and...
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, gathering ideas and input from...
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]. Combining his technical aptitude...