Interviews | No. 173
By Alex Ruger
I recently had a chance to chat with Paul McCabe, Senior Vice President of Research and Innovation at Roland Future Design Lab, to talk about their new moonshot, Project LYDIA, as well as his views on AI in music that underpins its development. We first met at the 2026 NAMM Show where I...
Lead photo text: Author Wally Wilson behind the first Sphere multitrack console at Creative Workshop, Nashville, TN, 1976.
Recently there's been renewed interest in Sphere consoles, and the history of Sphere Electronics. With Don McLaughlin having sadly passed away in 2014, I guess...
I still remember my first experience hearing Taylor Deupree's Northern on a winter night back in 2007. Reaching into a stack of borrowed CDs in my apartment, I randomly selected a disc for some musical accompaniment while washing the dishes. The album began so stealthily that it...
Here Photo: At The Old Western waiting for the rest of the musicians...
Luke Temple wears several masks and many hats. Since 2005 he has released five solo records under his own name, four as Here We Go Magic, and his latest release, Blast Off Through the Wicker, under the moniker...
How many of you ladies and gentlemen are making music these days intended for listening primarily on a five CD changer set to shuffle? If that's your audience, you might feel forced to use multiband compressors and brick wall limiters to squeeze every bit of life out of your mixes....
Although I'd heard of Berlin-based musician Nils Frahm, I actually first heard his music on his beautiful and recently released LP, All Melody, which I reviewed online for Tape Op#123. Nils was recently in San Francisco, on tour for this album, so engineer Jeremy Black (from Coyote...
Way back in [Tape Op #39], we received a wonderful report on how The Mammals utilized a bunch of borrowed gear and gathered talented friends to track their Evolver album at home, in upstate New York. Some 14 years later they are still at it, but now have a private studio above their...
F. Reid Shippen is a successful music producer, engineer, and businessperson. He has also helped out Tape Op over the years with his insightful reviews and great ideas, so we thought it was about time to drop by and pick his brain. His credits include Little Big Town, Dierks Bentley...
Photo from Calvin's Fall 2015 Sampler.
You came up over and over again in the interview that we did with Julien.
Julien and I grew up together playing music. I had done demos with her, prior to working at Ardent. We were working out of another studio called The Grove. I was her...
Ade Fenton is a creative, masterful cutting-edge engineer, producer, DJ, and composer based in the UK. He has worked with Gary Numan on his past four studio albums, Savage (Songs from a Broken World), Splinter (Songs from a Broken Mind), Dead Son Rising, and Jagged, as well as having...
Over the last 20 years Matt Chamberlain has contributed to a staggering variety of recordings including David Bowie, Tori Amos, Frank Ocean, Miranda Lambert, Bill Frisell, Brad Mehldau, Fiona Apple, and Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians, to name a few. Seriously, we're just...
Having recently released his twenty-second studio album, Savage (Songs from a Broken World), Gary Numan is no stranger to the recording process. Produced by Ade Fenton (see his interview this issue), it is a soaring, epic, electronic dark groove record, with the unique lyrics and...
Julien Baker is more visible than ever. After her low-budget debut, Sprained Ankle, made nearly every best-of 2015 list, the 21-year-old Baker signed with Matador Records and went home to Memphis to record her next record at the legendary Ardent Studios [Tape Op#58]. Turn Out the...