ISSUE ARCHIVE
NO. 171 | Nov 2025
NO. 170 | Sep 2025
NO. 169 | Sep 2025
NO. 168 | Jul 2025
NO. 167 | May 2025
NO. 166 | Mar 2025
NO. 165 | Jan 2025
NO. 164 | Nov 2024
Jul/Aug 2014
Why is it these days that people (especially mainstream media) constantly refer to musicians being able to record at home as if it's a recent development? Home recording has been happening nearly as long as any kind of sound recording existed. In the 1940's Les Paul cut hit records in his garage. Emitt Rhodes delivered pop masterpieces from his home studio in the early '70s. I know computers are powerful and can do all sorts of magical things, like recording more tracks than any home setup from the past, or emulating analog hardware and real instruments. But this doesn't mean people were not resourceful back in the day, or that they didn't find ways to record under any budget. And it certainly doesn't mean that music was any less valid, despite the recording methods used. Viva home recording — it's been around a long time and it will always exist!
— LARRY CRANE,EDITOR & FOUNDER
With 2014's Lost in the Dream, The War on Drugs have made it onto most people's playlists. Frontman and producer extraordinaire Adam Granduciel was kind enough to take a break from touring to discuss the unique making of the record, as well as some of his production philosophies.
An Australian architecture student bumps into famous producer/engineer Flood while studying in Ireland, returns home to start playing in bands, and eventually moves to London and becomes an in-demand...
The band moe. has been going strong since forming in Buffalo, NY, over 20 years ago. Guitarist/vocalist Al Schnier joined up in 1991; the band has been busy on the road, as well as releasing albums, e...
Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Seth Kauffman has been crafting exotic music for over a decade. Whether he's recording albums under the moniker, Floating Action, sitting in on sessions with Dan A...
Bill Cheney and Jim Romney are the men responsible for keeping the amazing legacy of Spectra Sonics, a legendary, if criminally unheralded, pro-audio company alive.
Bill Cheney and his partner Jim Romney are the men responsible for keeping the amazing legacy of Spectra Sonics, a legendary, if criminally unheralded, pro-audio company alive.
Brad Blackwood mastered the recording of my friend Brandon Herrington's band's Fast Planet at his studio Euphonic Masters. The sonic quality was incredible! His mastering production skills were clearl...
Ted Nugent, REO Speedwagon, Poison, Mötley Crüe, Molly Hatchet, Twisted Sister. When pitching this article to Tape Op, it was not lost on me that many of the artists that Tom Werman signed and/or produced in the '70s, '80s, and early '90s are probably exactly what drove a good number of this magazine's readers to create a scene, as well as methods of making and recording music, that circumvented the commercial rock establishment. But I probably wasn't the only kid running around the streets in 1987 with a Maxell XLII in his Walkman that had Poison's Open Up and Say... Ahh! on one side of the tape and Hüsker Dü's Flip Your Wig on the other. Even if I was, it's hard to argue that Cheap Trick's late '70s trifecta of In Color, Heaven Tonight, and Dream Police — all Werman productions — weren't the high water mark of American power pop. Werman, now 69, stopped making records almost completely in the mid '90s when the alternative rock revolution resulted in him becoming essentially unemployable, due to his close association with glam metal. He says, "I was already 55 in 1990; time to hang it up, really. How many lifetime producers work successfully beyond that? A handful. Tom Dowd, Jerry Wexler, George Martin, and Phil Ramone. Not hard rock guys though." Rather than slog it out, Werman opened a luxury bed and breakfast called Stonover Farm, located in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts. The establishment is still thriving, and that's where I visited him on a snowy winter's day to discuss his unusual career arc, unwaveringly pop aesthetic, and, most importantly, what it was like to make hit records in an era where the budgets were even bigger than the snare reverbs.