Interviews
Interviews
Who is Sadie Dupuis? A writer, singer, and guitar player in the band Speedy Ortiz. Producer, writer, and collaborator behind Sad13. Label owner of Wax Nine Records. A writer, with a book of poetry out (Mouthguard) and many published poems. Sad13's Haunted Painting album came out last year, and, being a fan, I dropped a line to see if we could talk about the fine art of making albums.
As the reality of the pandemic set in earlier this year, recording engineers and musicians scrambled to adapt. With in-person recording sessions postponed and canceled, many were left wondering how to continue work on recordings begun in commercial studios. Like so many others, I had lost most of my attended bookings at my professional studio space in Brooklyn, but I was still in the middle of dozens of projects. It was in this context that I first reached out to Jim Keller of Sondhus, a recording studio design and build firm based in New York, about renovating my basement at home into a usable space for mixing. What began in March as a makeshift setup quickly turned into my main place of work. Once it became clear that the pandemic would last months (or even years), rather than weeks, I made the decision to focus my business on remote mixing and decided to bring in a professional to navigate the many challenges of designing a residential studio. Jim began Sondhus in 2010, and has since built private studios for musicians such as Martin Gore of Depeche Mode, Laurie Anderson, and Pål Waaktaar-Savoy of A-ha, as well as engineers such as Heba Kadry [Tape Op #139], Jake Sinclair, and John O'Mahony [#101]. I sat down with Jim on the final day of my studio build to pick his brain about his design philosophy – which gives equal weight to studio acoustics, aesthetics, and functionality – and some of the most common technical issues faced in designing home recording and mixing setups.
At this point, Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover are the Melvins. They've recorded over 29 studio albums in all types of spaces and show no signs of slowing down. I caught up with Buzz and Dale for a couple of days on their "double bass player tour" (with Jeff Pinkus and Steven McDonald [interviewed this issue]) and talked to them about their ideas regarding making records, overdubs, and knowing when a recording is done. Jon Spencer even dropped in for part of our chat. How do I know these guys? I make records as Conan Neutron & the Secret Friends with Dale Crover on drums, and I'm also a continuing client at their studio, Sound of Sirens, with producer/engineer Toshi Kasai (interviewed this issue as well).
Since the early 2000s, PHO, born Leonardo Rojas, has navigated his dynamic career through the grand corridors of hip-hop, funk, and soul. By 2015, he was already considered one of the top 40 DJs in the world. Hailing from Bogotá, Colombia, he is equally as likely to be found behind the wheels of steel concocting a special auditory treat with left-field samples, as he is to be producing new music for his various projects as well as other artists, such as Natalia Lafourcade, Lianna, and Montañera. He recently helped design and develop the new Pioneer DJM-S11 mixer, while also working closely with other brands such as Ableton, Red Bull, and Serato. He is no stranger to hanging among hip-hop royalty, with the likes of De La Soul, DJ Jazzy Jeff, or the Invisibl Skratch Piklz. Yet you'll often find him at his Dubai residence, tinkering away to incorporate the latest technology in his performance-heavy routines. It's not surprising to catch him using gummies, plants, cans, or even the human body to create interesting sounds and experiences. We caught up with PHO to discuss his storied career as well as some of his new lockdown routines. (Full disclosure: PHO is one of my music publishing clients at Lucesca Productions.)
As I’m seemingly always reconfiguring my setup – with ergonomics, modularity, and aesthetics being the main driving forces – I was excited to get the opportunity to review AudioRax’s line of studio equipment racks. My oldest daughter had recently headed off to college, and I was given the green...
For mixing, arguably the most important consideration for your monitoring setup is translation. You can have the most mind-blowing speakers in the world, but if for whatever reason the work you do on them doesn’t sound right elsewhere, what’s the point? The physical room you are working in – and...
It’s easy to fall in love with the sound of some new headphones, as it might bring you a different picture from your existing pair. Inevitably for me, the novelty soon wears off, and I return to my trusted cans. However, the Audix A150s had the exact opposite effect. At first, they sounded rather...
PSI Audio started making speakers before some of us were born. Alain Roux introduced his designs in 1975, while a student at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. His company eventually became Relec SA. In 1991 Studer retained Alain and company to develop a line of OEM monitors. The...
Gummy residue on your Sennheiser MD 421s and mic stands from overuse of gaffer/duct tape? “Original” Surface Safe Goo Gone goo & adhesive remover to the rescue. With a fresh, citrusy smell, this liquid cleaner will easily remove that grime-grabbing gumminess that bums you out when you’re handling...
At my studio, Jackpot! Recording, while setting up for a tracking session I get pretty obsessive about fixing the little problems that annoy me. One of these “little” irritations is finding appropriate, safe, and durable mic clips for every microphone. One of my favorite pair of vintage mics are my...
In 2011 Black Lion audio released the B12A, their take on API’s well-known 312A preamp. Not marketed as a clone of the 312A, the B12A represented Black Lion’s re-engineered take to deliver that vintage “American” sound at a fraction of the price of the real deal. After much fanfare, and the success...
These days, it’s pretty rare to see a piece of audio equipment with an innovative feature set, but the Cranborne Audio Camden EC2 is indeed one of those rarities. It is a combination two-channel microphone preamp, saturation device, and dual headphone amp in a single space rack unit. Upon unpacking...
Twenty years ago a wiring guy loaned me a tool and reminded me to return it when I was finished because it was his “best flush-cutters” – I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. I’m still surprised at how many of my audio friends do not know about flush-cutters; a necessity for every...
Electric & Company, operated by Mattie Smith and crew out of Austin, Texas, hand-build a small lineup of tube microphone preamplifiers and refurbish vintage units. My first experience with this company was to have them convert two Ampex 601 reel-to-reel tape recorders into two preamp/DIs. These...
When I first got an original Roland RE-201 Space Echo, it required a lot of love to restore it to its former glory, so Echo Fix is who I turned to first. This Australian company has been providing parts for and servicing Space Echo delays and Maestro Echoplex units for over a decade. Fast forward...
Most ribbon microphones contain simply a thin aluminum ribbon, a magnet, and a transformer. This elegant design contributes much to what we love about the technology, but there are a few drawbacks: situational vulnerability to phantom power, low output levels, and demanding impedance requirements....
I’ve been recording many interviews for the Tape Op podcast series, and our new feature called DISCussion en mass. In-person we usually use the DPA 4061 lavalier mics [Tape Op #127] and the small MMA-A interface that they make. These work great, and you can get them connected to...
I have a hard time trusting my ears. To be fair, my already limited mixing experience has been further restricted by a tight budget. But the thing I have the hardest time wrapping my head (or, ears) around is the way that each new room brings with it different inconsistencies that one must adapt...
The McDSP APB (Analog Processing Box) [Tape Op #134] is the gift that keeps on giving. In addition to the original stock plug-ins the APB-8 and APB-16 shipped with, Colin and the folks at McDSP have now added the MC-3 Multi-band Compressor and modernized the L-18 Limiter to add surround support as...
In the category of alternate controllers, the Sensel Morph is one of the best I’ve seen to date. By alternate, I mean as an alternative to your ASCII keyboard, mouse, trackpad, and piano-style MIDI keyboard. Here’s the thing though, the Morph can replace all of those controllers, and more. It’s a...
I was an early adopter of Universal Audio’s UAD plug-in platform. My 2003 Power Macintosh G5 may have housed only a single UAD-1 DSP Card [Tape Op #41], but at the time, I thought the world of audio couldn’t get any better. No one could touch what Universal Audio was doing with their digital...
Perfect Groove, created by a small team of three developers at Rebeat Innovation, is a standalone application for Mac (OS X 10.11.6 or later and Windows 64-bit version 7 or later) that predicts how audio will be laid out and sound when it’s on vinyl. When an album is being prepared for vinyl, a...
If you want to time warp your sounds or samples, XLN Audio’s RC-20 Retro Color plug-in is most likely the tool for you. I should clarify that it is not a clinical, surgical, X-Acto knife of a plug-in, but rather a paint can of vintage vibe. What I’m trying to say is that the RC-20 is a heavy-handed...
Years ago, while wandering around NAMM or AES looking for new plug-ins that could do something cool and unique, I could always count on seeing the people from Synchro Arts showing off their unique plug-in VocAlign, which could take one vocal’s timing and impart it to another. At first, it was...
This is an ingenious and very useful $25 accessory for anybody who owns Sennheiser MD 421 microphones and is perpetually frustrated at the poorly-designed mic clip/mount, the one that results in the mic falling off the clip and needing to be duct-taped to stay in place. MicLock is a small, molded...
Frustrated because your stock Sennheiser MD 421 clip broke and you’re finding out that a replacement for the poorly designed original clip will cost you more than several gourmet pizzas to go? If so, check out this molded plastic replacement clip from Island Park Recording Company that wraps around...
The golden age of plug-ins is happening right now. Initially, most audio plug-ins aped existing analog gear such as EQs, compressors, and existing effects units like plate reverbs and tape delays. I almost never use compressor plug-ins, as I don’t think they come close to hardware units, and I will...
I’ve established Studio One [Tape Op #86] as my primary mix and master environment these days, making the jump with the previous version (Studio One Pro v4.5) [#132] from other – ahem – Pro(fessional) Tools(ets). Since that time, PreSonus has introduced a flurry of improvements to their flagship...
Eight years ago, I had the opportunity to evaluate Apogee’s Quartet audio interface [Tape Op #93]. I purchased my own Quartet as a result, and have trusted it ever since for use at The Happy Club studio and for remote sessions. But today I’m pitting the new Symphony Desktop against my older...
One of the most esteemed names in the world of audio production, TELEFUNKEN, has released a new and exciting product in their Alchemy line of microphones: the TF11. I was beyond excited to test out their newest offering. The TF11 is a large diaphragm FET condenser microphone designed and...
The Yamaha YC61 Stage Keyboard is a 61-key waterfall keyboard, now also available with 73 and 88 keys. It has three separate sound engines: VCM for the H Organs, FM for the F Organs and FM sounds in the Keys Section, and AWM2 (Advanced Wave Memory 2). The VCM Organ and AWM2 engines share 128 notes...
In Tape Op #83 – ten years ago – I favorably reviewed the original Zen & the Art of Mixing book, noting that it was “ideal for someone who is unhappy with their mixes and wants to get better.” I still absolutely agree with everything I wrote, and I heartily recommend this new version – please look...
