Theo Croker

Interviews

Theo Croker

By Obidi Nzeribe and Geoff Stanfield

With two feet planted firmly in the jazz world, as well as tentacles reaching into hip-hop, R&B, ambient, world music, and experimental genres, Grammy-nominated producer, composer, and trumpeter Theo Croker makes his voice heard far and wide. His latest release BLK2LIFE // A FUTURE PAST is a sonic...

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Sami Perez

Interviews

Sami Perez: Breaking the Rules

By Diana Lungu, Avinash Mittur

Many folks who work in the studio straddle the line between musician and engineer on any given day. Sami Perez has kept her feet in...

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Groenalund

Interviews

Groenalund: Keeping the ABBA Sound Alive

By Kai Lanak, Greg Charles

Throughout his eight-year adventure of recording and producing Groenalund, a project for capturing the sound of the group ABBA, Mar...

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Catherine Anne Davies

Interviews

Catherine Anne Davies: is The Anchoress

By Lily Warring, Larry Crane
Or, conversely, The Anchoress is Catherine Anne Davies, a Welsh-born talented songwriter,...
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Roger Eno

Interviews

Roger Eno: Chasing Colours

By Larry Crane, Cecily Eno
I first heard Roger Eno via Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks, the dreamy music written...
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Glenn Brown

Interviews

Glenn Brown: A Michigan Legend

By Andy Reed
Immersed in the world of recording since the age of 15, Glenn Brown wears many hats. With...
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MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

DECEMBER 16, 2025 INTERVIEWS
The Mental Health of Making Records

The Mental Health of Making Records

BY KYLE MICHAEL NICOLAIDES

Making records has been both blissful and traumatic for me. I've made records with people (and in environments) so un-fun it could make a horrifying night on ayahuasca seem like a family trip to the ice cream parlor. I won't bore you with horror stories, but my overall point is that making records can be hard on our mental health, and your mental health can deeply affect your ability to make these records. These two are not separate. My goal in writing this piece is to help us all take better care of our mental health while recording. I, jokingly – yet not so jokingly – will tell you, "I put my 10,000 hours into suffering while making records so you don't have to." Here's what I learned. [Please note that this article mentions suicide. Help is always available. Please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 if you are having any life-threatening issues. -Ed]

DECEMBER 16, 2025 INTERVIEWS
Jay Ruston

Jay Ruston: It’s All Subjective

BY DIANA LUNGU, AVINASH MITTUR

Metal albums live in a perpetual battle between clarity and attitude, and Jay Ruston has become a go-to for heavy artists looking to toe that line. His productions harken back to an era of analog goodness, but with a modern aggression and deference to metal's penchant for technical wizardry. He's become a go-to for L.A.'s hair metal jokesters Steel Panther, as well as bug-eyed thrashers like Anthrax and Mr. Bungle. But no matter who the artist is, the result always seems to contain at least some Jay Ruston signatures: clear yet searing guitars, snapping and popping drums, and pristine vocals that would make pop producers envious.

DECEMBER 16, 2025 INTERVIEWS
Garret “Jacknife” Lee

Garret “Jacknife” Lee: Looking for Noise

BY LARRY CRANE, ESMÉ LEE AND JACKIE RADINSKY

A "typical" Tape Op interview might follow the path of playing music, learning engineering, and becoming a producer. Garret "Jacknife" Lee took the path of playing in a punk band, quitting to do electronica, doing a multitude of remixes, and then becoming a producer. Why is this interesting? Check out records by U2, R.E.M., The Killers, Snow Patrol, Bloc Party, The Hives, Weezer, One Direction, Silversun Pickups, Editors, Modest Mouse, and his recent collaboration (BAMANAN) with Malian vocalist Rokia Kone?, to see why.

DECEMBER 16, 2025 INTERVIEWS
Stu Mackenzie of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard

Stu Mackenzie of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard: A Lot More Considered

BY JASON GALEA, GEOFF STANFIELD

I entered the world of Australia's King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard a few years back, via their Turkish psych-rock record, Flying Microtonal Banana. It struck me as so fun and fresh, touching on sounds of the Middle East and North Africa, but also with the power and fuzzy sludge of some of my favourite stoner rock records from Kyuss and Sleep. The band has released a staggering 20 albums in the past 12 years – in fact, at least three since we conducted this interview – and each of them offers a diverse look into the mind of KGLW's principal songwriter, producer, engineer, and general mastermind, Stu Mackenzie. The touchpoints on the music map are as wide-ranging as thrashy metal, odd-time signature microtonal-folk, surf rock, and bluesy wizard-rock to name a few stops along the journey that is King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard.

COLUMNS

END RANT by Larry Crane
Sorting it Out
END RANT

Sorting it Out

by Larry Crane

Recently, I was helping out a client via one of my Virtual Recording Workshops. In his single song session, there were almost 100 guitar tracks, with multiple amps and mics for every part and overdub. He was trying to learn more about his gear, what would work, and how to best apply every technique...

GEAR GEEKING by Andy Hong
Gear Geeking w/ Andy...
GEAR GEEKING

Gear Geeking w/ Andy...

by Andy Hong

F. Reid Shippen [Tape Op #125], Pete Lyman of Infrasonic Mastering, and I are breaking ground on a 15,000 sq ft media production and mastering facility in Nashville. One of the rooms in our complex will be a library with a curated selection of high-end hi-fi and home theater gear. With that library...

GEAR REVIEWS

Gear Reviews

500ADAT Expander/500 Series Rack

BY 500ADAT Expander/500 Series Rack  |  reviewed by Geoff Stanfield

The Cranborne Audio 500ADAT is an 8-channel converter/expander for your current interface, with a built-in 500 Series rack, summing mixer, and monitor section that includes two separate headphone outputs. I have been using and enjoying the Cranborne 500R8 [Tape Op #135] and simply love it for the...

Gear Reviews

A23-M Powered Monitor

BY A23-M Powered Monitor  |  reviewed by Garrett Haines

The A23-M is a 3-way studio monitor from Switzerland’s PSI Audio. My account of the company’s two-way A17-M monitors [Tape Op #142] provided details about the product line, so I won’t repeat it all here. In short, PSI Audio’s speakers are hand-made, individually calibrated, and response tested. The...

Gear Reviews

AIR LINK DW 20BR Bluetooth Receiver

BY AIR LINK DW 20BR Bluetooth Receiver  |  reviewed by Larry Crane

Looking for an easy way to stream audio from laptops and phones during sessions? For years, Jackpot! has had a 1/4-inch jack mounted on the producer’s desk, with a long cable line feeding a Radial Engineering J+4 (boosting -10 dB to +4 dB) into our Dangerous Music Monitor ST [Tape Op #60]. This...

Gear Reviews

Control 2 Software & FX Rack Plug-Ins

BY Control 2 Software & FX Rack Plug-Ins  |  reviewed by Jeff Elbel

Apogee’s Symphony Desktop was first covered last spring in Tape Op #142. Firmware and software were still in beta testing at the time, so the unit was reviewed based on its primary hardware functionality as a two-channel audio interface. Boasting a pair of Apogee’s flagship-quality converters and...

Gear Reviews

Converter

BY Converter  |  reviewed by Anthony Gravino

Most people who have ever had the pleasure of using an iZ Technology RADAR 24 [Tape Op #56] recorder know they are rock solid digital audio recorders, with an analog workflow and exceptionally high-quality sound. The first time I heard a RADAR 24 was in 2004, and I was blown away by how much better...

Gear Reviews

LCD-5 Headphones

BY LCD-5 Headphones  |  reviewed by Geoff Stanfield

I’ve been using Audeze headphones for several years now, have written glowingly about them, and wholeheartedly recommend their headphones. The LCD-X [Tape Op #119] Reference Series models are my go-to headphones for double-checking mixes for tiny gremlins and for pleasure listening. After years of...

Gear Reviews

LP Series – 2nd Wave Nearfield Monitors

BY LP Series – 2nd Wave Nearfield Monitors  |  reviewed by Jonathan Saxon

An upgrade to Kali Audio’s Project Lone Pine (LP) line of nearfield studio monitors has been released, and is worthy of a follow-up to my review of the original LP monitors [Tape Op #133]. The LP Series – 2nd Wave line comes with all the features of the original LP line, such as 6.5-inch or 8-inch...

Gear Reviews

M1 Tube Condenser Mic

BY M1 Tube Condenser Mic  |  reviewed by Evan Sutton

I recently became frustrated with what felt like an all too common theme in the conversation about gear: a hyper-reverence to the gold standard “classic” mics and how out of reach (financially and otherwise) they can be for most working engineers and musicians. As recording industry professionals,...

Gear Reviews

MA-37 Tube Microphone

BY MA-37 Tube Microphone  |  reviewed by Adam Kagan

Vintage sound has become the new modern. To this end, Mojave Audio (Burbank, California) has released its adaptation of the vintage Sony C37A large-diaphragm tube condenser microphone. The original C37A, developed and first released by Sony in Japan in the mid-1950s, shared very little technology...

Gear Reviews

Mercury Helios 3S PCIe Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis

BY Mercury Helios 3S PCIe Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis  |  reviewed by Anthony Gravino

Plenty of people still own PCIe audio interfaces, but in the past, these have been limited to use with larger tower computers with PCIe slots. Many now record on laptops or other smaller portable computers that are physically unable to accommodate PCIe cards, but still desire the speed and...

Gear Reviews

Paragon Reverb Plug-In

BY Paragon Reverb Plug-In  |  reviewed by Michael Romanowski

Space. The final frontier. Is it? So, what is space as it relates to music? Space is that last audible cue that gives listeners a sense of location. Near, far, big room, small room, no room, etc. It consciously or unconsciously informs the listener where a performance, sound effect, or any other...

Gear Reviews

Refurbished Vintage iPod

BY Refurbished Vintage iPod  |  reviewed by John Baccigaluppi

My last iPod died about three years ago when the hard drive failed. Since then, I've lost my iPhone and iPad music library of MP3s during various upgrades when trying to keep them compatible with my aging, but very stable, 2012 Mac laptop that I use for Tape Op layout and for Pro Tools at home. I...

Gear Reviews

SD-1 Standard Dynamic Microphone

BY SD-1 Standard Dynamic Microphone  |  reviewed by Dana Gumbiner

Whenever my musician buddies or clients looking to start recording at home ask me what their first mic purchase should be, I often propose the Shure SM7B cardioid dynamic [Tape Op #36]. This decades-old design has been a workhorse for broadcasters and audio engineers. It’s inexpensive, durable, and...

Gear Reviews

T-67 Microphone Kit

BY T-67 Microphone Kit  |  reviewed by Will Stratton

MicParts, the DIY-oriented company run by Roswell Pro Audio’s Matt McGlynn, has built up a faithful clientele over the last decade by delivering meticulously sourced and well-documented microphone kits for various applications, some of which are easy enough for a first-time solderer to put together...

Gear Reviews

VIP-60 Microphone

BY VIP-60 Microphone  |  reviewed by Dan Knobler

The new Milab VIP-60 large diaphragm condenser mic is marketed as an update to its flagship VIP-50, but in all honesty, I had never heard of, seen, or used its predecessor. It’s quite refreshing to pick up a well-built microphone with no preconceptions. The VIP-60 has a unique design – think ‘80s...

Gear Reviews

Workflow Platform for Creatives

BY Workflow Platform for Creatives  |  reviewed by Eli Crews

EC: The past two years have given many of us an opportunity to reexamine our daily routines. For me, this manifested most profoundly in my work environment. I was already doing a fair amount of unattended mixing before March of 2020, but when that suddenly became the only way I could continue to...