Welcome to issue #163 of Tape Op.

I never went to school to learn how to become a recording engineer.* But, regardless, some studio fundamentals and skills took me years to learn, and every time I did gain knowledge it was often under a ton of pressure – usually during an actual recording session!

When tracking Sleater-Kinney's iconic One Beat album in 2002, producer John Goodmanson [Tape Op#35] pulled up to my studio with a Pro Tools TDM rig. Honestly, upon seeing that, I was terrified. I'd seen Pro Tools (and even Digidesign's Sound Tools) since first making use of it in 1993. I had booked sessions with other engineers to use it to repair tracks and edit DAT-recorded mixes together, but I had never hit the space bar on a digital audio workstation. John patiently showed me how to create a track, how to arm it for input, how to set levels, and how to hit record and punch in. That was it; I was on my way. Soon, a Digidesign Digi 001 had replaced my DAT machine for mixing stereo down to. Not long after that, I could handle multitrack digital sessions, even though I'd once told a friend, "There will never be a computer in this studio."

I guess you could say that learning on the fly and adapting in the moment is my school, for better or worse. I'm still coming across new software to figure out, and trying out techniques that other engineers suggest. Music itself is a lifelong pursuit, even just simply hearing more of it and understanding new sounds. Keep listening, keep doing, keep learning!

Larry Crane, Editor & Founder

*I never even studied journalism, or how to be a magazine editor either!

About this issue's cover art: Earlier this year, OG Tape Op contributor and wizard of Brooklyn's Studio G, Joel Hamilton, sent us a photo of a vintage Neve broadcast console he was selling that featured a built-in analog, rotary dial phone. How cool! It reminded me of that '60s TV show, Get Smart. Does anybody else remember that? I thought it would make a cool magazine cover, but the images Joel had were not hi-res. Around the same time, Jim Cork at Explore Studio (who did the cool Portastudio™ art for Tape Op#159) dropped a line about doing more art for us, and I suggested Joel's console as a starting point. Amazingly, a few weeks later Jim submitted this issue's cool cover art. -JB