Tape Op Magazine - Issue #169

Interviews

Pete Caigan

By Nils Schlebusc and Larry Crane

Pete Caigan, the studio manager and chief engineer for a revamped Utopia Studios Bearsville, is a longtime Woodstock-area resident and busy guy. Utopia is a multi-use space that is deal for video/film shoots, live recordings, album sessions, and more. The Lumineers recent album, Automatic, was...

Interviews

Mike Viola: A New Day and a New Song

By Andy Reed, Charlie Weinmann

Mike Viola is a musical powerhouse, in every sense. His fearless approach to songcraft and record making is uncanny. He also has the ability to deliver them with an impressive vocal performance. Mike has worked as a producer, engineer, songwriter, composer, performer, and A&R for countless...

Interviews

David Lowery: Fathers, Sons and Brothers

By Jason Thrasher, Geoff Stanfield

For over four decades, David Lowery has been an innovator and thought leader in the music business. As musician, he's the founder and leader of both indie rock legends Camper Van Beethoven and the successful band Cracker. He's also a writer, producer, studio owner, educator, and – as a...

Interviews

Bob Attiyeh of Yarlung Records: Bob Attiyeh

By John Baccigaluppi, Ian Brennan

Bob Attiyeh founded Yarlung Records over 20 years ago, and they have gone on to release...

Interviews

Remembering Terry Manning: Terry Manning

By Blake Morgan, Sherrie Manning

Terry Manning [Tape Op#58] had already changed my life before I ever met him. Like many of...

MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

MARCH 3, 2026 INTERVIEWS

Behind The Gear with Johannes Russ of Ableton: The Making of Move

BY DANA GUMBINER, GERNGROSS GLOWINSKI

We recently had a chance to meet up with Johannes Russ, Ableton's Head of ABL Products Unit (Move, Note, and Core Technology), to talk about their new portable music-making tool. Our conversation was held at Different Fur Studios in the Mission in San Francisco a few days in advance of the official announcement of Move [Tape Op #164]. Johannes is a soft-spoken and thoughtful designer who clearly values the user experience and shares many frank and transparent insights into what goes into building new music hardware from scratch. Read on!

MARCH 3, 2026 INTERVIEWS

Stella Mozgawa: As Relaxed as Possible

BY JOHN BACCIGALUPPI

I met Stella Mozgawa a decade or so ago at Panoramic, the studio I co-own, when she played drums on Cate Le Bon's Crab Day LP, produced by Noah Georgeson and Josiah Steinbrick and engineered by Samur Khouja. Over the years, I'd see more of this crew, especially Stella and Cate. Stella may be best known as the drummer for Warpaint, but she is also a very busy and in-demand session drummer and producer as well. One of the last sessions we did before the pandemic was in the fall of 2019, for Kurt Vile with Cate producing, Stella drumming, and Gabe Wax engineering. These tracks ended up on Kurt's Back to Moon Beach record a few years later. Cate and Stella stuck around for a few days after the session, and I enjoyed their company and having them around the studio. They have both kept busy these past few years, and Stella and I have recently reconnected a few times, including one memorable surf session where the incoming tide pulled us into the lagoon at our local break and we had to paddle to the boat docks to get out of the water. In April of 2025, I was in L.A. and stopped by her Los Feliz home studio to chat with her. I caught her in the morning before she was heading out to a session with Courtney Barnett, who she is co-producing a new album with.

MARCH 3, 2026 INTERVIEWS

Turbo: Let the Magic Drift In

BY ELTON , GEOFF STANFIELD

Atlanta-based producer and songwriter Chandler A. Great, professionally known as Turbo, has been behind hits from Travis Scott, Gunna, Lil Baby, Nav, and Young Thug. His signature productions are easily recognized, and he has an innate ability to distill songs and their presentations down to their essence. I caught up with Turbo from his home in Atlanta to discuss his early days, production process, genre-bending collaborations, and how he strives to always be evolving.

COLUMNS

GEAR REVIEWS

Gear Reviews

A226-MAIN active monitors

BY A226-MAIN active monitors | reviewed by Andy Hong

These are the most accurate speakers I’ve heard. Listening to them, especially for extended periods of time, is truly a revelation. I was lucky enough to host the public unveiling of this model during the opening party for my new home studio in Nashville. Earlier in the week, Roger Roschnik and...

Gear Reviews

A-Type multiband dynamic enhancer plug-in

BY A-Type multiband dynamic enhancer plug-in | reviewed by Scott McChane

Every music maker is constantly in search of that special something that can make their mixes stand apart from the crowd. Like its namesake, Universal Audio's A-Type multiband dynamic enhancer plug-in is based on the Dolby Laboratories A-Type noise reduction system introduced in 1965. In basic...

Gear Reviews

Demon Box audio processor

BY Demon Box audio processor | reviewed by Dana Gumbiner

Okay, my studio might need an exorcist now. We're testing out the Demon Box, an odd analog/digital hybrid instrument/controller/listening device that translates EMF (electromagnetic fields) into audio, MIDI, and control voltage (CV) signals. It's the first commercial product from L.A.-based Eternal...

Gear Reviews

Filterbank 2 dual analog filter

BY Filterbank 2 dual analog filter | reviewed by Stefan Konstantopoulos

In late 1996, I heard the “Setting Sun” radio single (featuring Noel Gallagher) by The Chemical Brothers. The sound was so unexpected and bombastic that it felt like the opening salvo of a pop revolution. My knowledge of synth-based music at that time ran fairly deep, encompassing genres from dance...

Gear Reviews

FLEA M 251 FET condenser mic

BY FLEA M 251 FET condenser mic | reviewed by Danielle Goldsmith

Hailing from Slovakia, FLEA Microphones has built a well-deserved reputation in classic vintage mic reproductions for over 20 years. They’ve tackled reinterpretations of iconic tube mics such as the AKG C12, the Neumann U 47, U 49, and M 49, and recently the renowned Telefunken ELA M 251. FLEA has...

Gear Reviews

FreqInOut FO1 hardware interface

BY FreqInOut FO1 hardware interface | reviewed by Matt Anderson

I made a few huge decisions and changes to my studio this year, which involved selling almost everything in my control room and starting from scratch. I needed a very specific, specialized recording interface for my needs. Because I was already massively over budget, I was going to have to wait...

Gear Reviews

HOC500 500 Series compressor

BY HOC500 500 Series compressor | reviewed by Larry Crane

The HOC500 is labeled as a "parallel opto compressor," and is a cousin to Hamptone's HOC1 half-rack version [Tape Op #100]. Adapted for a 500 Series chassis, there's a lot less room for controls, so a unique feature set has been adapted here. A pair of house-made opto cells are run through...

Gear Reviews

m701 audio interface

BY m701 audio interface | reviewed by Don Gunn

I’m a fanboy of Grace Design's gear, so when they announced the m701 interface at the NAMM Show in January, I immediately got in touch with Michael and Eben Grace to ask if I might be able to review it when it became available. Now that I’ve had a beta unit here in my studio for a few months, I can...

Gear Reviews

Mixerman's Ultimate Guide to Producing Records, Music & Songs (book)

BY Mixerman's Ultimate Guide to Producing Records, Music & Songs (book) | reviewed by Larry Crane

At almost 600 pages, this is a hefty book, and I just finished reading every word of it. Mixerman is Eric Sarafin [Tape Op #34]; an engineer, producer, mixer, musician, and writer with many decades of real experience making records. Subtitled "Everything You Need to Know About Producing, Recording,...

Gear Reviews

Passive Matrix Mixer five-channel mixer

BY Passive Matrix Mixer five-channel mixer | reviewed by Stefan Konstantopoulos

Kassia Lemieux and Dan Rouleau put Montreal on notice with their circuit-bending and refinishing of audio electronics under the moniker Screwed Circuitz. Then, in 2022, the duo founded Days of Yore to develop creative tools with aesthetics inspired by mid-20th-century consumer electronics built...

Gear Reviews

plunk guitar bridge damper

BY plunk guitar bridge damper | reviewed by Larry Crane

What is plunk? It's simply a piece of grooved rubber that fits on 6-string guitars right next to the bridge, damping the strings' sustain significantly. Inspired by the Reuben Cox (Old Style Guitar Shop, Los Angeles) rubber bridge guitars that are all the rage (Phoebe Bridgers, Blake Mills [Tape Op...

Gear Reviews

ProPatch patchbay

BY ProPatch patchbay | reviewed by Eli Crews

Over the past several decades, many of our most essential tools from the analog era have either adapted to give us more flexibility, recallability, and automation, or been replaced by digital versions in which these features are much easier to implement (and now come standard). One holdout, until...

Gear Reviews

RedNet TNX Dante interface

BY RedNet TNX Dante interface | reviewed by Don Gunn

Focusrite has had a firm foothold in the growing world of Dante-networked hardware for several years, and one of the cornerstones of their RedNet products has been the PCIeNX card, designed for use with tower computers or expansion enclosures. With many studios and artists now using desktop or...