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Gear Reviews
388 8-track tape machine & mixing board
So you want to start recording? You've squeezed all you can out of disposable gear? You're low on funds, experience or training? Read on - this is for you. In 1985 Tascam offered two related machines. The 234 and the 388. The 234 is a front-loading, rack-mountable cassette deck. It has VUs for each...
Gear Reviews
Aark 24 Professional 24-Bit Multitrack Hard Disk Recording System
The Aark 24 is a professional-quality audio interface designed to turn any capable PC into a serious Digital Audio Workstation. The package includes the Aark 24 PCI Host card, the Aark 24 Interface box, a 6 foot shielded 25-pin cable, a software disk with the Aark 24 drivers and the Aark Manager...
Gear Reviews
Audio Equalizer SR-107 Series
Microphone selection and placement can provide a huge range of equalization options, and combining two mics to produce phase cancellation introduces even more possibilities but electronic devices can shape timbre in very different ways than acoustic physics. The 10 bands of the SR-107 provide a lot...
Gear Reviews
Audio Toolbox ATB-1
Does this scenario sound familiar? You're engineering a record for an indie-rock band. The band's on a budget. You hire a studio. One with an analog multitrack for that fat "rock" sound. And it being a studio that fits into the band's limited budget - the gear hasn't been aligned since... well,...
Gear Reviews
Custom Wiring
I've gone through two and half incarnations of my living room studio. And unlike most home studios, my current setup leans more in the hi-fi direction instead of in the all-in-one 4/8/16-track direction. My first living room studio had wiring custom made by Conquest Audio. I spec'd out the cable...
Gear Reviews
Digital Time Delay
This very primitive digital delay displays no visible model number. Early digital delays have grown unfashionable in comparison to analog delays or better quality newer models, so it is very inexpensive used. It provides a simple, functional delay with flexible control of delay time, regeneration,...
Gear Reviews
Mixer Stands
I own a number of stands and racks made by the Italian company Quik Lok. My current console sits on top of a castor-equipped Quik Lok WS-44 workstation. My last two mixers were supported by a Quik Lok RS- 958 roll-around mixer rack. The autolocator for my analog multitrack is on a Quik Lok QL-400...
Gear Reviews
MPC - 100A mic pre/compressor
One of my favorite new purchases this season was this tube Mic pre/compressor-limiter by Summit Audio. I first used the unit as a bass pre and it worked great. It has a Hi-Z input on the faceplate making it real convenient to use with line instruments. The Hi-Z input also has an impedance matching...
Gear Reviews
Nile V Nearfield Monitors
I don't think I've ever been 100% happy with a set of monitors - it's more a case of getting used to what you are working with in order to achieve mixes that will work in the real world. For the last few months I've been tracking and checking my mixes on a pair of the Audix Nile V speakers, and...
Gear Reviews
Omni Studio
I am fortunate to own a nice recording studio with both two inch analog tape and a hard drive recording system. But, as I learn more about recording onto computers, it's really nice to realize the vision of a 'desktop' recording environment. Last issue, I reviewed Logic Audio Platinum. This issue,...
Gear Reviews
Reaktor Software
If any of you are bedroom producers whose tastes lean towards the experimental or electronic, then here is your holy grail. Reaktor is an industrial strength native synthesis program with an inexhaustible potential for sonic mayhem. If you are are new to the concept of native synthesis - basically...
Gear Reviews
Real Reverb Spring Reverb
With the millions of multi-effects digital processors out these days it's kind of refreshing to see an effect that only does one thing and does it very well. This is a true spring reverb - like they used to make - and it uses vibrating springs to create a reverberation effect that simulates room...
Gear Reviews
Superbaby tube amp
I've had a lot of guitar players come in with smaller amps lately - old Supros and Champs that when pushed to the limit deliver excellent overdriven guitar tones at easily manageable volumes. You just put a decent condenser mic in front and there you go. Emery Sound is making new all-tube,...
Gear Reviews
Tec Pulsar
The best $10 you'll ever spend. How many times have you had to look behind/around/underneath a rack/mixer/recorder, and you kick yourself for not having your Mini Mag-Lite in easy reach? No excuses when you've got your Princeton Tec Pulsar. It's about the size of a quarter, it fits on your...
Gear Reviews
The Binaural Skull
Take a phantom-powered version of the "Build Your Own Mic" from Tape Op #16, install two in a plastic model of a human skull, and you have the coolest new mic to track stereo signals in the studio while reminding sloppy musicians of their own mortality. The grinning skull features an adjustable...
Gear Reviews
Transient Designer
First off, this unassuming one rack-space unit did not look capable of performing what the manual had written for performance capabilities. The unit, from Sound Performance Lab, is the Transient Designer model 9842, a dynamic processor for signal attack and sustain. At first glance it looks very...