Tape Op Magazine - Issue #22

Interviews

David Kilgour

By Steve Silverstein

My first exposure to New Zealand pop band the Clean came several years after the release of 1990's Vehicle, and I discovered their early singles and EPs after that. While the songwriting on Vehicle still impresses me, the band's early releases surprise me far more. Their combination of...

Interviews

Paul Kolderie & Sean Slade: Producing The Pixies, Radiohead, Hole, etc.

By William Bernhard, Eric Krauter

Looking at the resume of Sean Slade and Paul Kolderie is like reading a who's who of '90s rock: Radiohead, Hole, Dinosaur Jr., Uncle Tupelo, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, so on and so forth. I had the privilege of working with them while I was a member of Gerald Collier's band. Gerald was...

Interviews

Beulah: Leaving Home

By Nick Tangborn, John Vanderslice, Michael Brannan

While puzzling through the intricacies of home recording (i.e. knowing what to do when you can't hear yourself through the headphones), San Francisco's Beulah managed to concoct two LPs of brittle, rousing pop.

And now, with the help of indie producer John Croslin (Guided By Voices...

Interviews

Jack Drag: 4-track to 24-track and then back home

By Larry Crane

Jack Drag is really John Dragonetti of Boston- sometimes. John put out the self-titled...

MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

FEBRUARY 22, 2026 INTERVIEWS

Chris Knox: Chris Knox of the Tall Dwarfs

BY GAIL BUTENSKY, STEVE SILVERSTEIN

For the last 20 years, Chris Knox's approach to home recording has remained consistently creative and interesting. He has insisted upon approaching the technical limitations of his home studio as a strength to exploit rather than a weakness to hide. His music, both in the duo Tall Dwarfs and on his own, has remained relevant from the punk era through the popularity of indie rock and beyond. Despite the geographic detachment of his New Zealand home base, he's influenced countless bands throughout the world. I talked to Chris at the Chicago concert of his most recent US tour, where he was promoting two new releases, Beat and Almost.

FEBRUARY 22, 2026 INTERVIEWS

Marlborough Farms: Recording The Ladybug Transistor

BY PETRA LILJA, LARRY CRANE

Tucked away in a basement in Brooklyn, NY, is a sweet little studio known as Marlborough Farms. It's also the residence of Gary Olson, the driving force behind The Ladybug Transistor. In this studio Gary and his pal Bill Wells have made a number of amazing sounding albums for Ladybug, Saturnine and the Essex Green. And it was all done in a small room with no isolation. How? Let's see...

FEBRUARY 22, 2026 INTERVIEWS

Phill Brown: Robert Palmer 18th March 1975

BY PHILL BROWN

We interviewed Phill Brown in Tape Op #12. Over the years he's worked with some of the greatest artists ever, like Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, Traffic, Spooky Tooth, Jeff Beck, Led Zeppelin, Robert Palmer, Bob Marley, Steve Winwood, Harry Nilsson, Roxy Music, Stomu Yamash'ta, John Martyn, Little Feat, Atomic Rooster, and Talk Talk. This is another excerpt from his (as yet) unpublished book, Are We Still Rolling? Last issue: Phill worked with Dana Gillespie and had a frightening time with PCP. –LC

COLUMNS

GEAR REVIEWS

Gear Reviews

Channel in a Box mic pre, EQ and compressor

BY Channel in a Box mic pre, EQ and compressor | reviewed by Larry Crane

This is a one rack-space device that, as its name suggests, operates as a complete input channel, featuring a mic pre, high and low pass shelving, EQ and compression. And since it was designed by Mr. Rupert Neve, you can guess that it sounds pretty damn good! At first I was a bit skeptical - $3000...

Gear Reviews

DA-BM6A powered monitors

BY DA-BM6A powered monitors | reviewed by Larry Crane

My search for nearfield monitors is temporarily over. I finally stopped reading reviews or looking at ads and took another engineer's endorsement (Bruce Kaphan in San Francisco) to heart and ordered a pair of these Dynaudio BM-6As ($2000). I was not unhappy. They are self-powered with 2 100 watt...

Gear Reviews

Dragonfly mic

BY Dragonfly mic | reviewed by Larry Crane

Ever since I had to return my review copy of the Audio Technica 4047, I'd been feeling that there was a hole in my mic collection. I needed a good quality condenser mic with the sort of pronounced mid-range response that my Manley tube mic didn't have. Well, the Dragonfly is it. It's ripping on...

Gear Reviews

HP48 Headphone Amp

BY HP48 Headphone Amp | reviewed by John Baccigaluppi

Most of the focus of the audio industry goes into making new, innovative products, so it's nice to see someone go after the functional necessity side of things. MAM (Music and More) is a small German company that makes inexpensive analog processing (filters, phasers, EQs and a cool 11 band vocoder...

Gear Reviews

Microphone Modeler plug in (Direct X version for PC)

BY Microphone Modeler plug in (Direct X version for PC) | reviewed by Rich Hardesty

Antares Audio Technologies, the software DSP innovator that brought the world the Auto-Tune, has come forth with their latest digital mojo-in-a-box called the Microphone Modeler ($249). Perhaps you've heard of this new plug-in that claims to be able to take recorded input from even the most...

Gear Reviews

MX-2424 24-Track 24-Bit Hard Disk Recorder

BY MX-2424 24-Track 24-Bit Hard Disk Recorder | reviewed by Andy Hong

A few months ago, I picked up a Tascam MX-2424 hard disk recorder to supplement my analog multitrack decks. Three reasons convinced me to finally buy a digital recorder. 1. On a number of recent projects, I found myself wishing I had more than 16 or 24-tracks of tape at my disposal. With more than...

Gear Reviews

Nanosyncs wordclock distribution device

BY Nanosyncs wordclock distribution device | reviewed by Julian Standen

Using Pro Tools? Got 888/24s? Does leaving tape behind make you feel creepy? Or does fixing stuff on PT and then putting it back worry you? Heard about the more expensive Apogees? Well get hip to wordclock distribution! Oh yes! and jitter specs too! By feeding each of your 888/24 interfaces with a...

Gear Reviews

PCP Instrument Distro Rev 3.0

BY PCP Instrument Distro Rev 3.0 | reviewed by Julian Standen

The PCP distro is a hoot! Feeding a guitar into more than two amps at the same time can be a drain on the pickup and produce a weedy sound. The PCP device is buffered and fools the pick up that it is driving just one amp and each device connected to the 3 outputs is lead to believe it's "the only...

Gear Reviews

Pluggo plug ins bundle

BY Pluggo plug ins bundle | reviewed by John Baccigaluppi

At first glance, this collection of 74 VST Macintosh plug-ins might seem like a bit of a novelty. For one thing, it's only $74 retail whereas many manufacturers sell single plug-ins in the $200-$500 range. The goofy looking cartoon character on the front of the box doesn't do much either to instill...

Gear Reviews

POD Pro

BY POD Pro | reviewed by Larry Crane

I'm an old school kinda guy, so when a POD Pro found its way into the rack at my studio I just kept laughing at the idea of really using it on electric guitars - and I usually don't. I've only plugged a guitar or bass into it a few times, but I use it a lot. It's the best thing for adding a bit of...

Gear Reviews

Sparkle Drive Guitar Pedal

BY Sparkle Drive Guitar Pedal | reviewed by Mike Caffrey

Have you ever plugged a nice guitar into a good amp and gotten a really nice sound that fell short because it was too plain? This pedal solves that problem. When I think of Bruce Springsteen's guitar sound I think of it as "electric." I don't recall his tone as being a pure clean sound and I...