ISSUE ARCHIVE
NO. 171 | Nov 2025
NO. 170 | Sep 2025
NO. 169 | Sep 2025
NO. 168 | Jul 2025
NO. 167 | May 2025
NO. 166 | Mar 2025
NO. 165 | Jan 2025
NO. 164 | Nov 2024
Jul/Aug 2002
As I write this I'm still recovering from the first ever Tape Op Conference, which was held in Sacramento, CA, May 31-June 2. The event went very well, with informative panels, lots of passionate opinions, rockin' music at night, funny recording clips from movies on the big screen, a mariachi band at lunch and a blowout party at The Hangar to wrap things up on Sunday. Thanks again to everyone (especially Craig Schumacher who came up with the idea for the conference) who was there in any capacity — there was a real positive, exciting feeling about this whole event and many people made new friends and acquaintances. It looks like we'll probably do another Tape Op Conference next year, so keep your eye on the mag and the website to see where and when. We're also trying to figure out what to do with the video and audio from the event, and we'll let you know when that gets done. I think my biggest surprise (besides the fact that it went so smoothly) was that I learned so much. I got to sit for hours and listen to people share their knowledge and experience. Shit, it was almost like a live version of the magazine!
— LARRY CRANE,EDITOR & FOUNDER
It's the mid-60s and tubes are glowing hot in studios from 30th Street to Abbey Road. Wheels are in motion and the legacy of Leonard Chess and Sam Phillips is welling up in the ears of America. In Det...
I first worked with Leanne Ungar in 1992, when I was an assistant engineer at The Complex in West Los Angeles. The record was Leonard Cohen's The Future. Leanne has been engineering records for Leonar...
Howie Weinberg got his start in the Masterdisk mailroom, believe it or not. As a huge fan of music, Howie sought a purpose to support his passion, and he had always dreamed of working in the field of...
The Bevis Frond's 1986 debut Miasma could have come from any time, or maybe no time. Nick Saloman's home-recorded, somewhat primitive recording techniques would have fallen under the "lo-fi" moniker h...
Bart Thurber, once described by a record reviewer as the punk rock Phil Spector, has a favorite expression — "An engineer drives a train — I'm a recording guy". He's a West Coast legend to the 1,800 p...
Gee, that's just about everyone, isn't it?
When asked to come up with a "do it yourself" tube mic pre project, I thought long and hard about what topology to go with. I designed a number of different hybrid tube/discrete class A designs (elimi...
In issue #29 I wrote about an IC op amp upgrade for the UREI LA-4, a '70s-era optical limiter whose ancestors were the Teletronix LA-2 (vacuum tube) and the Universal Audio LA-3 (solid state). The original plan was to write more about the modifications but I've decided instead to share some tips for using all compressor/limiters and explain how they work. If you have any questions about LA-4 mods, just e-mail me at eaudio@tangible-technology.com. Dynamics processing is fascinating because there is so much to learn about each type — Optical, FET, variable-mu and VCA — as well as the products that use them. Quite by accident, my course of study has alternated between real world sessions and the geek stuff — bench testing, repair, restoration and modification. I like the aforementioned vintage optical compressor/limiters for their extreme simplicity, an inherent discipline that minimizes the variables, making them a good place to start.