JULY 18, 2025 INTERVIEWS
More Guitar Tuning Nightmares: Part 2 of 2 by Jack Endino
Tuning Nightmares, Part II Intonation, applied fretboard math, and other unspeakable studio terrors.
Interviews
Interviews
Interviews
MORE FROM THIS ISSUE
JULY 18, 2025 INTERVIEWS
Dave Amels: of The Bomb Factory
In the last six months I've been forced to learn my way around Pro Tools a bit while mixing some budget projects. Sonically, I'd rather mix through a console although I really enjoy the process of mixing on a computer. The problem is that most of the plug- ins sound like dookie compared to even inexpensive analog gear. So, do your best to get the sound you want onto disc, but for mixing these three plugs have really stood out and helped my mixes sound better. If I could only use three plug-ins, it would be these three. (note: these are all available as fully functional downloadable demos)
JULY 18, 2025 INTERVIEWS
Tarquin studios: Making records in the attic
People often write Tape Op asking how recording engineers start working in the field, and how they develop their own studios. With his obsessive, old-fashioned work ethic, Peter Katis almost makes the process seem obvious. Tarquin Studios, named for his younger brother who joined us for the interview, has moved from the Katis family basement to the top of a house of its own. Along the way Peter has worked with musicians ranging from Mercury Rev (who love his old keyboards) to The Get Up Kids, from Guster to the Raymond Scott Orchestrette, from Oneida to Alex Blake. Producers like Scott Litt [Tape Op #81] and Eric Drew Feldman have joined him behind his mixing board. He and Tarquin still play in three bands, the Philistines Jr., the Happiest Guys in the World and the Zambonis, and they both also skate on the ice hockey team of the legendary New York studio the Hit Factory.
JULY 18, 2025 INTERVIEWS
Tube amps w/ Geoff Farina: Troubleshooting Tube Guitar Amps
DISCLAIMER #1: DO NOT TRY ANYTHING BELOW UNLESS YOU HAVE READ MY PREVIOUS COLUMNS, HAVE A THOROUGH UNDERSTANDING OF ANALOG ELECTRONICS, USING MULTIMETERS, DISCHARGING FILTER CAPACITORS, AND GUITAR AMPLIFIER REPAIR IN GENERAL. TUBE GUITAR AMPLIFIERS CONTAIN LETHAL VOLTAGES THAT CAN KILL YOU, EVEN WHEN THEY'RE UNPLUGGED! IF YOU DO ATTEMPT THESE REPAIRS, YOU DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU FRY YOUR AMP OR YOURSELF! DISCLAIMER #2: I'M NO EXPERT. I LEARNED EVERYTHING I KNOW FROM READING ABOUT AMPS, EXPERIMENTING, AND BLOWING THINGS UP. THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IS NOT COMPREHENSIVE, AND IS SIMPLY WHAT HAS WORKED FOR ME OVER THE YEARS.
COLUMNS
GEAR REVIEWS
Gear Reviews
2108 Dual Mic Preamplifier
I record a lot of drums, and I'm rarely happy with the sound of my snare drums. I mean, they work, and no one else complains, but I imagine how they could sound better. When I first ran kick and snare through this preamp I just about shit my pants. There was that deep bottom thunk, high end attack...
Gear Reviews
664 Microphone
On the back of the Fugs' second album on ESP, they're pictured holding EV 664s in their hands. Hopefully the mics rested on stands, because their large bodies make them awkward to carry. The 664 relies on the Variable-D® design principle to reduce proximity effect. In a Variable-D microphone, ports...
Gear Reviews
Cool Edit Pro 2.0
I don't know why the world works this way, but it seems that everyone jumps on the bandwagon like sheeple. What I'm getting at is that most people will choose one item over another based on popularity or marketing rather than looking at the options and choosing the best one for them. Cool Edit is a...
Gear Reviews
Eclipse Effects Processor
What impresses me most about Eventide is the company's ability to reinvent itself more than Madonna. This company's been making audio gear since the dawn of time (or thirty years, whichever comes first). Remember the 1745 delay? Of course you don't, you're too damn young. Don't worry-welcome to the...
Gear Reviews
EQ1-LP and EQ1-DYN Digital Equalizers
You know, mastering engineers can dream too. I know what it is like for Tape Op readers to dream about getting that one special Neumann U 47 microphone or that vintage API console, but I am here to tell you that we too (mastering engineers) dream of getting pieces of gear we really can't afford. In...
Gear Reviews
Holy Grail Reverb Pedal
What do you do when the guitar player you're recording wants reverb on their guitar but doesn't have any on their amp? Do you "add it in the mix"? Screw that, add it to the amp. The Holy Grail is a digital reverb pedal with simulations of spring, hall and flerb. The spring is fairly realistic,...
Gear Reviews
LD-2ube Microphone
When I was contacted about reviewing the LD-2ube and was told that it was a tube mic for $300, I said, "Huh? yeah! I'll check that out." I've used it on every vocal session since then. This mic is within the stream of mics made in China that are knock-offs of other "name" microphones. I just look...
Gear Reviews
Matrix 805 Speakers
While trends in monitoring come and go, these speakers probably fall second to NS-10Ms as dinosaurs of the nearfield world. Any similarities between the two speakers ends there. The Matrix 805 reaches lower frequencies than its size would indicate, with very low distortion for its ported design. It...
Gear Reviews
MBC 603
MBHO is a well established German company specializing in high-quality condenser mics. Unfortunately, MBHO is not very well known in the U.S. Originally part of the hi-fi company MB Quart in the early '60s, it later became an independent company led by Mr. Herbert Haun. As well as manufacturing its...
Gear Reviews
Polymer Film Pickups
Certainly one of the coolest and most inexpensive devices I've stumbled upon over the last couple of years! Pick-up the World pickups are technically contact microphones. (Contact mics were originally designed for medical and military purposes.) A thin piece of polymer film works as the contact...
Gear Reviews
RealVerb
My three fave plug-ins + an interview with Dave Amels of The Bomb Factory In the last six months I've been forced to learn my way around Pro Tools a bit while mixing some budget projects. Sonically, I'd rather mix through a console although I really enjoy the process of mixing on a computer. The...
Gear Reviews
TLA-50 Tube Compressor
Like it's bigger brother, the Summit TLA-100 and the venerable LA-2A, the TLA-50 has a less-is-more approach, with only two knobs, gain and gain reduction, on its half-rack space panel. There are however two three position switches for attack and release times, giving you a bit more control than...
Gear Reviews
Vibra1000 Software Synthesizer for MacOS
Four Freeware/ Shareware Software Synthesizers: Recently, for better or worse, my guitar has been gathering dust. I've been neglecting the faithful Fender for instruments which gather no dust: virtual synthesizers. And if you're a soft synthesizer junkie like me, or if you dig the sounds of square...
Gear Reviews
Wiggler Vibrato/Tremolo pedal
The Wiggler is a tube-driven vibrato and tremolo stompbox unit for use with guitars, keyboards and more. There are controls for volume (make-up gain after tremolo is something many boxes lack); intensity (blend of signals); mode (four levels of tone control as far as I could tell); a vib/trem...
Gear Reviews
Z 5600
SE. Electronics is one of many companies these days who are marketing Chinese-made condenser microphones for prices which border on the absurd. The company offered my studio a discount rate (on top of the already low price) if we purchased microphones directly from them. The prices wound up being...