Tape Op Magazine - Issue #33

Interviews

Emitt Rhodes

By Kevin Ryan

The year was 1970. Hidden away in a London suburb with a Studer 4-track, Paul McCartney was clandestinely recording the songs that would form his first solo album, McCartney. 5,000 miles across the Atlantic, in Hawthorne, California, nineteen-year-old Emitt Rhodes was similarly ensconced in his...

Interviews

Dave Derr: Behind The Gear with Empirical Labs

By Walt Szalva

In many a studio the Empirical Labs Distressor is as much a common sight — and sound — as a guitar amp or coffee machine. And for good reason — it works well, it's highly tweakable, and it sounds great. Could it be that the Distressor is the ultimate compressor? The only other product...

Interviews

Dave Sardy: Barkmarket, Helmet, Slayer, more...

By Jeff Gros, Tim Scanlin

Dave Sardy is a rare bird in the world of rock production: A virtuoso on both sides of the glass. As the leader and producer of the groundbreaking New York post- hardcore trio Barkmarket, he mined not only new depths of heaviness and lyrical potency, but also managed to capture some unbelievably...

Interviews

Tony Levin & Jerry Marotta

By Larry DeVivo

Tony Levin is one of the masters of bass guitar and the Chapman Stick, having played with...

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Billy Anderson: Neurosis, Mr. Bungle, Melvins, L7, more...

BY HAYLEY LEE MADDEN, ROMAN SOKAL

Billy Anderson recorded one of hard rock's most intriguing and fucking coolest albums in history — Jerusalem, by the now-defunct legendary stoner-rock band Sleep. It was a lengthy one-track sonic low-end frequency voyage into unknown that was almost too volatile to be put on shelves. And when you came out of it, you felt stoned — literally, as if the heavy boulder — rolling rhythms and sounds he captured had hit you repeatedly over the head like the way they did it in Biblical times. In fact, Anderson has recorded some of the best curios within the rock genre, from stoner rock and beyond — all pieces of musical and sonic art by the likes of Fantomas, Mr. Bungle, Neurosis, the Melvins, L7, Unsane and even the Red House Painters. Anderson is also a mysterious character — his name appearing everywhere but his likeness and such remaining relatively in the unknown. I managed to track him down at his abode in the San Francisco Bay Area, to have a chat with this "big brother in sound", a man who knows his way around every environment, and sports the necessary mental traits of being professional and warmly informal, both at the same time.

FEBRUARY 22, 2026 INTERVIEWS

Keith Olsen: Mixing Magic

BY KEVIN RYAN

Though Emitt [see interview this issue] wrote the songs, played every note, and acted as his own engineer and producer, when mixing time rolled around the tapes were whisked away to Sound City where the team of Keith Olsen and Curt Boettcher would work their magic. Keith, of course, would go on to become an insanely successful producer (Fleetwood Mac, anyone?), but in 1970 he was still a young engineer, just trying to make a name for himself. We recently spoke about his work on Emitt's albums and what it entailed.

FEBRUARY 22, 2026 INTERVIEWS

Noise Gates: Gates: Not Just for Noise Anymore

BY DAVID PATTERSON, LARRY CRANE

Audio gates are one of the most powerful, yet often overlooked, tools in your recording arsenal. A properly set gate can tighten your drum tracks, clean up your vocals, reduce leakage from other sound sources, minimize noise from amplifiers or cassette tapes, or create dramatic effects.

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COLUMNS

by Larry Crane

GEAR REVIEWS