Tape Op Magazine - Issue #35 - issue-35

Jason Falkner

Interviews

Jason Falkner

By Jeff Gros, Andy Hong, and Larry Crane

He's been a member of The Three O'Clock, Jellyfish and The Grays. His voice and instrumentation appear on albums by Beck, Susanna Hoffs, Eric Matthews, Aimee Mann, and Air. He co-wrote, produced, and performed on many of the songs on Brendan Benson's two CDs. And he has five solo...

Malcolm Burn

Interviews

Malcolm Burn: Recording Emmylou, Dylan & The Nevilles

By Larry DeVivo

It was a beautiful sunlit morning the day I headed down to interview producer/engineer Malcolm Burn. While driving, I couldn't help but ponder what the day had in store for me. Malcolm had invited me on a day he would be recording a string section for a group called Wood (from England) for the...

Geoff Daking

Interviews

Geoff Daking: Behind the Gear

By Eric Broyhill

A character, genius and great host are just a few of the words to use in describing Geoff Daking. A resilient man having survived an entire US tour with The Who opening for his band, The Blues Magoos, Geoff immediately strikes you as a man who could easily survive a nuclear war.

I recently had the...

John Goodmanson

Interviews

John Goodmanson: From Sleater-Kinney to Wu-Tang

By John Goodmanson, John Bosch, Larry Crane

John Goodmanson inhabits a unique place in the world of recording. Frequently traversing...

Boots Riley

Interviews

Boots Riley: The Coup and Hip-Hop mixing

By Leigh Marble

The Coup is a hip-hop group from Oakland. They have an outwardly Marxist bent, which has...

Plink

Interviews

Plink: Recording via the Internet

By Nick Altebrando

Plink is the brainchild of Scott Evans and Brad Derrick. Scott's a computer...

COLUMNS

GEAR REVIEWS

Gear Reviews

6176 Channel Strip

BY 6176 Channel Strip | reviewed by Larry Crane

What do you get when you combine the UA 610B tube mic preamp and the 1176LN compressor? The 6176, of course. Beyond the mic pre and compressor, the 610 section also boasts simple low and high shelf EQs-not terribly versatile but musical in the right ways for some material. See John's review of the...

Gear Reviews

ADL 670 stereo tube limiter

BY ADL 670 stereo tube limiter | reviewed by Pete Weiss

Crazy as it sounds, well-financed producers, engineers, and studio owners have for years been willing to pay upwards of $30,000 for a genuine Fairchild 670 stereo compressor. These back (and bank) breaking beasts were originally used for vinyl mastering and are renowned for their smooth, musical...

Gear Reviews

C 1000 S microphone

BY C 1000 S microphone | reviewed by Andy Hong

With fellow engineer Scott Craggs giving away all his secrets in the MXR review, I figured I should come clean and give away one of my recording secrets too. My all-time favorite guitar amp microphone is the AKG C 1000S electret condenser. Whenever I close-mic an amp, I try to put two different...

Gear Reviews

D-2 Microphone

BY D-2 Microphone | reviewed by Eric Broyhill

Since drummers are always destroying tom mics, it's not uncommon that the necessity to try something new on the toms arises. This time it was a Sennheiser 421 that was destroyed and an Audix D-2 that just happened to be sitting around. I was, of course, initially bummed not being able to use my...

Gear Reviews

Dangerous 2-BUS

BY Dangerous 2-BUS | reviewed by Joe Chiccarelli

Mixing out of the Box, Part 1: High End Mixer Shootout In recent months, there's been a bunch of talk on the various online forums about mixing digital audio tracks within your DAW vs. through an external analog mixer. A quick search on the Digidesign Users Conference, Mixerman's board on...

Gear Reviews

Doc?s Proplugs ear protectors

BY Doc?s Proplugs ear protectors | reviewed by Andy Hong

If you've read my past reviews about hearing protectors and noise-canceling headphones, you know that I'm careful with my ears. A few months ago, I discovered an ear protection system that was originally designed for watersports but is now being marketed to the music industry. Doc's Proplugs are...

Gear Reviews

Evolver

BY Evolver | reviewed by John Baccigaluppi

Having cut my teeth on a big Buchla modular synth back in my college days, I have always wanted to put a modular analog synth into my control room. Two things kept me from doing this: space and money. Then I stumbled upon the Evolver at the last NAMM show, and my dilemma has pretty much been...

Gear Reviews

Live 2 Real-Time Audio Sequencing Instrument

BY Live 2 Real-Time Audio Sequencing Instrument | reviewed by Chachi Jones

Sometimes the best way to make a new song is to just mess around, dive-in headlong, and improvise until something you like starts to take shape. In other words, jam. Jamming is a fundamental cornerstone of most music created in the last millennium and is probably one of the most valuable tools in a...

Gear Reviews

Lo-Fi Loop Junky stompbox

BY Lo-Fi Loop Junky stompbox | reviewed by Geoff Farina

For a recent project, I needed to find a portable replacement for my delicate Roland RE-150 Space Echo that I was reticent to trust in the hands of Air France. A few hours at various music stores yielded many inexpensive and versatile possibilities by Line 6, Akai, and Roland, all of which...

Gear Reviews

M3A DAW Monitor

BY M3A DAW Monitor | reviewed by Mike Jasper

Like many small studio owners, I don't use a true mixing board. Instead, I use the Pro Tools virtual mixer along with a MotorMix digital mixer worksurface attached to the MIDI ins and outs of a Digi 001. It's convenient, cheap, and saves me valuable space. The downside? For a year, I didn't use the...

Gear Reviews

M-80 Bass D.I. +

BY M-80 Bass D.I. + | reviewed by Scott Craggs

Something old, something new from MXR. New first. When I was shopping for an affordable bass DI, I was intending to pick up the Sansamp on Larry's recommendation in these pages long ago, but somehow I ended up with the MXR Bass D.I. + instead. It was about the same price, sounded similar (in the...

Gear Reviews

MP20 Two-Channel Mic Preamp w/ Stereo Bus

BY MP20 Two-Channel Mic Preamp w/ Stereo Bus | reviewed by Garrett Haines

The PreSonus MP20 is a microphone and instrument preamp consisting of dual Class A discrete input buffers followed by a dual-servo gain stage. This design translates into a low-noise, high-gain box. The following features are available on each channel: gain, 80 Hz rumble filter, 48 V phantom power,...

Gear Reviews

N72 mic preamp

BY N72 mic preamp | reviewed by Collin Dupuis

I recently had the opportunity to check out the Seventh Circle Audio N72 mic preamp with the CH01 chassis and PS01 power supply. The N72 is available fully assembled or in various kit forms. With the help of the instructions from the webpage and the schematics, I assembled my kit in six hours. The...

Gear Reviews

TR8 Tuned Reference biamped monitor

BY TR8 Tuned Reference biamped monitor | reviewed by Eric Tischler

Two or three years ago, I read a review of Event's 20/20 monitors in this very magazine and promptly bought a pair. (I had been using a pair of Infinity home stereo speakers, not entirely unsuccessfully.) Coupled with a Hafler amp, I got the whole set up for about $500 and was pretty happy with the...

Gear Reviews

Tube Amplified Direct Box

BY Tube Amplified Direct Box | reviewed by Larry Crane

If you didn't know, musician-wise I'm primarily a bass player. As a bass player, I have always been somewhat unhappy with the sound of my bass when recorded. I've accumulated a stack of moderately expensive DI boxes that do a good job, but I've never heard the basic feel of a DI approach what I...

Gear Reviews

Variax modeling guitar

BY Variax modeling guitar | reviewed by Pete Weiss

Love it or hate it, the Pod by Line 6 is here to stay. And now it's got a companion, the Variax modeling guitar. Just as the Pod was intended to replace a warehouse full of amps and effects, the Variax makes a bid at replacing a closetful of guitars. The way it works is pretty cool. There are no...