Tape Op Magazine - Issue #36

Interviews

Out Of The Studio

By Graham Hick and Kirsten Sorton

Recently I visited an oil factory on Chicago's South Side, the site for a cool project that started with the idea of recording 18 bands in 18 days. To accomplish this, Billy Spunke of Thick Records was able to find and book 18 of Chicago's best rock, garage and punk bands, despite highway...

Interviews

Brian Deck: Modest Mouse, Red Red Meat, Califone, Orso

By Bob Marshall

What do bands like Red Red Meat, Califone, Souled American, Fruit Bats, Drumhead, Orso, Cash Money, Chris Mills, Modest Mouse and Ugly Casanova have in common? Producer/engineer Brian Deck for one. Classically trained in percussion, Brian learned engineering by assisting at some of Chicago's...

Interviews

Chad Clark: The Dismemberment Plan, The Beauty Pill, and mastering Fugazi

By Morgan Klein

Chad Clark serves as one of the main engineers working at Inner Ear Studios in Arlington, VA, recording many of DC's finest acts, among them Dismemberment Plan, Burning Airlines, Calibos, Semaphore, National Stranger, Kathy Kashel, Maestro Echoplex, Blinder, and Bald Rapunzel. I was first...

Interviews

Tom Erbe: Behind the Gear with SoundHack

By Douglas Repetto

If you were making music with a Macintosh in the 1990s, chances are SoundHack was an...

Interviews

Michael Ivins

By Nick Wallace, Keith Hanlon

Many fans of the Flaming Lips might know Michael Ivins as that quiet, cigarette- smoking...

Interviews

Ian Catt: Saint Etienne, Trembling Blue Stars

By Jeff Touzeau

Ian Catt has developed a unique style that is behind some of the most interesting sounds...

MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

MARCH 5, 2026 INTERVIEWS

Mark Trombino: Jimmy Eat World, Drive Like Jehu, Blink 182

BY JESSE CANNON

No matter what the budget or situation, Trombino draws out amazing performances and records that really draw you in. He delivers the results needed to make a record work and has worked with great bands, including The Starting Line, Drive Like Jehu (for whom he also played drums), Blink 182, Finch, Weston, Sugarcult, Creeper Lagoon, Rocket From The Crypt and the Poor Rich Ones. His hard work over the years paid off this year with the success of Jimmy Eat World's Bleed American, which has become the biggest "alternative" record of the last year. He has worked on all of that band's records, including Clarity, one of my favorite reference CDs of the past few years. Just listening to the productions on these three records, you can see he comes up with appropriate, well done sonic approaches to reinventing a band in an interesting way each time.

MARCH 5, 2026 INTERVIEWS

Timothy Powell: Metro Mobile

BY KIRSTEN SORTEN, GRAHAM HICK

Timothy Powell of Metro Mobile Recording has been a music and gear fanatic his whole life. Walking into his main recording truck, M-48, is proof enough of that. I was amazed not only at the collection of outboard compressors, EQs and pres, but was also struck by the feel of it. When the door is shut you'd swear you were in a control room in some studio somewhere. There's no kitchen, no pool table and no video game console, but there is a comfortable area for the engineer and a nice couch and chairs in the back for clients or other guests. There's acoustic treatment on the walls, and the aforementioned racks of gear, more than I've seen in some studios! Once the door opens and you're back outside, it's just a large, nondescript white truck parked under the street level, next to the river. Wherever they have a gig, the trucks just roll up next to the venue in the alley or a side street — or, in this case, on the service level of Dearborn Street — plug into the venue's power and FOH console and do their thing. Metro Mobile has two full-timers, including Tim, and a "posse" of freelancers who take care of the recordings. Tim was kind enough to speak with me just before Thanksgiving at the House of Blues in Chicago.

COLUMNS

GEAR REVIEWS

Gear Reviews

24 I/O interface

BY 24 I/O interface | reviewed by John Baccigaluppi

This is the perfect PCI/ASIO based audio interface for all of us studio owners looking for a high quality, versatile, yet simple, audio interface for a full sized music recording studio. It's best asset? 24 inputs and outputs at 96k/24 bit in one rack space. Put simply, this will either replace...

Gear Reviews

3310 limiter modules

BY 3310 limiter modules | reviewed by Chris Garges

A couple years ago, I bought a pair of Neve 3310 limiter modules from hi-fi guru Early Bender-Worth (www.hifitown.com). I wasn't familiar with these particular modules, but I figured that if I didn't like them I could sell them without taking a hit, thanks to the Neve name alone. I have a special...

Gear Reviews

C2s Compressor

BY C2s Compressor | reviewed by Mark Owen

During my time as an engineer I have used some of the world's finest compressors, and at the same time, I've heard some of the worst. Having grown up in a studio, pretty much my whole life, I've been afforded the ability to become discriminating about gear, especially compressors. With that said, I...

Gear Reviews

Dominion

BY Dominion | reviewed by Chris Anderson

Two members of Digitalfishphones' collection of freeware audio plug-ins, Blockfish and Dominion, have become my first choice for certain dynamics-shaping applications "in-the-box," standing up to both high-end software such as Waves' Renaissance Compressor and VST stomp-boxes like CamelPhat....

Gear Reviews

FET Compressor II

BY FET Compressor II | reviewed by Craig Schumacher

Geoff Daking gets it. With the new Daking FET Compressor II, Geoff has created an instant classic. Those who are familiar with other Daking products will find the same attention to audio craftsmanship with this latest design. I was fortunate enough to be able to use this unit on two different mix...

Gear Reviews

Freeport acoustic panel

BY Freeport acoustic panel | reviewed by Andy Hong

I've been outfitting my new studio with various acoustic treatments for the past eight months or so. In my "live" room, I've tried hard to spec out treatments that are easy to mount, unmount, move, and swap, with the goal of an acoustic signature that I change easily. I had a contractor who...

Gear Reviews

JDV Mk3 Direct Box

BY JDV Mk3 Direct Box | reviewed by Pete Weiss

DI boxes. We all rely on them to record electric instruments directly and to perform impedence matching chores. They've never been known as the most glamorous piece of studio gear, but they're surely necessary, and every studio worth its salt has at least one decent DI in its utility drawer. Well,...

Gear Reviews

PlatFoam

BY PlatFoam | reviewed by Andy Hong

In Issue #34, I wrote about my studio's lack of floating floors, and how the Auralex GRAMMA isolation platform reduced the amount of bass-amp rumble escaping the main room. I also noted that the GRAMMA had an immediate and very discernable effect on the "tightness" of the sound coming from the bass...

Gear Reviews

Pro Tools 6 for MacOS X

BY Pro Tools 6 for MacOS X | reviewed by John Keane

This article is partially excerpted from the introduction to A Musician's Guide to Pro Tools, Book Two, which is a continuation of A Musician's Guide to Pro Tools Book One. It was adapted by me to serve as a sort of review of Pro Tools 6. In view of the fact that upgrading to Pro Tools 6 entails a...

Gear Reviews

RealTraps bass traps

BY RealTraps bass traps | reviewed by Andy Hong

Ethan Winer is a name you may recognize. He's been a published author of audio-related articles since the 70s, and he's a regular contributor to many of the online forums. In 1995, he wrote an article for Electronic Musician that detailed how to build an affordable, low- volume bass trap that...

Gear Reviews

SM7 microphone

BY SM7 microphone | reviewed by Drew Townson

"No, not the Shure SM57," I said to the young clerk at the mega guitar market, "I need an SM-SEVEN." " Dude," he replied. "There's no such thing. You mean a FIFTY-SEVEN." At that point, luckily, I spied an SM-7A box behind the counter and pointed it out to him. The poor fellow was embarrassed, to...

Gear Reviews

Toad guitar amplifier

BY Toad guitar amplifier | reviewed by Pete Weiss

Is it me, or is modeling getting a bit out of control? Seems like every plug-in, amp, outboard effect, keyboard, and even guitar these days relies on modeling circuitry to simulate some classic sound or other. But what about gear that just plain sounds really good (as opposed to gear that simulates...

Gear Reviews

Versipanel Wrap-Around Wall

BY Versipanel Wrap-Around Wall | reviewed by Andy Hong

I usually track "basics" with all the players, instruments, and amps in the same room. I find that musicians perform better this way. Unfortunately, the situation can get pretty "washy" with all the sounds bouncing around inside a single room, and the bleed between instruments can sometimes be a...

MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

COLUMNS

by Larry Crane

GEAR REVIEWS