Tape Op Magazine - Issue #42 - issue-42

John Leckie

Interviews

John Leckie

By Jeff Gros and Jeff Touzeau

John Leckie's handiwork has been on many ground- breaking recordings in the U.K. He has worked tirelessly for over thirty years on seminal projects like George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, Pink Floyd's Meddle, The Fall's Wonderful and Frightening World of..., the Stone...

Danielson Famile

Interviews

Danielson Famile: Family life

By Ian Stynes, Marc Gartman

The Danielson Famile and its visionary leader, Daniel Smith, have been creating some of the most unique music to come out of New Jersey in the past ten years. Their songs are a veritable melting pot of the finest 20th century pop music writers — Frankie Valli, Bob Dylan and the Violent Femmes put...

Bill Bradley

Interviews

Bill Bradley: Behind the Gear with The Mic Shop

By Walt Szalva, Bob Marshall

Bill Bradley has been collecting, modifying and selling vintage microphones for years. He started as an engineer in Chicago and now lives outside of Nashville where his workbench at The Mic Shop sees a constant flow of traffic.

Alan Parsons

Interviews

Alan Parsons: Life after Abbey Road and Pink Floyd

By Anthony Sarti [Illustration], John Baccigaluppi, Larry Crane

Alan Parsons got his start in recording through working for EMI in England. Initially he...

Boundary Mics

Interviews

Boundary Mics: Boundary Mic Fun!

By Garrett Haines

No description available.

COLUMNS

GEAR REVIEWS

Gear Reviews

AT8741 Mic Clip

BY AT8741 Mic Clip | reviewed by Chris Garges

This little bad boy is a total life-saver. Ever had a problem putting your Audio-Technica 40-series mics close to drums because of the shockmount? Or perhaps close to another mic in a coincident arrangement? Enter the AT8741. Available as a special-order item from A-T retailers, this is a hefty...

Gear Reviews

ATR Alignment Seminar

BY ATR Alignment Seminar | reviewed by Garrett Haines

ATR Services is known around the globe as a leading authority on analog reel-to-reel machines, especially the Ampex ATR-102 series. Given this profile, ATR receives numerous questions about caring for analog decks. To help machine owners with these topics, ATR started offering one-day seminars that...

Gear Reviews

Boom Mic Stand

BY Boom Mic Stand | reviewed by John Baccigaluppi

I've always wanted one of those hi-tech, heavy duty mic stands with the hella' long booms that you see at the AES shows in the boutique audio type booths. But, when I see the price tag of several thousand dollars I quickly give up on the idea. However, at the last NAMM show, I saw the SE boom stand...

Gear Reviews

Copperphone

BY Copperphone | reviewed by Joel Hamilton

A microphone for anyone who likes outstanding build-quality, interesting sounds, and a DIY ethic, the Copperphone is handmade by Mark Pirro (The Polyphonic Spree, Tripping Daisy). It's really cool looking; it looks like a cross between a pipe bomb and the water cannon on the front of an old...

Gear Reviews

EC-2 upgrade for HD24

BY EC-2 upgrade for HD24 | reviewed by Joseph Lemmer

Considering the number of channels (24 in/out up to 48 kHz, twelve up to 96 kHz), the EC-2 is by far the least expensive set of 96 kHz-capable converters on the market. The inputs and outputs are fully differential, which reduces noise compared to other cheaper balancing methods (like on the stock...

Gear Reviews

Fat Controller analog sequencer w/ MIDI

BY Fat Controller analog sequencer w/ MIDI | reviewed by Geoff Farina

Although the Frostwave Fat Controller is one of the simplest among a small scene of traditionally-styled analog sequencers, it offers essential analog sequencing functionality along with some modern extras at a reasonable price. The Fat Controller consists of two rows of eight faders that can be...

Gear Reviews

Green Line overdrive pedal

BY Green Line overdrive pedal | reviewed by Pete Weiss

The perennial problem with overdrive stompboxes is that many of them excel at only one sound. And sometimes it's a bad sound. The Ibanez Tube Screamer (TS-808 and original TS-9 models) has, over the years, set a standard of sorts with its natural-sounding simulation of tube amp overdrive. For...

Gear Reviews

GT-103 Rack Enclosure & Removable Hard Drives

BY GT-103 Rack Enclosure & Removable Hard Drives | reviewed by John Baccigaluppi

This hard drive is kinda' like a Hummer: Totally overbuilt and over engineered. Like a Hummer, it's like killing flies with a sawed off 12-gauge. But unlike driving a silly, gas guzzling Hummer, the GT-103 is a fantastic storage medium for your digital audio files. It doesn't cost as much as a...

Gear Reviews

HD24 FirePort 1394 Interface

BY HD24 FirePort 1394 Interface | reviewed by Joseph Lemmer

The HD24 FirePort 1394 Interface is a no brainer. If you track to HD24 and then transfer to a DAW to mix, go get one. Even if you don't own an HD24, it may be worth it for your studio to have compatibility. The included FST/Connect software runs on MacOS X and Windows 2000/XP only. The Mac and PC...

Gear Reviews

MDX4600 MULTICOM PRO-XL

BY MDX4600 MULTICOM PRO-XL | reviewed by Joel Hamilton

One of the first things I learned when I started recording live concerts is the importance of a compressor/limiter right before going to tape/hard drive. All it takes is one little nasty "snap" of a digital overload to ruin everything. When there's no chance for a second take-and quite often no...

Gear Reviews

MIDI Analog Performance Sequencer

BY MIDI Analog Performance Sequencer | reviewed by Geoff Farina

The Signal Arts MIDI Analog Performance Sequencer was specifically designed for experimental composition in the sense that it requires the user to focus on the sequencing process instead of the end product. Unlike modern matrix sequencers designed to chain preconceived sequences together to create...

Gear Reviews

Modular synthesizers

BY Modular synthesizers | reviewed by Geoff Farina

Twenty years ago, few companies were still producing modular synthesizers. The mighty Moog Modulars, ARP 2500s, and Buchla Electric Music Boxes were reduced to studio camp or tucked away in university storage rooms. Boomer-era sonic pioneers focused their interests elsewhere, often finding fertile...

Gear Reviews

NY-2A Stereo Vacuum Tube Optical Compressor

BY NY-2A Stereo Vacuum Tube Optical Compressor | reviewed by Joel Hamilton

Wow. This seems to be the operative word for this compressor. We are trying one out at Studio G Brooklyn right now. Wow. This compressor is the ultimate expression of "tube comp" in my opinion. This "instrument" was built with the utmost care and standards that are uncompromising-rather than to...

Gear Reviews

S80 Producer Box

BY S80 Producer Box | reviewed by Kirt Shearer

With all the ads, articles, and newsgroups hammering us with buzzwords, it's easy to think that the only "real" equipment must be either Class-A, discreet, or tube. But don't forget that there have been many pieces of great sounding gear that have used the "black sheep" of the electronic world: the...

Gear Reviews

SidStation MOS 6581 Synthesizer

BY SidStation MOS 6581 Synthesizer | reviewed by Geoff Farina

If I had put the same effort into my homework as into manually copying BASIC programs from Compute! magazine into my Commodore 64 in the early 80s, I would now be writing legal pleadings or prescriptions instead of reviews of video game synthesizers. Since then, I have been keeping one of my old...

Gear Reviews

SKRM-100 Subkick

BY SKRM-100 Subkick | reviewed by Larry Crane

Some engineers know the old-time trick of placing a speaker (oftentimes the woofer from a Yamaha NS-10M, ironically enough) in front of a kick drum or bass amp, then running the speaker cables into a DI and sending that to a preamp. The speaker, being a moving-coil transducer much like a dynamic...

Gear Reviews

The A/B CD

BY The A/B CD | reviewed by Larry Crane

"Sonic comparisons of audio technologies and techniques." Given that my "end rant" is about critical listening, this is a perfect CD to recommend this issue. It has 52 minutes of comparisons in fifteen categories: digital mixer vs. analog, tape vs. digital, tube vs. solid state, etc. I sat and...

Gear Reviews

Type 69 mic/line/EQ module

BY Type 69 mic/line/EQ module | reviewed by Dave Amels

The Helios Type 69 input module is a reissue of the input section found on the rare, silver Olympic mixing desks which were designed in the 1960s by Dick Swettenham. Mr. Swettenham was the in-house genius of Olympic studios who, like many studio technicians of those days, had the challenging task...