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Gear Reviews
AT8741 Mic Clip
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
"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
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...