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Gear Reviews
23500B microphone bar
A microphone bar is a device that allows you to mount two or more mics on it. It usually looks like a metal tongue depressor with threaded mic mounts on each end. Replace a standard mic clip with the bar and your stand can do double duty. They are often used for overheads or for stereo location...
Gear Reviews
2488 Digital Portastudio
The first multitrack I recall owning was a TASCAM Porta One cassette 4-track. My brother and I bought it sometime in the early-80's, along with a spring reverb and a cheap dynamic microphone. A lot has changed since then. Earlier this year, I reviewed the Zoom PS-04 Palmtop Studio. Sized like a...
Gear Reviews
33 1/3 book series
"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." I've heard this quote attributed to everyone from Igor Stravinsky and Thelonius Monk, to Frank Zappa, Laurie Anderson, and Elvis Costello. While I can kind of agree with this statement philosophically, in practical terms, I love to read, and...
Gear Reviews
Alesis 3630 Modification Kit.
Unlike the article we published in Tape Op #45, which outlined a very simple mod for the 3630 compressor, this kit is a complete overhaul. Considering the low initial cost of the compressor and the low cost of this kit, this is a killer deal for recordists with more time on their hands than money...
Gear Reviews
ANF-10 passive studio monitors
It was five years and one issue ago when I reviewed the Event 20/20 monitors (Tape Op #18), and they've been my mainstays ever since. I raved about them then, and I still like them, but after doing everything on them for so long, I was feeling a little burnt and ready to try something new. So I...
Gear Reviews
CEMC-6 solid-state mic
I wrote a review in Tape Op #44 about the Peluso 22 251 vacuum tube condenser. I was very impressed. So impressed that I wanted to check out the whole line. John Peluso, the great guy that he is, sent me a 22 47 multi- pattern, large-diaphragm, vacuum-tube condenser and a pair of CEMC-6...
Gear Reviews
DTC double channel strip
MindPrint has recently unleashed a few nifty devices of the "channel strip" variety, and the DTC (Dual Tube Channel), designed with the help of award-winning Euro guitarist Thomas Blug and Hughes & Kettner mastermind Bernd Schneider, is MindPrint's premier product. The members of the DTC design...
Gear Reviews
EN-VOICE MK II
The popularity of tube-based audio gear has grown with the popularity of digital recording. One look around your local music mega-center and it seems like half of the pro-audio, keyboard, and guitar gear is fitted with a window on the front displaying a glowing tube that's supposed to "warm up" the...
Gear Reviews
MaxCom Dual Compressor
I get a lot of letters asking "what should I buy next?" I'm hardly ever in a position to give such advice. But I also get questions like "what's a good starter compressor?"- which is a bit easier to address. One of my new suggestions is BBE's MaxCom. The MaxCom is a stereo compressor, limiter,...
Gear Reviews
MondoTraps bass traps
In Tape Op #36, I reviewed the panel traps that RealTraps used to manufacture out of wood. In issue #38, Larry Crane reviewed RealTraps MiniTraps, which performed so well (while being easy to ship) that the company stopped making the wood panel traps. Since then, RealTraps partners Ethan Winer and...
Gear Reviews
Proscreen XL pop filter
You may recall my positive review of the Proscreen 101 in Tape Op #23. Since then, I've used my four Proscreens (I keep buying more!) on many sessions, packed them in my luggage when recording elsewhere, and recommended them to many folks. The Proscreen XL is a larger version of the 101, with a 6''...
Gear Reviews
Pro Tools Clinic: Demystifying LE for Macintosh and PC
A guy I know is migrating to Pro Tools from another application. He asked me if I had any suggestions for a primer. Unfortunately, it seems like everyone and his dog has written a book on Pro Tools lately, and it's hard to sort through all the titles. I was about to tell him "no dice" when I heard...
Gear Reviews
Reverb 2016
We have reached a point, more than 20 years into the digital revolution, where vintage digital is being sought after almost as much as vintage analog. This is especially true in the area of reverbs. One of the classic digital reverbs from the early 1980's is the Eventide SP2016. This reverb has...
Gear Reviews
Rubicon 6a Active Ribbon Monitors
We've been big fans of ribbon tweeters for a long time here at WMBR Radio, especially after having reviewed the ADAM P11A's in Tape Op #33. So when we received a pair of Samson Rubicon 6a's for review, we were naturally excited. These are active nearfields with a 2'' Velocity Ribbon tweeter and a...
Gear Reviews
SE2200A large-diaphragm cardioid condenser mic
$300 (street) buys you a fantastic-sounding, large- diaphragm condenser, complete with suitcase and shockmount? Unbelievable! I recently recorded four songs with Chris Colbourn (Buffalo Tom) and Hilken Mancini (Fuzzy) for an upcoming dual-solo album. Chris's voice tends to be somewhere between...
Gear Reviews
SE-BB1 Bova Ball spherical condenser mic
The folks that make this really cool, great sounding microphone may just be the nicest people I have ever dealt with on the phone, period. That instilled confidence from the moment I called up Sage Electronics directly and decided to buy one of their strange-looking Bova Ball microphones. Since it...
Gear Reviews
SheetBlok Sound Isolation Barrier
The live room in my recording studio has lots of natural light (see www. kimcheerecords.com/articles/studioacoustics/ for photos), much of it from two skylights. When we first built out the studio, we skipped treating the skylights, because some casual testing proved that any sound that escaped...
Gear Reviews
The Art of Digital Music
When we interviewed Alan Parsons last year, he asked if we could shoot a photo of him for a book for which he'd just done an interview. I happily emailed him one of the digital pictures I'd taken of him. When this book, The Art of Digital Music, came out, I saw a photo of Alan on the back that...
Gear Reviews
?Tonic percussion synth plug-in
The MicroTonic (or μTonic) is a VST drum and percussion synthesizer plug-in for Windows (98 or later) or Mac OS X (10.2 or later) that works with any host application compatible with VSTi 2.0 plug-ins. It features a fully-synthetic sound module (using no samples or pre- rendered waveforms) and a...
Gear Reviews
TranzPort
A 150-foot snake. I bought it on Craigslist about a year ago. I thought it would be great for mic'ing up drums in my living room or backyard, vocals in the bathroom, or a string quartet in my garage. All nice ideas. But for the past year, I've mostly been recording myself, and I can't really be in...
Gear Reviews
VL-S21 compact monitors & subwoofer
Despite the fact that I'm an übergeek, I only recently installed foobar2000 on my primary desktop machine in my home office so I can listen to all the various audio files that I have stored on the terabytes of network storage shared between my home and studio. Up until then, I listened to music on...
Gear Reviews
VMP-1000e mic preamp
The Sebatron VMP-1000e is a really-cool tube mic preamp. It's kind of its own thing (thank goodness), and it doesn't seem to be a clone of anything. It has a very warm tone-great for guitars-and refreshingly, it has its own sound. Features include an instrument DI; polarity and phantom switches; a...