David Torn

Interviews

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Jim Czak

Interviews

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Mix Copyright

Interviews

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James Demeter

Interviews

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Ethan Johns

Interviews

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Mike Hagler

Interviews

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MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

JULY 30, 2025 INTERVIEWS
Electrodyne History

Electrodyne History: The History of Electrodyne, Quad-Eight and Sphere

BY LARRY DEVIVO

I'm going to let you in on a little secret — one that few engineers talk about and several will want to kill me for writing about. What if I told you there was a microphone preamp that could rival a Neve, Focusrite or API, have similar EQ as the venerable Pultec and could be found for one-tenth the cost of some units? Sound unbelievable? I'm talking about the Electrodyne, Sphere and early Quad-Eight modules.

JULY 30, 2025 INTERVIEWS
Ethan Johns

Ethan Johns

BY LARRY CRANE, ANNA HRNJAK

An eye-catching and imposing centerpiece of Ethan Johns' studio is the unique wraparound console he inherited from his father, Glyn Johns. We sat marveling at the console and picked Ethan's brain about it on my first visit to his studio.

JULY 30, 2025 INTERVIEWS
Ethan Johns/Luther Russell

Ethan Johns/Luther Russell: Luther Russell

BY LARRY CRANE

My friend Luther Russell and I have worked together on a number of records for artists and years ago we spent a lot of an Internet music site's money making a solo record for Luther that never came out. One day I received an excited call from him saying he'd be working with Glyn Johns in the studio the following morning. Glyn, whose discography reads like the history of music in the'60s and '70s (the Beatles, the Who, the Stones, the Clash, the Faces, Led Zeppelin), was in town to help Ethan sort out the console he'd given him and ended up helping with a day's worth of tracking on Luther's album that Ethan was producing and playing on. I also was curious about an artist's reaction to Ethan's live recording process.

COLUMNS

Things to Do in the Studio
END RANT

GEAR REVIEWS

Gear Reviews

4110 four-channel mic preamp

by 4110 four-channel mic preamp  |  reviewed by Craig Schumacher

The four-channel, Class-A, solid-state 4110 is Universal Audio's first mic preamp that is not derived from earlier classic designs. The 3RU-height device is simple to use and smart looking. It is solidly built and is easy to get around due to its basic simplicity. The individual preamp channels are...

Gear Reviews

Active Snare Dampening System

by Active Snare Dampening System  |  reviewed by Mike Caffrey

$25 bucks to a better snare sound right this way... A couple of months ago, I produced an album with Omar Hakim on drums, and he turned me on to the Remo Active Snare Dampening System. In most cases, I don't like ringy snare sounds. The problem is, I don't like to put any form of muffling on...

Gear Reviews

Alphabet Soup

by Alphabet Soup  |  reviewed by Andy Hong

I haven't had this much fun with audio software in a long time. Imagine an application window that displays a graphic representation of a computer keyboard. Onto each key you can drag-and-drop any soundfile no matter what format the file. Once a soundfile is dropped onto a key, you can play that...

Gear Reviews

AT2020 cardioid condenser mic

by AT2020 cardioid condenser mic  |  reviewed by Garrett Haines

With inexpensive mics seemingly as common as guitar picks, one must ask, "Does the world need another cheap mic?" But after testing the AT2020, my answer is a resounding, "Yes!" Because the AT2020 is anything but "another cheap mic." The AT2020 provides pleasant surprises in several areas. First,...

Gear Reviews

AT4031 cardioid condenser mic

by AT4031 cardioid condenser mic  |  reviewed by Chris Garges

The discontinued AT4031 was an early microphone in Audio-Technica's extremely popular 40 Series. It is a small- diaphragm, end-firing microphone that was eventually replaced by the AT4041. It is cardioid-only (unlike its more expensive sibling, the AT4051, which has switchable capsules), and it...

Gear Reviews

DK25/R Drum Kit System

by DK25/R Drum Kit System  |  reviewed by Andy Hong

I've been a believer in Earthworks microphones ever since I got my first pair of TC30K omni condensers. Since then, I've added a bunch of Earthworks SR69 and SR68 cardioid condensers to my cabinet. I've used Earthworks mics on all the drum recordings I've made in the past five or six years. So when...

Gear Reviews

G5 Vertical Rackmount

by G5 Vertical Rackmount  |  reviewed by Andy Hong

I hate how the Mac G5 is too big to mount in a 19'' rack sideways unless you cut off its handles. And no one seems to make a rackmount case that you can fill with the parts of a gutted G5 like you can with a G4. Sure, there are a number of solutions available to rack a G5 vertically, but doing so...

Gear Reviews

LA-3A Audio Leveler (reissue)

by LA-3A Audio Leveler (reissue)  |  reviewed by Craig Schumacher

Sound the trumpets; Universal Audio has done it again! With the reissue of the LA-3A, UA has brought back one of the best, solid-state, optical compressors ever built. Originally designed as a broadcast unit, the LA-3A quickly found its home in recording studios, and with a bit of modification to...

Gear Reviews

Lil FrEQ

by Lil FrEQ  |  reviewed by Garrett Haines

Empirical Labs is a company that seems content to offer a few outstanding pieces of gear rather than a wide array of average products. You won't see them rushing to push out new devices every six months-or every year, for that matter. So, expectations were high when photos of the Lil FrEQ began to...

Gear Reviews

Live 5

by Live 5  |  reviewed by Chachi Jones

Long held as an irreplaceable tool for electronic musicians to compose and perform their music, Ableton Live is increasingly gaining favor with the rest of the music world. As one of many professional audio/MIDI recording and sequencing applications, Live has many distinguishing features which set...

Gear Reviews

Machinedrum SPS-1

by Machinedrum SPS-1  |  reviewed by Inverse Room

Drum machines get a bad rap. And why not? Much of what comes out of them is sterile, repetitive, and mechanistic. In some cases, it's the machine's fault. Most of them aren't very versatile, pumping out predictable sounds in predictable patterns. But usually, a lousy drum machine track is the...

Gear Reviews

Mercury 66 Limiting Amplifier

by Mercury 66 Limiting Amplifier  |  reviewed by Pete Weiss

For years, David Marquette cultivated a reputation for elegantly racking and powering Neve, Telefunken, and other desirable vintage modules. He eventually decided to branch out and produce his own versions of some classic vintage pieces under the Mercury name. I recently had a chance to try the...

Gear Reviews

Mini Rack Mixer

by Mini Rack Mixer  |  reviewed by Mike Caffrey

A rack mixer wasn't initially on the Chandler design agenda, but designer Wade Goecke ("Behind the Gear," Tape Op # 46) got so many calls saying, "There are a lot of summing boxes out there, but I don't like how they sound. I really like the way your gear sounds. Are you going to make one?" So he...

Gear Reviews

MS-45B2 Studio Monitor Stand

by MS-45B2 Studio Monitor Stand  |  reviewed by Andy Hong

I've owned an Ultimate Support bicycle repair stand for a dozen years now. It's awesome, and it kicks ass over the big "blue" manufacturer's repair stands. I'd also used Ultimate Support PA monitor stands (back when I used to do live sound) and thought they were well-built and easy to deploy. So...

Gear Reviews

Pacifica 2-ch mic preamp

by Pacifica 2-ch mic preamp  |  reviewed by Larry Crane

The Pacifica by A-Designs is a two-channel, solid-state, transformer-balanced mic preamp. Its front panel is simple-each channel has a DI input, phantom-power switch, 20 dB pad, polarity switch, and a single gain knob. The rear has XLR ins and outs. The unit looks clean and simple and slightly...

Gear Reviews

PEQ1R New Revision ?A?

by PEQ1R New Revision ?A?  |  reviewed by Garrett Haines

I wrote a pretty positive review of the Wunder Audio PEQ1 preamp/EQ in Tape Op #41. At that time, the unit was available as either a replacement module for some vintage consoles or in a custom rack unit. But console modules are designed to be operated in a vertical position; you end up getting a...

Gear Reviews

Portico 5012 dual mic preamp

by Portico 5012 dual mic preamp  |  reviewed by Mike Caffrey

I'll start this review by reading your mind. I can tell you're thinking two questions. The answers are: the 5012 sounds great; and yes, you should buy one. If it's still at the introductory price of $1440 when this goes to press, you'd be crazy not to take advantage of the opportunity. The Portico...

Gear Reviews

Pro Tools M-Powered 7

by Pro Tools M-Powered 7  |  reviewed by John Baccigaluppi

Ever since M-Audio was purchased by Avid, the parent company of Digidesign, the industry speculated on whether or not Pro Tools would run on M-Audio interfaces. M-Audio has long enjoyed a reputation for making some of the best-sounding, cost-effective audio interfaces on the market, so a pairing...

Gear Reviews

Reamping Pack

by Reamping Pack  |  reviewed by Andy Hong

I'm a big fan of Radial Engineering's products, and Tape Op has published reviews of a number of Radial's products: JDV Mk3 Class-A DI in Tape Op #36; JD7 Injector multi-output guitar re-amping and distribution system in #38; X-Amp active re-amping device in #45; and JPC stereo PC/AV DI also in...

Gear Reviews

SCM20ASL Pro monitor

by SCM20ASL Pro monitor  |  reviewed by F. Reid Shippen, Jason Lehning, Andy Hong, Billy Woodman

Here's another "double" review of a monitoring system-this one orchestrated by F. Reid Shippen. The first viewpoint is from Reid, who many of you have met at the last three TapeOpCons. He was a mixer in 2005's Pot Luck Studio Project, he moderated the Mixing Panel in 2004, and he was a panelist in...

Gear Reviews

SSA 2A

by SSA 2A  |  reviewed by Adam Kagan

We live in a DAW world, and that world provides us with ultimate recall and almost-infinite processing choices via hundreds of plug-ins. But we still want more! Now we crave the artifacts, coloration, and familiarity of analog processing. We miss the pleasant saturation of real tubes and the...

Gear Reviews

Tweakbench Rebar

by Tweakbench Rebar  |  reviewed by J. Robert Lennon

Free VST plug-ins for Windows Like a lot of people who read this magazine, I'm a hardware guy, and I've resisted using computers to make my music for a long time. But I recently realized that you could get a pretty good synth and effects rig going for free as long as you have a Windows PC less than...

Gear Reviews

Type B

by Type B  |  reviewed by John Baccigaluppi

When I was close to finishing this review, I began to realize that it's not only just scraping the tip of an iceberg, but it's bound to open a can of worms, and many people will disagree with at least some of the conclusions I've drawn. So, take this for what it is: my experiences and my opinion....