Damian Wagner

Interviews

Read More →
Monkeyclaus

Interviews

Read More →
Dan Lavry

Interviews

Read More →
Fixing It Before the Mix #2

Interviews

Read More →

MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

JULY 4, 2025 INTERVIEWS
Bones Howe

Bones Howe: Elvis Presley, Tom Waits, The 5th Dimension, The Mamas and the Papas and more...

BY GEOFF HOWE, DREW TOWNSON, SARAH SIMON

You could argue that these days, the title of "living legend" is thrown out as indiscriminately as Mardi Gras beads. However, in the case of engineer/producer Dayton "Bones" Howe, the title is completely deserved. Having engineered and produced some of pop music's biggest classics, Howe is the real deal — a genuine studio hall-of-famer with more than 20 gold and platinum records to his credit. His discography is stunning, featuring names like Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Ornette Coleman, Elvis Presley, The Turtles, The Association, The Monkees, Jan and Dean, Ahmad Jamal, The Mamas and The Papas, The5th Dimension and even the very left-of-center Tom Waits.

COLUMNS

END RANT

GEAR REVIEWS

Gear Reviews

1589 mic preamp

by 1589 mic preamp  |  reviewed by Scott Callan

I am a home recordist with a humble 12-space rack filled with affordable (and occasionally interesting) gear. I am also a sucker for anything odd, old, and esoteric... and bonus points for strange paint jobs. Like many of my bedroom and basement brethren, purchasing rack after rack of thousand...

Gear Reviews

609CA Compressor/Limiter

by 609CA Compressor/Limiter  |  reviewed by F. Reid Shippen

About a year ago, several of my peers were involved in an audio geekfest here in Nashville centered around a shootout between several vintage Neve 1073 modules and a Vintech X73. I wasn't able to attend, but those whose ears I fully trust-namely Gary Paczoza, Kyle Lehning, and Chuck Ainlay-were...

Gear Reviews

AlphaTrack control surface

by AlphaTrack control surface  |  reviewed by Allen Farmelo

A number of years back, I was tracking a record in a room with a 24-fader Digidesign ProControl and then migrated to a situation with only a keyboard and a mouse. About halfway through the first day without the ProControl, I turned to my esteemed colleagues and said, "Man, I wish I had just one...

Gear Reviews

CT4 Compressor

by CT4 Compressor  |  reviewed by Garrett Haines

Massey CT4 is a straightforward compressor plug-in that comes in RTAS and TDM formats. With an uncluttered interface, CT4 has only four controls-compression, makeup, attack, and release-making it easy for users to dial up settings in a flash. There is also a VU-type meter that shows gain reduction...

Gear Reviews

Cubase 4 Tutorial DVD Level 1

by Cubase 4 Tutorial DVD Level 1  |  reviewed by Andy Hong

David Hidek and Garrett's positive review of the ASK Video Sibelius Tutorial DVD bundle (Tape Op #62) prompted me to check out ASK's Cubase 4 Tutorial. In short, if you are new to Cubase (or to DAWs in general) or even if you're an intermediate user, this tutorial could be one of the best purchases...

Gear Reviews

Dynamics Toolbox

by Dynamics Toolbox  |  reviewed by Andy Hong

You may recall my review of the Safe Sound P1 Audio Processor (Tape Op #53)-a mic preamp, instrument DI, expander, compressor, limiter, and headphone monitor/mixer designed by Robert Campbell, formerly of Neve and Calrec. I lauded it for its transparent compression on vocals, its best-ever...

Gear Reviews

Ela M 260 small-diaphragm tube mic

by Ela M 260 small-diaphragm tube mic

It's funny how the audio industry sometimes seems to go in waves. Four years ago, summing mixers, like the Dangerous 2-BUS (Tape Op #35), were the new thing, and two years ago, monitor controllers were hot, but it was difficult to find a new small-diaphragm tube condenser mic. Now there's quite a...

Gear Reviews

Expose E8B active monitor

by Expose E8B active monitor  |  reviewed by Jeff Elbel

I've been using a pair of KRK 7000B speakers, driven by a Bryston 3B-ST power amp, as my nearfield monitors for a dozen years. I trust them and know them inside-out, but after working with higher-end monitors at other studios, I've been itching to move up a level or two. When Tape Op was offered...

Gear Reviews

Extreme Isolation EX-25 & EX-29 headphones

by Extreme Isolation EX-25 & EX-29 headphones  |  reviewed by John Baccigaluppi

If you've read Tape Op over the years, you've probably noticed that one of my pet peeves is headphones. You gotta' have 'em, but they're expensive, and everyone treats 'em like crap. On the other hand, good headphones result in better performances-which means your recordings sound better. So in...

Gear Reviews

G-Track USB mic

by G-Track USB mic  |  reviewed by Andy Hong

My wife is a filmmaker, and her primary platform is Final Cut Studio running on a Mac Pro. She is neither an audio engineer nor a gear geek like many of us are. For her current project, she needed to do some scratch voiceover work. Instead of setting her up with a mic, cables, and a typical audio...

Gear Reviews

HP60 headphone amp

by HP60 headphone amp

The PreSonus HP60 solves two of the most common home- studio problems by providing individual headphone mixes for up to six people as well as a convenient talkback system. There are two main stereo inputs in the rear, marked A and B, which feed the six high-power stereo headphone amps inside. A mix...

Gear Reviews

HVTP2 & HJFP2 mic preamps

by HVTP2 & HJFP2 mic preamps  |  reviewed by J. Robert Lennon

When Andy Hong asked me to write a review of the mic preamps currently-available from Hamptone (the tube-based HVTP2 and transistor-based HJFP2), I got a weird sense of deja vu. Haven't these already been reviewed? By me, in fact? Actually, no-what I was remembering was the approximately 500 times...

Gear Reviews

KM69 small-diaphragm condenser mic

by KM69 small-diaphragm condenser mic  |  reviewed by Richard Lloyd

When I was at the last AES conference, I ran into Fletcher of Mercenary Audio, and I saw something sticking out of his shirt pocket. He pulled it out proudly and showed it around. I said, "That's got to be an 84"-meaning a copy or version of the famous Neumann KM 84 microphone. He said, "Yes, sort...

Gear Reviews

Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science, 2nd Edition

by Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science, 2nd Edition  |  reviewed by Garrett Haines

Larry covered the first edition of this book back in Tape Op #35. But there is so much updated content in this second printing that a second review is merited. The title, Mastering Audio, is clearly a double entendre, as the book covers the job of audio mastering as well as the goal of mastering...

Gear Reviews

Miroslav Philharmonik Orchestral Workstation (Classik Edition)

by Miroslav Philharmonik Orchestral Workstation (Classik Edition)  |  reviewed by Dana Gumbiner

This plug-in has quickly become a go-to for my clients who ask for realistic string and orchestral parts. It's simply the best orchestral sampler I've heard at this price point. And that's my review! Thanks for reading! OK, well, a few more details, adjectives, and qualifiers. I first came across...

Gear Reviews

Portable broadband absorbers

by Portable broadband absorbers  |  reviewed by J. Robert Lennon

Here's a neat solution for solving problems with your recording environment's acoustics. Take two sheets of rigid fiberglass, wrap them neatly in fire-rated acoustic fabric, glue them together to form a sandwiched panel with some anchoring hardware, attach an aluminum yoke to that hardware which...

Gear Reviews

r8brain PRO Sample Rate Converter

by r8brain PRO Sample Rate Converter  |  reviewed by Garrett Haines

Voxengo is a company that has been selling digital audio processing tools online since 2002. The r8brain PRO application is a high-quality sample-rate converter for PCM audio. While it's hard to get excited about a utility, the fact of the matter is many of us rely on these tools on a daily basis....

Gear Reviews

TO-2 mic preamp

by TO-2 mic preamp  |  reviewed by Craig Schumacher

So we were strolling around AES last October and we run into Harley Fine who we met at TapeOpCon 2007. Harley took us over to meet Jim Kaye of Matrix Audio Systems. At his table were three 2-channel microphone preamps: the TO-2, the HO-3, and the LF-1. While the appearance of all three is...

Gear Reviews

ZED-14 mixer

by ZED-14 mixer  |  reviewed by Andy Hong

Some years ago, I owned an original Allen & Heath WZ20:8:2 MixWizard designed for use with an 8-track. It was a major step up from other small-format consoles of the time, both functionally and sound-wise. I purchased the MixWizard while in the middle of tracking and mixing the compilation CD In My...