Interviews
By Scott Evans, Nick Thieneman
Chris Owens has spent the last 15 years in and around Louisville, Kentucky's punk/ hardcore scene. At his wonderfully-named studio, Headbanging Kill Your Mama Music, he's made great records with some of Louisville's finest, as well as plenty of out-of- towners: Coliseum, Breather Resist,...
Interviews
I first became aware of Dave Criddle when I discovered the world of podcasts in 2008. Along with Australia's Andrew Brierly, Dave was t...
Interviews
Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Public Enemy, Phish, A Tribe Called Quest, Super Furry Animals,...
Interviews
Nashville's Chris Estes has been producing music for over a decade and, after years...
Interviews
To say Pensacola, Florida based artist Valerie George is not your typical recordist would...
Recording involves several processes — preproduction, tracking, mixing, and mastering. The methods involved in each step have changed greatly over time. Musicians, engineers, mixers, and producers have more choices than every before with regard to how they navigate through the recording process. From preproduction all the way through the mix, Armored Saint, the Los Angeles-based classic metal band, along with engineer Bryan Carlstrom [Tape Op #28], incorporated a multitude of unique, innovative, and practical techniques while recording their latest album, La Raza. The recording and mixing was done at Tranzformer Studios in Burbank, CA, which is co-owned by Carlstrom and producer/engineer Dave Jerden.
Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Public Enemy, Phish, A Tribe Called Quest, Super Furry Animals, Lou Reed, Jeff Buckley, Derek Trucks, Elvis Perkins, Bad Brains, Weezer, Ween and Wilco. These are just some of the seminal artists and bands whose music has passed through the formidable ears and brilliant mind of Chris Shaw. In his 20 years as a professional producer/mixer/engineer, he has worked on five of Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time." His discography is monstrous, but anyone who has ever had the pleasure of meeting the man knows he is one of the sweetest and most unassuming gentlemen in the industry. He may have gotten far for his talents, but his lack of ego may be what defines him. With a boyish lisp and a sack full of stories, he instantly makes you feel welcome and on his level through his excitement and enthusiasm. I caught up with him in his Brooklyn apartment, exploring the life and career of the man who went from playing bass on LL Cool J's MTV Unplugged special to mixing Weezer's smash debut to becoming the man that Bob Dylan calls his engineer.
Nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains resides a gem of a town known as Athens, Ohio. Home to Ohio University, it is also the home of numerous historical treasures, a burgeoning creative community of great musicians and artists and a truly eclectic collection of residents who choose to move here because of the quaintness and seclusion of its locale. Over five years ago, one such resident transplanted himself from the music culture of L.A. in order to begin a journey of educating and developing a new generation of music producers as a professor at Ohio University's School of Media Arts and Sciences. His name is Eddie Ashworth and his story has largely remained unknown in this town, yet he is a man whose influence on modern music can be felt through his over 20-year journey in the industry. From hair metal to the genre-bending Sublime, Eddie has been a part of some of the most definitive albums of the L.A. music scene in the '80s and '90s and he continues to work with some of the top indie bands of today, including recent debuts by The Peekers and Meow Meow.
Universal Audio just keeps on coming up with great products for both the pro and home studio. Their latest entry is the 4-710d microphone preamp. It’s basically four channels of UA’s 710 preamp, which allows you to blend between tube and transistor–based circuitry, in a 2U-height chassis with the...
A console review can be rather involved, so let me just say up front that I think the SSL AWS consoles are absolutely excellent. The sound is enormous, clear and strong; the functionality offers up what is without a doubt the most sophisticated, yet intuitive, way to work in a hybrid digital-...
Usually when I get a microphone sent to me from a manufacturer, I’m allowed to keep it for a ridiculously long time, sometimes two months or more. Normally I return the mic within three or four weeks, since I don’t like to take advantage of the situation. The process is simple. I get the mic, I put...
This is a review of the Line 6 DT50 guitar amplifier, but, like most people in Hollywood, instead of telling you about the topic at hand, I'm gonna tell you about me. What can the DT50 do for me? How can it make me look good? In this case, I'm gonna review this amp from my perspective as an...
During the last couple years, the 500-series format has developed into an industry standard among audio manufacturers, but over and over, I’ve found myself reading online that Neve clones would never be compatible due to voltage and current restrictions. The first time I read this supposed fact, I...
Ah compressors… those wonderful helpers that make our lives easier. It seems like the more you learn how to use compression to your advantage, the more you want different types and flavors to use in tracking and mixing. As some of you may know, we at WaveLab have been using a pair of Daking FET II...
As far as I know, these are the first custom-molded, in-ear monitors developed for pro audio engineers. As these are custom-molded to fit your ears, I first had to go get my ears molded by an audiologist — always a weird sensory deprivation experience. A few weeks later, my monitors arrived and I...
The KSM line represents Shure’s premium recording microphones. The newest member is the KSM42, a fixed-cardioid side-address condenser mic. With a similar “giant almond” shape to the KSM44A, the KSM42 is a darker-bronze metallic and is tailored for vocals. The package we reviewed included a hard...
Black Lion is a small company best known for tearing apart and upgrading off-the-shelf gear. They also manufacture pro audio items. One of their offerings is the Micro Clock Mk2, a small footprint, barebones, external master clock. If you are the owner of a Pro Tools HD rig with legacy Digidesign...
Less than half the size of my iPod Touch 3G, Mikey 2G is the generation-2 model of Blue's Mikey external coincident stereo microphone. It works with most iPod models as well as iPhone 3GS and earlier. The product ships with a too-small black cloth pouch and a bilingual French/English printed user...
I’m a huge fan of Arturia and their virtual synth designs. They are, I feel, one of the best software synth developers around. I love using their “V” synths (Tape Op #41, 57, 67) in various DAW sequencers for sound design and general nerdlery. So I was excited to get my mitts on their hardware...
Few pieces of gear prove themselves indispensable to every session — something you’d pick to put first in your bag when you travel, that you can truly call “must-have”. The Passive Link, “made in an Australian shed” by Broadcast Pro Audio, is essentially a passive re-amp box, allowing you to easily...
My musical tastes are relatively populistic, but I’ve got the merest hint of music snob in my bones. It’s the part of me that recoils when Antares Auto-Tune is used as an overtly applied vocal effect, or when hearing pop performances so perfectly pitched and sterile that they’re robbed of life....
In a trend of 500-series this-and-that, many manufactures have responded to the question, “Can we get a tube module?” with, “Due to power supply requirements, it can’t be done.” Roll Music Systems accepted this challenge and responded with the RMS5A7 Tubule. As expected, this preamp is outfitted...
Many of us have iPhones, your BFF when it comes to connecting to your tribe. That little dude, along with his bros iPod and iPad, also makes a good and very portable audio test set. There are several pro apps out there, but this time, I'm focusing on one of my particular favorites. Fabien Lefebvre,...
The world of the digital DJ has undergone tons of changes in a relatively short time. Much like the realm of mobile phones, there are new technologies, hardware configurations, and functionality introduced at a blistering pace. Where only a few years ago, the digital jockey options were slim, now...
How in the world do you get away from the stupid trackpad and keyboard while DJ'ing from a laptop? This has been one of the bigger questions since DJs began moving from CDs to computer-based rigs. Traktor Kontrol X1 is one of Native Instruments' answers. The Kontrol X1 is designed to free the DJ...
The Translator is an interesting little passive device that purports to add “vintage tone” to your stale signals. It’s a small, bright red, inline XLR coupler with a transformer inside that’s meant to be added between mic and preamp. In use, the Translator adds a bit of harmonic sheen and clears up...
I’ve used and/or reviewed almost every permutation of the UAD platform over the years, and let me say that I find the UA-developed plug-ins to be some of the finest sounding digital tools on the market. I’ve had access to the entire roster for a while now and am impressed with the range and quality...
Are you completely happy with all of your mixes and see no reason to attempt to learn more or get better at this craft? Then read no more — you might not need this book.Foreword: I’ve been getting a lot of mix work lately. I guess it’s a combination of finally owning a decent analog console and the...