ARC Studio is an easy-to-use acoustic room correction tool, and one of my favorite recent studio upgrades. Set up is relatively simple; while it does require a computer for the calibration, once...
I’ve loved listening to music in headphones since I was a child, but I’ve come a long way from those flimsy freebies that came with my yellow Sony Walkman. As an adult, I’ve spent...
Call me an AI pessimist, but my initial reaction was lukewarm when I considered trying out the Vocal Reverb plug-in from Antares Audio Technologies. Haven’t I already got enough reverbs? How is...
A few months ago, I was hired to work on the audio engineering team at a production camp put on by Sony. One of the events at this camp was a demo of Sony’s immersive audio tools, and this was...
In what seems to be a growing trend, Freqtube FT-1 is a saturation plug-in for DAWs that uses an outboard analog processor in conjunction with software. This is my first experience with anything from...
The SA-3 is a massive evolution of McDSP’s SA-2 Dialogue Processor. Like its predecessor, it’s still a killer dialogue and vocal tamer, but it’s so much more than simply that. This...
Gregory Scott's Kush Audio has done their 10,000 hours when it comes to designing audio compressors. It was a decade ago that Kush released the UBK-1 [Tape Op #86] hardware unit and subsequent...
The latest compressor from Empirical Labs is similar to Ike and Tina Turner’s classic cover of “Proud Mary,” in that it ranges all the way from nice to rough. Like its older sibling,...
The Carnaby 500 is a groundbreaking audio processor. Hands down, this device is stunning. At first glance, it looks like a three-band EQ – which it kind of is – but it's not like any...
If you’re reading Tape Op reviews and love recording with ribbon and dynamic mics as much as I do, then you’re probably already familiar with Cloudlifters. Also known as “mic...
I’m a big fan of distortion plug-ins – these days, who isn’t? If you are, you’ve got to check out THERMAL, from Output. There’s so much to this plug-in that I’ve...
If you find yourself chasing modern low end, you’ll eventually end up playing with a subharmonic synthesizer. There are plenty of options, ranging from outboard gear like the dbx 120A...
We’re huge fans of Eventide over here at High Bias Recordings. Eventide units have been an integral part of the sonic fabric here both on the front end with the Rose [Tape Op #133], Blackhole...
