Gear Reviews

The use of effect pedals at the mixing board is by no means a new thing. I remember studio owners thinking I was crazy in the '90s when I patched in a SansAmp Bass Driver DI or BOSS DM-2 Delay pedal on vocals at mix. Then everyone was talking about that Strokes vocal sound and saying it was a...

There's gear that does its job in technically proficient and sometimes even colorful ways. In the capable hands of skilled producers and engineers, the gear brings to life the instruments and sounds that run through its electronic pathways. And then there's gear that is musical in its own...

21st century perspective reveals that, in many ways, the advancement of recording technology has been chronologically non-linear. Rather than a tidy progression from primitive-to-sophisticated, we could easily characterize the developments as an evolution from one set of priorities to another. The...

We roam the frigid, soulless digital landscape, searching in vain for the analog mojo that was once ours. We buy expensive A/D converters, we compress everything, we emulate tape, and sometimes, we just distort the shit out of shit. I'm down. Whether it's adding subtle hair to otherwise...

The new SONAR that replaces SONAR X3 will be the last one ever — no more numbered editions according to Cakewalk. But that doesn't mean that this is the last release you'll ever need. Cakewalk is dropping the numbers and no longer following a software cycle of major and minor...

The Splice MKII is an 1176-style FET compressor in a 2RU-height rackmount chassis. The original Splice, which is no longer available, was a 500-series module. The roomier faceplate of the MKII rackmount unit allowed Serpent Audio to incorporate additional features. The result is a fresh take on one...

I've been using a pair of Dynaudio Professional BM6 mkIII monitors for about four months now in my home mixing setup, and I took to them more quickly and confidently than I ever have to any nearfield speakers. If you asked the Dynaudio engineers why, they would probably tell you that the...

Sometimes you need a hammer. Sometimes you need a Leatherman. Then again, maybe you need eight hammers with a folding torque-wrench attachment plus bottle openers on each. Um. What I'm trying to say is that this eight-input mic preamp from Focusrite does a lot of heavy lifting for my studio...

Just nod your head and pretend like you know what they're talking about. "Of course it's the op amp, not the power supply!" But you really have no idea what they're talking about, do you? If you're tired of being the lost guy in the studio with regards to audio...

At first glance, the H9 Harmonizer can be easily mistaken for a fancy guitar pedal adorned with pretty LEDs. Upon further study, it becomes clear that the H9 is so much more than a stompbox. It's hard to even begin describing all that it can do! First of all, as the legendary Harmonizer name...

In releasing this hardbound book, the folks at Ableton have continued to highlight their company and product as "the DAW that's different." It's hard to imagine any of the other major players in the DAW landscape even considering a project like this, but for Ableton, it seems...

Prolific inventor Laurens Hammond was granted a patent for the spring reverb in 1939, and in the decades that followed, Hammond incorporated this novel artificial reverberation device in the organs that were being sold to the many small churches throughout the U.S. that were notably not...

Several pieces of gear in my studio experienced vacuum tube failures. After I found myself spending money for maintenance and parts, I realized that I would benefit from learning more about tubes and how to maintain tube gear. My friend Pat Kaufman, who fixes amps at Main Drag Music in Brooklyn...