Gear Reviews

The emulation of analog gear in the digital realm is nothing new, but the emulation of analog gear in the analog realm is a new concept-analog modeling. AnaMod was founded in 2006 by two long-time industry innovators, Dave Amels (Bomb Factory, Voce, Tape Op #31) and Greg Gualtieri (Pendulum Audio...

When the ISA One first arrived, I was worried that its features seem to be targeted at the solo, at-home recordist and that I wasn't going to get the best out of it purely because that's not usually how I work. That feeling didn't last long though, when I realized that it's...

Another iPhone app, this utility helps you determine tempo and delay times. Just tap the tap button in time to a track, and it outputs the tempo and delay times in milliseconds for whole, half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes. It also has two alternate modes for dotted notes and triplets. A...

At one time, I owned an Alan Smart C2 compressor, but these days, I mix in the box and rely on the Waves SSL compressor plug-in, so I was excited to try out the VCA-based 7720, which relies on THAT Corporation circuitry and low component count to purportedly sound like its SSL and Smart brethren....

This is a great little app for the iPod Touch or iPhone available from the iTunes store. It outputs a sine, square, or sawtooth wave with variable pan and output gain. It also outputs white noise. Perfect for traveling engineers! I like it because I can use my studio's longer iPod cable and...

Universal Audio more or less set the standard for hardware plug-in processors with their UAD-1 series. They were one of the first to release a product of this type and currently have one of the deepest libraries of plug-ins, including quite a few officially-licensed emulations of gear from Neve...

A few years ago, we lucked upon an old Neumann U 87. Cosmetically, it was pretty beat up, so it was only $1200. After testing it, we were exceptionally pleased with its sound. I supplied Neumann with the serial number in an effort to determine the mic's age. They certified that it was from the...

In my review of the Samson Audio G-Track USB mic (Tape Op #64), I praised it for its ease of use and affordability as well as its built-in zero-latency monitoring. Without the latter, a USB mic would be pretty much useless due to the inherent delay caused by digital conversion and host processing....

Although Thermionic Culture's Phoenix compressor (Tape Op #63) gets raves from everyone I know who has one, as does the Culture Vulture (Tape Op #45), The Earlybird 1.2 has yet to receive the recognition it deserves. This truly excellent product is a 2RU-height, two-channel microphone preamp...

My first outboard preamp was the much-maligned Drawmer 1969. I wanted to keep the signal chain as simple as possible and use a preamp with a built-in compressor, so I chose two channels of Drawmer over one channel of Avalon. I used it for everything on the front end, and you know what? It worked...

There aren't a lot of de-essers out there, probably because they're not very sexy and not at the top of many people's wishlists. But a good de-esser is invaluable, especially now that so many people are tracking vocals at home through crappy converters with harsh condenser mics. I...

Schwa/Stillwell are a cool plug-in company. I'm going to start writing about one of their utilities to help our readers ease into this product line. Simply put, the titles you'll find at stillwellaudio.com look amazing, sound even better, and are much more original than the recent deluge...

It used to be that using a soft synth really felt like a compromise. Even with the best emulations, it's always been hard not to think that if you could get your hands on the "real thing" it would just sound better, be a better experience, sit easier in the track, and be easier to...

The first time I connected these tiny speakers to my console's outputs, I couldn't believe the size of the sound I was hearing. After playing through a few more songs, I had to walk out of the control room and relate my disbelief to my brother who was working in the next room over....

In my personal studio, I've relied on ADAM S3-A's (Tape Op #33) as my main monitors for the past five years. But for many years before that, I counted on Mackie HR824's. I purchased the HR's after bringing home and demo'ing speakers from JBL, Genelec, and KRK-pretty much...

Yet another timely upgrade to Ableton's unparalleled DAW sequencing software instrument, Live 7 offers up a great number of optimizations, enhancements, and new instruments. I can be a bit wary of upgrades in the DAW world, as I feel that often the hype surrounding them doesn't often...

These days, my business partner Neil Mclellan spends just as much time working on the road with his laptop or on his home rig as he does in big SSL and Neve-equipped rooms-that's just the current state of the music production world. Up until recently, Neil was relying on a Mackie Big Knob and...