Gear Reviews

Focusrite's compact, 16 in, 8 out, 24-bit, 96 kHz FireWire audio interface includes 4 analog inputs (2 mic/line/instrument, 2 line/instrument), 6 analog outputs, S/PDIF I/O, and ADAT in. Under the hood is a DSP-powered subsystem for low-latency routing, monitoring effects, and Virtual...

I can't think of a recording studio that doesn't require acoustic treatment. Like many Tape Op readers, we've done our fair share of DIY blended with commercial off-the-shelf solutions. If you run a commercial studio, there can be some serious disadvantages to the DIY approach. Using...

This past March, I had my first experience recording to tape with CLASP (Closed Loop Analog Signal Processor). CLASP inventor Chris Estes was at Yellow Dog Studios in Austin to help us get started with his revolutionary device and to demo CLASP to other engineers, producers, and artists during...

If you've mastered the skills necessary to build something like a Seventh Circle Audio preamp (Tape Op #35, #54), you might want to move to something a little more challenging. Eisen Audio has just the thing. The DIY500 mkII Minimal Kit provides you with the framework to build a custom preamp...

ck when they were first introduced, I was skeptical of the Primacoustic Recoil Stabilizers monitor pads (Tape Op #62) that have since become something of an industry standard. Having little or no patience for what I then perceived as trendy gimmicks, it took the kindness of a fellow engineer...

When the Royer R-121 ribbon mic (Tape Op #19) came out in 1998, word on the street from working engineers was overwhelmingly positive. I borrowed one from Jeff Stuart Saltzman and soon bought my own. Ribbon mics were coming back in style (kudos to Wes Dooley for keeping the faith), and Royer had...

I was an analog snob. Having fallen foul of a few ADATs back in the day, I badmouthed the sonics of digital: the crispiness, the sterility, the lack of depth, etc. In the last couple of years, however, I began to relent as I found myself enjoying and admiring more and more records that were...

The Launchpad has, well, landed and seems certain to become a ubiquitous tool for users of Ableton Live (Tape Op #72). It's a compact and lightweight USB MIDI interface organized around an 8x8 grid of 64 LED-backlit buttons, similar in design to the partially open-source Monome controller...

When contemporary music intersects with the world of classical music, certain things can be lost in translation. How many times have you heard a guitar player mention that he doesn't really know notes, he just knows chord shapes? When I reviewed the ASK Video Sibelius Tutorial DVD (Tape Op...

How many good vocal mics are there out there today? Probably way too many, but how many are truly great vocal mics? Now we can narrow the field, with the choice mics being mostly of the vintage or vintage re-issue breeds. A few boutique manufacturers - really builders, since calling them...

There are many jobs for which hardware still rules the music roost. But there are some that software does better - synths, for example. Though no software will replace my analog Minimoog, many hardware synths are nothing more than specialized computers running software. Sampling and FM...

If you've heard of Steven Slate and his sample libraries, you're aware of one thing; Steven Slate loves drums. All kinds of drums - big ones, small ones, drums up close, drums far away...... drums, drums, drums.
The Dragon Dynamics Processor is the first offering from his new hardware...

Next on the 500-series hit parade is Shadow Hills Industries' gorgeous Dual Vandergraph! It's a stereo compressor with roots in Shadow Hills' own Mastering Compressor, a behemoth that has found its way into the hands of some of the most renowned mix and mastering engineers in the...

The DrMS plug-in is based on Mid/Side processing, a powerful way of manipulating stereo signals that grew out of a recording technique patented by Alan Blumlein in the 1930s. There's really no way to understand the DrMS plug-in without grasping the basics of M/S recording, so let's start...