Gear Reviews

I first heard about Class-T amplifiers not from recording engineers or audiophiles, but from friends seeking my vaguely "professional" wisdom. I could not offer any advice, as I hadn't even heard of this technology. Both friends gave a similar description which definitely left me curious:...

Schoeps is a family-owned German company that's been producing top-quality mics with a minimum of fuss for over 50 years. They make a huge variety of small- diaphragm capsules and transformerless amplifier bodies that can be easily mixed and matched, all machined and classified with Teutonic precision....

On the other side of the spectrum is this fancy hardcover ("coffee table") book. Mostly photos and little text, it depicts 27 current-day hip-hop creators in their personal studios. Shelves full of vinyl, turntables, old and new samplers, various instruments, and headphones dominate these...

Subtitled Hip-Hop Wax Facts, Straight From the Original Artists-The '80s, this book spends its time examining 21 hip-hop albums from the mostly mid-to-late '80s-talking with the artists about how the albums came to be. There's some cool-as-shit info, like Schooly D putting too much reverb...

A couple years ago, internet retailers were blowing out Alesis's ModFX effects boxes at absurdly low prices. The ModFX were flimsy DSP desktop units with goofy names and lousy switches, but a few of them turned out to be awesome. The Bitrman and Philtre, especially, have found a happy home with...

For years now, I've been a huge fan of MXL microphones. I'm particularly fond of the MXL 2001 cardioid condenser for its smooth, warm and accurate tone. So when the opportunity came around for me to look at a few newcomers, of course, I jumped at the chance.

The first new puppy on the block...

Remember the first time you used an Eventide H3000? In 1988, that was the hottest effects processor out there! In 2006, the H3000 is considered "vintage" by my favorite repair shop in Los Angeles, but it still sounds great and contains many unique presets. Eventide has not sat on its laurels...

Brad Avenson appears to like simplicity. His excellent reputation based on the success of his STO-2 microphones is well deserved, so I was excited about his new active, FET-based direct box. When I first saw it at TapeOpCon2005, I was surprised by its small size-much like a butane lighter-with a 1/4''...

Earlier this year, we at WMBR Radio discussed replacing our trusty Soundcraft Spirit 328 digital mixing console. After many years of regular use, it was starting to show its age. Plus, we decided our extended experiment with digital patching and routing wasn't successful, and we wanted to go back...

I opened my studio a little over three years ago. I was forced to replace my console before I even opened the doors. I decided to not buy any other gear for a while figuring that a new room and a new console would be enough to get used to. My plan was to work in the room with the gear that came from...

Like most plug-ins these days, Z-Noise comes in RTAS/AudioSuite, VST, AU, and MAS flavors. It supports up to 96 kHz resolution (requiring 1 GB of RAM to do so). As a fan of Waves' preceding noise reduction plugin, X-Noise, I instantly felt at home. The new "more musical" algorithm of...

One of the coolest things I've seen in a while is the new TeaBagz panel from Modular Acoustics. It's a portable broadband absorber constructed of rigid fiberglass in a specially fitted "bag." The manufacturer sells TeaBagz assembled or as a DIY kit. When completed, each TeaBagz is...

Using audio samples isn't just for rap artists anymore. With the proliferation of loop-based production software (e.g. GarageBand, Acid, Live, et al) more and more songwriters are using sound bites from their favorite songs, movies, or television shows. Unfortunately, many artists suffer from the...

The first time I saw this sucker, I was a little skeptical. Why does just about every large-diaphragm condenser mic come standard with a suspension shockmount? Because a shockmount isolates the mic from vibration and therefore "enhances" the mic's performance... or so I thought. The M600...

ShinyBox is Jon Ulrigg, a one man operation in Washington state. A musician and self-described electronics freak, Jon is a passionate guy who came to microphone design after a long period of soul-searching and with a desire to make tools for musicians. He was interested in ribbon mics, and after seeing...

There is no doubt that Groove Tubes understands vacuum tubes. Aspen Pittman, the owner of GT, is one of the most knowledgeable persons you could ever meet when it comes to the subject. As a follow-up to their successful creation of the ViPRE mic preamp, Groove Tubes now has the variable transconductance...

Recently, there was a thread on the Tape Op messageboard linking to Plate-Sonics, a new company producing plate reverbs in Peoria, Illinois, only 40 minutes away from my studio. I immediately emailed them because I wanted to go and hear one in person. Dan and Brett of Plate- Sonics were more than happy...

Lots of companies are offering newfangled direct boxes these days. The old days of a passive direct box that gave you a clean signal have been replaced with direct boxes that offer many options of EQ and filter. The REDDI is not one of these. The REDDI is a solid piece of vacuum tube goodness.

When we...

I recently completed construction of a mixing room based upon designs by Ethan Winer and Wes Lachot. The room is 21 ft long, with an 11 ft front wall, 15 ft rear wall, and 8 ft ceiling. A space 4 ft high by 8 ft wide was reserved on the rear wall behind mix position for diffusion. I had planned to use...