Gear Reviews

This was one of the neatest things I saw at last fall's AES show, but after Wes Dooley was nice enough to give me one, it was lost in shipping coming back from the show. So, after seeing him at NAMM, Wes kindly sent me a second one. I love simple, affordable gadgets that do something you never...

This affordable little box will hook up your turntable to your computer's USB port, thus allowing you to transfer vinyl LP's to digital. If this doesn't answer all those emails I've received asking how to do this, then I don't know what will. It can be powered from the USB...

The TM-1 is a tube-based signal-processing device hand-made in California and housed in a heavy, yellow, Hammond-style case. It has five comfortable knobs and five jacks and runs on an AC power adapter. I wanted to open it up to check out the interior construction, but there's a warning...

Accusound® Silver Studio Pro cable features silver- plated copper strands, unique winding techniques, and a black, braided nylon jacket. It's made in the USA and comes with a lifetime warranty. Do silver plating and custom winding techniques make a difference in the audio? Yes, absolutely. You...

My brother John has been recording music as long as I have (since the early '80s), but while I ventured into professional engineering, John's always been more of a musician than an engineer. With that said, his 4- track cassette recordings from the past are fantastic, pushing the...

This is a very cool DVD produced by and available from audioMIDI.com. Bob Moog (in his last public appearance), Tom Oberheim, and Dave Smith (of Sequential Circuits and Evolver fame) are the featured speakers at an event moderated by Roger Linn (who designed the LinnDrum, the AKAI MPC, and more...

I've been trying to find more synths and modular synths to put into my studio, partially to play them as instruments of course, but also for all the possibilities of using them as audio processors for filtering audio and for triggering from audio. On a recent mixing session, I wanted to run...

After last year's AES show, this was the one plug-in I was really excited to hear. We have one of the hardware Chandler TG 12413 limiters in the studio, and it has quickly become a favorite amongst the engineers here. Let's face it, the question for a plug-in like this one is, "Does...

It's difficult to pigeonhole the API 2500 compressor for a specific purpose. In fact, it has found broad acceptance in mixing and mastering suites alike. In most part, this is due to the broad flexibility and depth of features, many of them unique to this 1U-height device. You'll find the...

This is one of the first mics resulting from the collaboration between Electro-Voice and Blue Microphones. It's a medium-diaphragm (14 mm) condenser microphone in a beautiful and very functional form factor. The body is actually made of wood, is relatively small, and the mount has not one but...

Although most engineers tend to relegate multiband- processing to mastering or final mixing, I find myself using multi-band or frequency-selective processing on individual tracks all the time. For example, if you listen to Nedelle's first album, Republic of Two, you'll hear band-limited...

My first thought upon powering up these compact nearfields was, "Wow, these sound much bigger than they look!" After spending some time tracking and mixing through them, I'd have to say they give much pricier monitors a run for their money.

They are powerful enough to complement most...

During one of my Recording Workshops a few years ago, while I was talking about using an RTA (Real Time Analyzer) to check mixes, a student piped in that there was a free plug-in online. So we downloaded and activated Elemental Audio's Inspector plug-in, and damn if it wasn't a great...

My wants and needs in an audio interface today are very specific. I work solo 90% of the time, so I rarely ever need more than two analog inputs; these have to be XLR with phantom power. I want as small a device footprint as possible since space in my recording den is pitifully small. I like quick...

If people would read the manuals that came with their software, there probably wouldn't be much of a market for Thomson Course Technology. The company's Cool School Interactus (CSi) imprint creates tutorials for a wide variety of software, including Reason, SONAR, Cubase, Nuendo, Digital...

In Tape Op #46, I wrote a positive review of PSP's MasterQ, an equalizer plug-in designed for mixing and mastering applications. Recently, PSP introduced a sister application, the MasterComp compressor/limiter. And keeping with the quality of MasterQ, this new plug-in has sonics that approach...

If you've read Bob Katz's informative articles about jitter and his recommendations on clocking (www.digido.com), you'll understand that in certain situations, it's better to sync your A/D converter using an internal clock instead of an external word clock (WC) for a couple...

Hard drive and Compact Flash-based MP3 players have revolutionized portable music playback. No longer is it necessary to carry around stacks of CD's to enjoy a huge selection of music on-the-go. However, progress hasn't been quite as swift for portable music recording. The iPod...

Here's a free virtual synthesizer for Mac OS X from France, where all the fine Arturia virtual emulations of classic synths like the Moog Modular, MiniMoog and Arp 2600 come from. Could it be the Perrier they drink? (Can I mention that I really like French people, culture, and food and that...