In the early years of third-party plug-ins, Poland’s PSP Audioware released the PSP VintageWarmer [Tape Op#29]. Although other saturation titles existed, PSP VintageWarmer was widely praised as a must-have for serious engineers. After decades of research, PSP Audioware introduced the PSP Saturator,...
I was first introduced to Vanguard Audio Labs before they even brought a microphone to market. The gentleman who tipped me off about this company was a trusted friend in pro audio. He told me repeatedly over the course of 18 months that “something very exciting is happening with a new microphone company....
What if we wrote this review in a 1940s radio announcer mode? Where every sentence is obnoxiously alliterative... “The minuscule monophonic Moog Music’s Mavis makes many massive melodies! An ‘A’-mazing manual maximizes the modulation modes! Way-out wave-folding waxes the competition!” No? (dejected)......
Why review a wireless speaker aimed at audiophiles? Well, because we record, produce, and mix music that people will ultimately listen to. More and more, what they are listening on are not the traditional home hi-fi rigs of the past, but rather Bluetooth earbuds, headphones, and speakers (as well as...
Sound Particles is a software company based in Portugal, and is most known for the immersive audio software aptly named Sound Particles 2. Their new plug-in, Density, creates multiple sounds based on the input signal. It manipulates the audio through granular synthesis, a concept similar to sampling,...
Bounce Factory is an application that automatically bounces mixes and stems, using the SoundFlow [Tape Op#149] platform. It was created by mixing guru Andrew Scheps [#133] as a way for him to save time printing multiple mix passes. Take a listen to editor Larry Crane’s Tape Op podcast with Scheps, where...
Hailing from 1978, and peppered throughout several classic recordings in the ‘80s and ‘90s, the AMS DMX 15-80 S was the world’s first microprocessor-controlled, 15-bit digital delay and pitch shifter; a rack-mounted combo wonder box with a sinusoidal VCO for modulation effects. The UAD plug-in emulation...
CEntrance’s DACport Pro is a portable tool designed by people who understand the needs of working engineers. Laptop audio outputs offer up questionable quality – assuming your maker deigns even to include one. One of the engineers here at Treelady Studios swears by a USB stick that combines DAC and...
Every stereo mix has a phantom center, or middle channel. This “mid,” includes any audio that is not panned (or recorded) exclusively to the right and left “side” channels, and creates a center image in a mix between the speakers. In typical mixes of popular music styles, the mid channel will mostly...
Texture still seems to me to be the hill on which the battle between us analog Luddites and the digital future is raging. Though digital emulations are now, broadly, pretty good and getting better, sitting next to an actual device and its digital kissin’ cousin has almost always reinforced my bias that...
You know the scenario: You’ve mic’d up a whole band, did the first day of tracking, and are shutting down for the night, coming back tomorrow for more takes. There are over 25 microphones placed all over the studio to capture various instruments. As we should know, these microphone elements – be they...
If you have a single rack space 1/4-inch patchbay from the likes of dbx, Behringer, Samson, or Neutrik, you understand the challenge of marking things clearly. Nashville’s Trace Audio has an inexpensive solution in the form of peel-and-stick labels. Custom cut according to model, the white patch labels...
Attention guitar nerds: A new documentary by Alice Gu premiered at SXSW this year that spotlights Reuben Cox, the man behind Old Style Guitar Shop in Los Angeles. Reuben is responsible for developing the coveted rubber bridge guitars that have recently been made popular by artists such as Blake Mills...
BABY Audio is quickly developing a reputation for boiling plug-ins down to their essential components and reshaping them into concentrated, powerful production tools. With their newest release, a sleek reverb plug-in called Crystalline, they’ve reinvented the algorithmic reverb wheel, drawing inspiration...
I love the sound of ribbon microphones, and I put one in front of a guitar amp nearly every time I record one. I ran across the Samar Audio Design AL95 online, and after reading about it, I had to check it out. When I first received the box sent for review, it was so light I thought the contents were...
This is a new one. FiDef is a psychoacoustic process MAAT licensed from FideliQuest LLC for inclusion in thEQblue (which is a sweet EQ – but that’s a different discussion). Now available as a standalone plug-in, FiDef JENtwo is available without the EQ. First, I’ll summarize the formal explanation of...
I recently moved into a new control room, and because of this much of my gear, interface, monitoring, and general workflow changed drastically. My new mantra was to scale down the physical footprint of my overall setup, but I still needed some robust preamps that would serve me well in a variety of...
There is absolute magic contained in the plastered walls of classic studios’ echo chambers. I’ve been lucky enough to make many records at Sound Emporium Studios in Nashville, which has two wonderful tall and narrow chambers. I’ve run everything through them. I’ve climbed into them with acoustic guitars...
Fourteen years ago, Apogee Electronics released their original Firewire Duet [Tape Op#65] – arguably opening the floodgates for one-knob desktop interfaces that focus on portability and ease of use, with high-quality conversion and built-in preamps. Many other manufacturers have followed suit with interfaces...