Goodhertz is on a mission to help give your recordings vibe and character, and they’re doing a stellar job with the plug-ins they’ve put out so far. Tupe is another brilliant addition to their roster. The name comes from adding Tube + Tape: two things most musicians and producers can’t get enough of...
As soon as you get your hands on a dialtune Maple snare drum, you know it’s a serious piece of equipment. At 21 pounds, the weight alone will give you an indication of how sturdy and robust this snare is. Built for high-usage, dialtune drums are designed with a patented system that allows you to tune...
This book, subtitled Bridging Science and Creativity, covers everything that its title implies: How do drums work? Why tune them? How can we record them? What about mixing drums? Author Rob Toulson is a musician, producer, engineer, and professor in London, who also developed the iDrumTune Pro app....
A few months after releasing the MC-3 multi-band compressor plug-in [Tape Op#142] for APB (Analog Processing Box) users, Colin McDowell and the rest of the McDSP crew introduced the Royal Q Equalizer, and the Royal Mu Compressor and Limiter. These are powerhouse plug-ins utilizing the best of the APB’s...
Here’s a new affordable, CPU-friendly, and intuitive distortion and saturation plug-in available for both Windows and Mac environments. Fold is from US-based indie developers Delta Sound Labs, and features a wealth of wavefolding and saturation sound design options (ranging from bit-crushed destruction...
Raise your hand if you like gear that sounds colorful and big. Funnily enough, a lot of early engineers would have killed for sounds we take for granted these days, the clean ones that might seem boring and lifeless. In an attempt to evolve, we made leaps from tubes and tape to chips and computers....
We’re truly living in the golden age of digital synthesis. I’ve said this before, but I’m bored with skeuomorphic, digital recreations of vintage analog synthesizers such as the Minimoog, although I do own and use quite a few of them! What I find much more interesting is some of the recreated and re-ported...
The newest iteration of VocAlign, a timing and pitch control plug-in from the award-winning UK-based software developer Synchro Arts, comes in the form of VocAlign Ultra. This new version elevates its previous iteration, VocAlign Pro 4, from something you’d highly recommend to a friend into something...
The ULTRAVIOLET EQ from SSL is a 500 Series format expansion of the Fusion processor’s [Tape Op#131] Violet EQ. It retains the high-pass filter and four-position stepped high and low bands and builds upon it with two parametric midrange bands. The ULTRAVIOLET goes one step further with the addition...
Universal Audio recently entered the stompbox pedal market with their UAFX line of DSP-based analog-modeling pedals. Overall, this new trio of pedals is an exciting application of UA’s DSP and development – affordable and high-quality stompboxes that maintain the same vintage essence and extensibility...
Long considered the “titans of audio mods,” Black Lion Audio has finally created its own interface. Behold, the Revolution 2x2! Touted as not simply “…another run-of-the-mill interface…” I owned a Black Lion Audio-modified Digidesign 003 years ago, and was happy with it, so when offered the opportunity...
Avantone Pro has dropped a new pair of headphones that use planar magnetic technology. Unlike the standard cone technology used in dynamic headphones, a planar is a thin electrically charged membrane-like driver that is sandwiched between two magnetic arrays. This design creates a diaphragm where the...
Simply put, the OVER-KILLER is Prism Sound’s soft clip limiter circuit from their vaunted line of converters, made into a passive, standalone device. It is housed in a Switchcraft XLR barrel, has no controls whatsoever, and is one of the easiest ways I’ve found to increase maximum RMS without sacrificing...
No, the N22H reference-grade headphone amplifier from U.K.-Based Cranborne Audio doesn’t come with a bonus set of steak knives, nor do you get another one free if you order now. This device is a fantastic and super affordable, excellent-sounding, stand-alone solution for home studio users with subpar...
When I recently reviewed the Fredenstein Bento 8 500 series chassis [Tape Op#144], the company kindly included a clutch of their own 500 Series units to demo as well. I had fun tracking and mixing through all of them, but the Artistic EQ emerged as the most useful and cost-effective of the lot. You...
Our community lost a titan when Al Schmitt passed recently. I suppose if there is any consolation, it comes from knowing that Al shared his experience through tools such as his Pro-Channel for Oram Pro Audio, Ultimate Ears in-ear monitors, and some of his best signal chains in the form of Leapwing Audio’s...
I was already stoked with my Focal Alpha 65 powered monitors [Tape Op#104] before their updated replacement model, the Alpha 65 Evos arrived at my door. In my review of the original Alpha 65s (which I ended up buying), I raved about the quality of Focal’s aluminum inverted dome tweeters that offered...
I love vintage gear. Actually, I love using vintage gear. Owning it, on the other hand, is often a full-time job in itself. Throughout my 25 years of recording I’ve owned a myriad of vintage gems – from keyboards to mics to outboard gear – and each has given me its fair share of repair headaches. There...
The first time I went into a “real” studio, the engineer had me sing into a Neumann U 87 and then quickly got inside my head about mic technique, making for a less than stellar performance. It was an unfortunate moment to try and learn while paying $50 an hour (a princely sum in the ‘90s), and as a...