Gear Reviews

I often need to audition audio files or compare different sources. I used to have a generic session in my DAW for this, but that became unmanageable. There were simply too many sample-rates, formats, and variables to rely on a single generic file. Fortunately, I found a great application that...

This is a simple little plug-in that does one thing extremely well - it gets other stuff out of the way. It does that by employing a unique and elegant method, creating a reverse EQ profile of whatever signal you feed into its sidechain input. It works like this: when you assign TrackSpacer a...

Headphones tend to get dropped, placed, or temporarily forgotten on the studio floor - right? And then stepped on, tripped over, and/or kicked and busted. And once they are broken, they need to be replaced (at $40-$150 a pop), since almost none of them are user- repairable. One solution to this...

The 500-series market has seen a flood of new products, to say the least. I keep waiting for Dyson to come out with a 500-series vacuum. Or maybe Bodum will make a milk frother for the format. The cool thing about everybody doing something is that it makes the exceptional stand out even more in sea...

While making acoustic adjustments to one of our control rooms, we decided more absorption and diffusion were needed for the front wall. Diffuser City is a small company that makes one-of-a-kind diffuser panels hand-assembled in the U.S. from 100% reclaimed wood. (Since their products are...

The Neumann U 67 is one of my favorite mics of all time; I use it on nearly every tracking date that I do, on a variety of instruments, including electric and acoustic guitars, as well as vocals. When I got the Z-67 from ADK's Z-Mod line to review, I rang my friend Jonathan Tyler and asked if...

I have seen the future, and it is touch. And fun. Cakewalk's Scratchpad is their first foray into iOS apps and is exactly what it sounds like. The main portion of the on-screen interface is divided into a 3×3 array of Expression Pads. A Browser panel on the left displays a menu tree for...

When I began work on what would become Elliott Smith's New Moon album in 2006, I knew I might have a few noise issues to tackle. One song in particular, "Angel in the Snow," had been recorded onto 1/2'' analog tape at a very low level. The song was beautiful, but the tape...

The RED48 is the love child of a control-room monitoring system and a 48-channel summing mixer, housed in a 2RU- height rackmount box with a companion desktop remote. I don't know if anyone else offers all of this functionality in a similar package. Moreover, the sound quality is...

What do you get when you combine the guts of a Porsche 911 with the body of a VW Beetle? You get a high-performance sports car that does not look like one. This is analogous to what is offered by Microphone Parts. They sell upgrade kits for inexpensive mics. I tried two of their modified MXL 990...

Lately, Chicago-based Black Lion Audio has been earning praise for its sensibly-priced homages to classic audio gear. In particular, the B12A preamp, a half-rack-format API-inspired mic preamp, has been turning heads for its high quality and similarity to the API, as well as for its surprising...

After making enhancements to the company's two-channel Duet [Tape Op #65, #89] and introducing the four-channel Quartet [#93], Apogee went on to upgrade 2009's original ONE audio interface [#78]. Now targeted for maximum convenience with iPad applications, it remains as useful with the...

So there are two companies called API? Sort of. The original API, or Automated Processes, Inc., started manufacturing modular mixing consoles in 1969 and moved on to develop the 2520 op-amp, conductive plastic faders, fader automation, VCAs, tape synchronizers, and microprocessor controls. API...

I've been using a pair of Hamptone HOC1 single-channel compressors on my mixing and tracking sessions for several months now, and they have become my favorite tools. I think this is a very unique and versatile compressor. First of all, let go of any notion you may have of optical compression...

The original NT1 was a big deal when it hit the market. Back then, most large- diaphragm studio condensers cost over a thousand dollars. Australian company RØDE aimed for the small studio and recording enthusiasts, and the NT1 was a success. Dave Johnson had one at Drywall City in Seattle back in...

Over the past year or two, I have had many pieces of both professional audio gear and consumer electronics that employ exceedingly bright LED lights. In the studio, these lights can be especially distracting when the room lights are turned down low for artistic ambience. I came across this product...

I tend to think of things in reference to a chronology of gear purchases. Like, "Oh yeah, we had just gotten that mic when we tracked those vocals!" Along those same lines, my studio's chronology seems to be divided thusly: pre-Moog, and post- Moog. Sure, I've had tons of Moogs...

Every time I try a new mic, I have to be able to justify the purchase, because it has to be useful enough to earn its place in the mic locker at Studio G Brooklyn [Tape Op #41]. The place is filled with classics as well as great modern mics, all handpicked through many years of experience because...

My wife: "How was your day, Honey?"

Me: "Oh, it was awesome. I ran the lead vocal of this song I'm mixing through a cool fuzz pedal made for bass and an analog delay made for guitar and cranked up the repeats until it went whomp whomp whomp bzzzzzzzzzzzzzringggggggg."

Wife:...