In Tape Op #16, my pal Stephen Murray interviewed Tchad Blake while he was in the middle of co-producing Pearl Jam's Binaural album in Seattle. Nearly two decades later, Tchad and I sat down in New...
A young intern fresh out of Full Sail University gets a big break (and a nickname) from Missy Elliott, works alongside producers and engineers like Timbaland, Jimmy Douglass [Tape Op #130], Demacio...
From a not-so-obvious career path that began by servicing early samplers, to engineering parts of a Michael Jackson's HIStory, to his current life in England and mixing in the box, Andrew Scheps has...
Brian and I drove to Philly on Sunday, December 3, 2017, to attend the first of two world premier performances and recording sessions for Symphony for a Broken Orchestra by composer David Lang, a...
Drummer, producer, and engineer Darryl Moore (aka: JMD, Jamm Messenger D, Jamm Messenger Divine) has helped seminal hip-hop groups Freestyle Fellowship and The Pharcyde develop their sound. As a...
Matt Rollings has been music's best-kept secret for some three plus decades, but that's slowly changing. A live and studio keyboard ace who has played on thousands of recordings and anchored the bands...
I have a habit of getting low key obsessed with certain artists, especially producers and engineers. For months I just can't stop listening to records they've touched. Earlier this year I had a few...
We first interviewed Eric Valentine in Tape Op #45 and discussed his production career and techniques. Eric is well known as a producer and engineer for working with Third Eye Blind, Smash Mouth, Good...
The Ocean Blue have been making dreamy pop albums since the late ‘80s. Their new release, Kings and Queens / Knaves and Thieves, is a perfect example of a self-recorded album that works in the...
The National are a musical group who have been together for 20 years, have released multiple critically acclaimed albums, all while retaining the same lineup for the entire time. The band consists of...
It was a simple thing, really. Just a short one-page lease agreement I'd helped broker between a beekeeper and my adjacent neighbors, whose property I help manage. I had sent two copies of the...
A few nights before sitting down to write this column, I had a fascinating discussion about speaker design and acoustics with Eric Blackmer, son of the late David Blackmer (whose initials are in dbx)....
You might think that the new MODX synthesizer from Yamaha is just a compact version of their flagship MONTAGE keyboard [Tape Op #127], and on the surface you might be right (the MODX sound engine is...
MAAT's thEQorange is an update of the famous Algorithmix PEQ Orange linear EQ plug-in. The original Orange EQ (along with its Red sibling) were very popular with mastering houses. Users suggested that...
Drobo is a US-based company specializing in data storage solutions. More than a drive enclosure, the 5N2 provides data protection, web-based file management, and scalable capacity. My photography and...
Unusually heavy for its size and price point, the RØDE PodMic dynamic broadcast microphone feels overbuilt to the very meaning of the word. With an industrial black and silver look and...
I can't say I'm a huge fan of the part of the Behringer business model that seems to copy designs and intellectual property from other manufacturers, then rebuild said designs super cheaply in China....
AudioScape is run by Chris Yetter in Daytona, Florida, and currently produces six different compressors and an EQ, all based off of classic, well-known designs – including an SSL style bus...
It's no secret I'm a big fan of AEA microphones. When my studio High Bias Recordings first opened the Michigan Ave. location, I bought a pair of AEA R84s [Tape Op #38] and the rest is history. In the...
When I asked a handful of reviewers to consider writing about Hamptone's 500 Series JFET microphone preamp, the prolific Don Gunn from Seattle and stalwart Detroit gear nerd Chris Koltay were among...
Dan Gillespie founded Newfangled Audio to merge his digital processing experience with his interest in machine learning. Drawing on 15 years of writing DSP code for Eventide, Elevate is a suite that...
A little over a year ago I was finishing up a session when a producer I was working with handed me a mic and said, "Hey man, have you heard of this? You should really try it." He put a JZ Microphones...
Coming from a family of jewelers in Iowa, and growing up fascinated with small scale measurements and attention to detail, Eric Heiserman became a DIY community mainstay by manufacturing an...
Kali Audio's first product line, the Lone Pine Series, debuted in mid 2018. Charles Sprinkle is Kali's Director of Acoustics, and before joining Kali Audio was Principle Systems Engineer at JBL...
Come close for a minute. Let's talk about mic stands. You know the type – the kind that look like someone with a doctorate in industrial engineering designed them; the kind that you can truly...
Yamaha NS-10s (along with other equipment, like the Shure SM57) have undoubtedly been among the most omnipresent tools of our trade in the past three decades. Most professional engineers fall pretty...
I didn't think it would be appropriate to have Tape Op's journalistic integrity called into question if my review only included the phrase "HOLY SHIT!" over and over again, so it looks like I'll have...
I'm not sure when it happened exactly, but at some point I lost interest in tap-dancing all over huge, sprawling pedalboards. When putting together a new rig in advance of some fall touring, I opted...
Where to start a review of a product or software is especially tricky when you have been working with it for almost 20 years. I began using Nuendo v1.5 in 2000 when it was first released for Mac OS....
sE Electronics, at just under two decades old, has become well known in the microphone field, with over 25 models in production. The attention to detail and build quality of the microphones they...
I love simple, thoughtfully-designed tools for the studio that solve a common problem, and do so inexpensively. The Royer Labs R-121 [Tape Op #19] ribbon mic is one of the few products made in the...
When working in studios all the time, using a plethora of gear, and getting comfortable using certain expected pieces of equipment, it's sometimes difficult to feel genuinely excited about something...
It's no real secret how I feel about Eventide. As I'm writing this, I'm fresh off of an insane 36-hour road trip to and from Montoursville, Pennsylvania. Why? A guy was selling a huge pile of gear as...
Focal's professional monitors have become quite popular in recording studios over the past several years, from their smaller 2-way systems like the Solo6 Be [Tape Op #60] to larger 3-way systems like...
The Rupert Neve name has always been on my list of desirable gear to own. His Rupert Neve Designs has taken the best elements of his older, coveted designs and jettisoned the compromises of...
