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Jan. 18, 2020

Interviews

Leo Sidran: Handed Down

by Mark Whitcomb

Leo Sidran is an accomplished solo artist, multi-instrumentalist, award-winning music producer, and podcast author. He grew up surrounded by great musicians, producers, engineers, and recording...

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Columns See more →

Gear Geeking

Gear Geeking w/ Andy

by Andy Hong

In 2014, I attended the inaugural Advanced Audio + Application Exchange (A3E) conference and wrote about it in the TapeOp.com blog. A3E has continued to grow, and A3E events now run tangentially with...

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Gear Reviews See more →

500PRE 500 Series Tube Preamp

by Retro Instruments  |  reviewed by Eamonn Aiken

Years back, when I installed my console and sidecar, I sold off most of my outboard preamps. I was looking forward to a new era of not having to choose preamps, and instead just getting on with what...

U 67 Tube Microphone Reissue

by Neumann  |  reviewed by Eli Crews

I'm not going to do the thing where I give you the full history of Neumann microphones and how the U 67 fits into it. There are already plenty of places to read about all of that. We're taking it for...

TF-5 Microphone Pair

by RĂ˜DE Microphones  |  reviewed by Tony SanFilippo

The latest addition to the RØDE microphone line is the TF-5 small diaphragm cardioid condenser matched stereo pair. The mics come packaged in a nice two-tiered box with precision cut dense foam...

V1S Stereo Pencil Condenser Kit

by Vanguard Audio Labs  |  reviewed by Ed Hickey

Vanguard Audio Labs' latest offering is the V1 small diaphragm condenser microphone. Each mic comes with four interchangeable 22 mm capsules: cardioid, wide cardioid, hypercardioid, and...

Modern Mastering Bundle Plug-Ins

by NUGEN Audio  |  reviewed by Adam Kagan

Mastering audio today involves more than just creating loud and exciting stereo music masters. The mastering engineer takes on the roles of quality control, metadata oversight, and of course,...

FrontDAW

by United Plugins  |  reviewed by Mike Kosacek

Full disclosure: I saw an introductory promotion offering the United Plugins FrontDAW plug-in for free, so I downloaded and registered it. The promotion has since expired, and the plug-in is now...

Transformer-Based I/O Card

by Mara Machines  |  reviewed by Anthony Gravino

At this point, it is safe to say that analog tape recording is not going away. Tape machines still have a loyal and enthusiastic user base all around the world, ranging from professional engineers and...

Oxford Drum Gate Plug-In

by Sonnox  |  reviewed by Larry Crane

For years, I've been tortured by drum gates. First, in the analog realm, where I'd be mixing poorly-recorded tracks (sometimes my fault) and I'd attempt to use gates to add punch and clarity to my...

Clearmountain's Domain Plug-In

by Apogee Digital  |  reviewed by Gus Berry

Bob Clearmountain [Tape Op #84, #129] is responsible for mixing some of rock music's most iconic records and happens to be one of my favorite mixing engineers of all time. So, when I heard Apogee had...

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