As one half of The Black Keys with Dan Auerbach [Tape Op #127], Patrick Carney has witnessed their band achieve the sort of commercial success they would have once considered impossible. But more than...
If you are a music producer, mixer, label owner, songwriter, or electronic music maker, you owe a debt to Lee "Scratch" Perry. He was, and continues to be, a spiritual guide and compass for true...
Jamaican electronics whiz kid Hopeton Overton Brown got his moniker "Scientist" from none other than one of dub music production's founding fathers, King Tubby (Osbourne Ruddock). As a teenager he...
I remember the first time I heard the Dub Syndicate album, Tunesfrom the Missing Channel, in 1984. I was used to reggae being somethingearthy and warm, but here was a record that sizzled and popped...
Co-founded by Emch in 1999, Subatomic Sound System is a collective of musicians and others with a focus on combining the new and old technologies of music, as inspired by Jamaican dub studio work...
Grant Avenue Studio, based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, is a prestigious, fabled, and legendary studio originally built by the brothers Bob and Daniel Lanois [Tape Op #37, #127]. In 1985, musician...
I first met Kyle Crane at the airport in Austin before a barrage of SXSW showcases in 2012, when the band I was playing with flew him in from L.A. to be our drummer for the week. Eight years later,...
Jon Castelli is a mix engineer and producer working out of his studio, The Gift Shop, in the Arts District of downtown Los Angeles. Jon studied with Tony Maserati for five years and has since...
The article you are searching for has been removed due to copyright issues. Please check out Edison, Musicians, and the Phonograph: A Century in Retrospect for an interview with Ray Moore and many...
DIY Recording Equipment (DIYRE) is a cool company, making great, easy-to-build DIY studio gear. I've written a few enthusiastic reviews of their kits for Tape Op, and I was glad to get an hour of...
Lee "Scratch" Perry The Crocodile, Seattle, WA, 2019. by GS. Our heroes are flawed. Our gods will let us down. But there is no substitute for music that resonates with the soul when the listener...
In 2014, I wrote about Li-ion batteries and brushless motors revolutionizing the cordless power tool industry, and I mentioned a few of my favorite tools from Bosch, Ryobi, and Milwaukee [Tape Op...
Chameleon Labs has been around since the early 2000s, when they made their mark with their popular inexpensive British-style mic preamp and EQ, the 7602 [Tape Op #51]. John Baccigaluppi reported in...
"Why did the producer cross the road? Because that's how The Beatles did it!" I forget who first told me that joke, but if you can relate to it the way I do, you're going to want to check out the new...
Ten plus years ago I was the proud owner of a Neve 5104 console. I admit, it's a far cry from a vintage Neve sporting 1073 modules, but it's what I could afford at the time and I liked its sound. But...
The UAD VT-737 is a recreation of the renowned Avalon Designs 737 tube channel strip [Tape Op #28]. At a glance, the basic features of the channel strip include a preamp section with +45 dB of gain, a...
Not everyone needs a click track, but even the best of musicians can struggle at slower tempos on a Tuesday morning in an unfamiliar environment with headphones strapped on. If the band is tight, I...
A few weeks ago at the airport, I noticed a Best Buy vending machine ready to dispense various electronic goodies like laptop chargers, headphones, lightning cables, and an audio interface. I'm sure...
I'm sure you've read countless interviews and reviews in Tape Op mentioning how analog gear can impart "depth," "weight," "sheen," or that elusive "glue" to a track or a mix. Much of the time, these...
In my experience, germanium circuits are not for the faint of heart. Not for playing it safe. Not for those seeking clarity, or wanting to retain transparency. This type of design is for the engineer...
Arturia expands its AudioFuse line of USB audio interfaces with the 8Pre, a versatile single rack space unit eight input preamp/audio interface that has up to eight channels of ADAT I/O, plus USB-C...
I've been using the same nearfield studio monitors for almost ten years now. My main pair is no longer in production, and my alternate pair is from a company that shut down – and I've been...
I first met Bryce Gonzales about five years ago through our mutual friend and pillar of the Los Angeles music community, Jonathan Larroquette. Jonathan is a longtime manager, fixer, and fixture at...
Described as a "Dynamic Stereo Width Maximizer," SideMinder was developed by Jeff Rippe, former president and chief engineer of Rocksonics, and current mixing and mastering engineer at Raising Jake...
A huge part of Eventide's identity lies in their lineage in modern recorded music and the resulting imprint these contributions have left on the landscape of record making. Imagine your record...
This book, subtitled Stompbox Effects for Creative Music Making, is a welcome guide to how the conversation around instrument pedals and recording has evolved over the past few years, especially with...
Tascam released something that will interest growing studios. The SERIES 8p Dyna offers 8-channels of mic pres with 1-Knob analog compressors, phantom power, eight analog outputs (on DB-25 or TRS),...
The decade that had the most impact on my musical growth and development was the '80s; it was a ripe and fertile time for new recording technologies and techniques. Many artists seemed quite intent on...
GIK Acoustics is known for its beautiful, effective, professional room treatment solutions, so you may be asking why an acoustics manufacturer of their stature would bother to offer foam panels at...
Built for the 500 Series format, the Avedis E12G has 12 bands, instead of the customary ten found in many graphic EQs. The additional frequencies provide for 12 kHz (filling the gap between 8 kHz and...
With the release of the new Apollo x4, UA keeps the hits coming with a revised and expanded desktop interface utilizing the recent conversion upgrades found in its rackmount sibling "x" range. At a...
u-he's Satin is a "tape simulation" plug-in unlike any other that I have used. It's not an exhaustive emulation of a specific analog machine, nor is it a simplified saturation box. Instead, Satin aims...
Gamechanger Audio is a Latvian-based company founded in 2015. Since then, they've released the Plus Pedal, the Motor Synth, and this new line of Plasma distortions. With their namesake as a constant...
Leapwing Audio, makers of the exceptional DynOne dynamics plug-in,now approach stereo manipulation with the release of StageOne. With three distinct uses, this plug-in is beneficial in mixing and...
Chase Bliss pedals have become somewhat of an obsession for me as of late. Hopefully, it‘s healthy – I can't tell anymore. Ostensibly a two-channel micro-looping delay, M O O D is Chase...
Andrew Roberts started Purple Audio and came out with the MC76 limiting amplifier in 1997. Informed by Andrew's years as a tech, the MC76 implemented the classic UREI 1176 Revision E compression...
