Interviews
Malay: Cooking Up Tracks
by Geoff Stanfield
If record credits were easier to find these days, you’d see the name Malay on the back of many a record sleeve or CD booklet. Born James Ryan Ho, Malay’s song-focused and sonically-rich...
If record credits were easier to find these days, you’d see the name Malay on the back of many a record sleeve or CD booklet. Born James Ryan Ho, Malay’s song-focused and sonically-rich...
As the former lead singer for Journey, Steve Perry should probably require no introduction, as his vocals have graced some of the biggest FM radio staples of the late ‘70s and ‘80s. His...
Based out of Santa Barbara, Thom Flowers worked as a producer and engineer at Orange Whip Recording in the mid-‘90s and early ‘00s, with bands such as Lagwagon, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Nerf...
Working out of New York City, Mario J. McNulty is a talented producer, mixer, and engineer with an enviable list of credits. He’s been in the studio with David Bowie, Laurie Anderson,...
Keith Lewis is Qmillion, a musician, engineer, producer, composer, and mixer based in L.A. He’s been busier than ever during the last decade with Robert Glasper (and his Experiment and Trio...
Who is Sadie Dupuis? A writer, singer, and guitar player in the band Speedy Ortiz. Producer, writer, and collaborator behind Sad13. Label owner of Wax Nine Records. A writer, with a book of poetry...
Plenty of engineers and producers migrate from one side of the glass to the other: at some point, an engineer realizes she’s happier on the technical side, or a producer discovers his knack for...
At this point, Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover are the Melvins. They’ve recorded over 29 studio albums in all types of spaces and show no signs of slowing down. I caught up with Buzz and Dale for a...
It’s been 40 years since SoCal brothers Jeff and Steven McDonald, then only 17 and 13, first released music as Redd Kross – okay, the band was actually called Red Cross initially –...
I’d met engineer/musician Toshi Kasai and Melvins drummer Dale Crover when they spotted me at a NAMM Show years ago. We had a blast chatting, and while editing the Melvins' interview for this...
Since the early 2000s, PHO, born Leonardo Rojas, has navigated his dynamic career through the grand corridors of hip-hop, funk, and soul. By 2015, he was already considered one of the top 40 DJs in...
As the reality of the pandemic set in earlier this year, recording engineers and musicians scrambled to adapt. With in-person recording sessions postponed and canceled, many were left wondering how to...
This last year, because of the pandemic, has been one of the most important times for learning how to pivot our skills, and to say yes to jobs that might have previously seemed outside our...
I still use the generic wire stripper that came in a $10 Radio Shack soldering kit that I purchased while in grade school. It consists of two rectangles of stamped steel, hinged together, with a...
If you want to time warp your sounds or samples, XLN Audio’s RC-20 Retro Color plug-in is most likely the tool for you. I should clarify that it is not a clinical, surgical, X-Acto knife of a...
Twenty years ago a wiring guy loaned me a tool and reminded me to return it when I was finished because it was his “best flush-cutters” – I had no idea what the hell he was talking...
As I’m seemingly always reconfiguring my setup – with ergonomics, modularity, and aesthetics being the main driving forces – I was excited to get the opportunity to review...
For mixing, arguably the most important consideration for your monitoring setup is translation. You can have the most mind-blowing speakers in the world, but if for whatever reason the work you do on...
The Yamaha YC61 Stage Keyboard is a 61-key waterfall keyboard, now also available with 73 and 88 keys. It has three separate sound engines: VCM for the H Organs, FM for the F Organs and FM sounds in...
Most ribbon microphones contain simply a thin aluminum ribbon, a magnet, and a transformer. This elegant design contributes much to what we love about the technology, but there are a few drawbacks:...
When I first got an original Roland RE-201 Space Echo, it required a lot of love to restore it to its former glory, so Echo Fix is who I turned to first. This Australian company has been providing...
In the category of alternate controllers, the Sensel Morph is one of the best I’ve seen to date. By alternate, I mean as an alternative to your ASCII keyboard, mouse, trackpad, and piano-style...
I have a hard time trusting my ears. To be fair, my already limited mixing experience has been further restricted by a tight budget. But the thing I have the hardest time wrapping my head (or, ears)...
Gummy residue on your Sennheiser MD 421s and mic stands from overuse of gaffer/duct tape? “Original” Surface Safe Goo Gone goo & adhesive remover to the rescue. With a fresh, citrusy...
I’ve been recording many interviews for the Tape Op podcast series, and our new feature called DISCussion <tapeop.com/audio> en mass. In-person we usually use the DPA 4061 lavalier mics...
Electric & Company, operated by Mattie Smith and crew out of Austin, Texas, hand-build a small lineup of tube microphone preamplifiers and refurbish vintage units. My first experience with this...
One of the most esteemed names in the world of audio production, TELEFUNKEN, has released a new and exciting product in their Alchemy line of microphones: the TF11. I was beyond excited to test out...
Perfect Groove, created by a small team of three developers at Rebeat Innovation, is a standalone application for Mac (OS X 10.11.6 or later and Windows 64-bit version 7 or later) that predicts how...
PSI Audio started making speakers before some of us were born. Alain Roux introduced his designs in 1975, while a student at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. His company eventually...
It’s easy to fall in love with the sound of some new headphones, as it might bring you a different picture from your existing pair. Inevitably for me, the novelty soon wears off, and I return to...
The McDSP APB (Analog Processing Box) [Tape Op #134] is the gift that keeps on giving. In addition to the original stock plug-ins the APB-8 and APB-16 shipped with, Colin and the folks at McDSP have...
Years ago, while wandering around NAMM or AES looking for new plug-ins that could do something cool and unique, I could always count on seeing the people from Synchro Arts showing off their unique...
I’ve established Studio One [Tape Op #86] as my primary mix and master environment these days, making the jump with the previous version (Studio One Pro v4.5) [#132] from other – ahem...
In 2011 Black Lion audio released the B12A, their take on API’s well-known 312A preamp. Not marketed as a clone of the 312A, the B12A represented Black Lion’s re-engineered take to deliver...
Frustrated because your stock Sennheiser MD 421 clip broke and you’re finding out that a replacement for the poorly designed original clip will cost you more than several gourmet pizzas to go?...
In Tape Op #83 – ten years ago – I favorably reviewed the original Zen & the Art of Mixing book, noting that it was “ideal for someone who is unhappy with their mixes and wants...
These days, it’s pretty rare to see a piece of audio equipment with an innovative feature set, but the Cranborne Audio Camden EC2 is indeed one of those rarities. It is a combination two-channel...
This is an ingenious and very useful $25 accessory for anybody who owns Sennheiser MD 421 microphones and is perpetually frustrated at the poorly-designed mic clip/mount, the one that results in the...
At my studio, Jackpot! Recording, while setting up for a tracking session I get pretty obsessive about fixing the little problems that annoy me. One of these “little” irritations is...
I was an early adopter of Universal Audio’s UAD plug-in platform. My 2003 Power Macintosh G5 may have housed only a single UAD-1 DSP Card [Tape Op #41], but at the time, I thought the world of...
The golden age of plug-ins is happening right now. Initially, most audio plug-ins aped existing analog gear such as EQs, compressors, and existing effects units like plate reverbs and tape delays. I...
Eight years ago, I had the opportunity to evaluate Apogee’s Quartet audio interface [Tape Op #93]. I purchased my own Quartet as a result, and have trusted it ever since for use at The Happy...