With her eighth album, Songwrights Apothecary Lab, vocalist, bassist, and fearless explorer Esperanza Spalding blends input from various disciplines and asks the question, “What do we need a...
Bill Schnee has earned his place in the pantheon of recording engineers, with credits like Three Dog Night, Ringo Starr, Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Marvin Gaye, Whitney Houston, Boz Scaggs, Huey...
Ben Baptie is a London-based producer and mix engineer. After working with Tom Elmhirst at Electric Lady Studios in New York, Ben went freelance, working on records by Albert Hammond Jr., U2, and...
A multi-instrumentalist, performance artist, educator, programmer, and author, Sandy Stone’s lived a full enough life to fill several books. With a list of credits that includes Jimi Hendrix,...
If you look at the history of Tears For Fears, the original duo of Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith only made three albums – The Hurting, Songs from the Big Chair, and The Seeds Of Love –...
Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe is one the most innovative composers working today. With his experience in punk and metal bands, and as a vocalist, his compositions are grounded in a way that is usually...
Producer and musician Tommy Brenneck got his start as a member of New York's Dap-Kings. He has since made an impression on the east coast music scene as a band member and producer on...
There is a portal inside of a garage in Van Nuys, California, that leads to another world. A world of crushing heaviness, monstrous sounds, and violently compelling breakdowns. Despite its modest...
If there is anyone out there who is meant to be working in music as a producer, engineer, and songwriter that would be Toronto’s Gavin Brown. For years, he has been Canada’s go-to...
I’ve been following the career of Portland, Oregon's Blitzen Trapper since their first self-titled release in 2003. I think I bought the CD based on the name of the band and album cover alone. I...
Until recently, I’d never really listened to many podcasts. I know that I help our online publisher, Geoff Stanfield, with the Tape Op Podcast, but I hadn’t really found the time or the...
Explaining in the previous issue that I’ve returned to my pre-9/11 habit of always keeping an EDC tool (Leatherman Skeletool CX) in my pocket jogged memories of when I used to prefer cargo...
John McBride [Tape Op #97], owner of Blackbird Studio in Nashville, woke up from a nightmare one night thinking his studio had burned to the ground. Although his studio contains countless pieces of...
Applied Research and Technology (ART) has set the “bang for the buck” bar with equitable pricing and affordable innovation in professional audio products for nearly 40 years. Whether...
I believe we’ve all been overlooking Hazelrigg Industries for quite some time as a purveyor of excellent audio equipment. I recently had the opportunity to demo the Hazelrigg Industries VNE...
When I have a new piece of gear in my hands for review I always ask myself some questions. Do I need it? How simply will it integrate into my workflow? Will it improve my process, mixes, or...
The JZ Black Hole [Tape Op #71] and BB29 [#141] are mics that are often used in my studio. They have purpose across many applications, and my Black Hole mic has performed reliably, without issue, for...
If you have a Leslie rotary speaker cabinet in your studio, then the BookerLAB Fusion preamp interface (FPI) is an absolute must. The FPI allows you to connect instruments, microphones, and studio...
The Red Panda Bitmap 2 is a bit-crusher for people who love bit-crushing, made by people who are obsessed with bit-crushing. The instruction manual begins by describing designer Curt Malouin’s...
The Power-1 is the first in a series of power distribution and conditioning/surge suppressor units from Radial Engineering. Why was I excited about swapping this one space “glorified power...
Earlier this year, I called Tape Op editor Larry Crane to ask if he could help me with a mixing dilemma. I wanted to recreate the vocal effect on Steely Dan’s “Daddy Don’t Live in...
LSR Audio has managed to emulate an authentic ‘70s American peak-detecting feed-back style console compressor circuit (the API 525) and bring it to the digital world with their VLB525 Classic...
Recently, I’ve been shopping around for an upgrade from my DigiLink-compatible interface. After mixed experiences with a few of the all-in-one (and by that, I mean non-modular) interfaces, I...
Cables are the brakes of our “studio bus” – necessary to get anywhere and ignored until they malfunction. There are numerous ways to troubleshoot: continuity meters, known good...
Recording and DIY electronics have a long history together, as most early studios had custom-built consoles and in-house technical departments. Even though a near-comprehensive array of commercial...
RME has raised the bar on value with the Fireface UCX II. This German-made ADC/DAC is an all-in-one recording tool of bits and bytes, with no compromises on hardware quality or software functionality....
Subtitled “Recording the Stars in a Golden Era of Live Music,” this book follows the mobile recording career of the esteemed engineer David W. Hewitt. With early days at The Record Plant...
API consoles, 500 Series modules, and their underlying technologies have been a staple of professional recording studios for over five decades. In 2021, API unveiled a new sub-brand called API Select,...
When a pair of Audix’s new high-end A127 omnidirectional small diaphragm metal film condensers arrived in the mail, it took me a minute to put them into rotation; I felt as if I was waiting for...
Eventide has released its new innovative EQ plug-in, SplitEQ. I use the word “innovative” because, after only a few minutes of messing around with it, I couldn’t help but wonder how...
HEAR360 has modeled the Ecoplate I, a well-known analog plate reverb designed by Jim Cunningham in the ‘80s. At the time, it was not uncommon for producers and engineers familiar with the...
In an incredibly saturated market, where there is a piece of equipment for every possible scenario – like a mic pre or EQ for hi-hat top and bottom on a full moon with 57% humidity – I am...
I've been haunted by the EMS Synthi AKS3 since watching footage of Roxy Music on the Old Grey Whistle Test (British TV show) where Brian Eno [Tape Op #85] created a bubbling bed of exotic alien noise...
