No matter what the budget or situation, Trombino draws out amazing performances and records that really draw you in. He delivers the results needed to make a record work and has worked with great...
Chad Clark serves as one of the main engineers working at Inner Ear Studios in Arlington, VA, recording many of DC's finest acts, among them Dismemberment Plan, Burning Airlines, Calibos,...
What do bands like Red Red Meat, Califone, Souled American, Fruit Bats, Drumhead, Orso, Cash Money, Chris Mills, Modest Mouse and Ugly Casanova have in common? Producer/engineer Brian Deck for one....
Recently I visited an oil factory on Chicago's South Side, the site for a cool project that started with the idea of recording 18 bands in 18 days. To accomplish this, Billy Spunke of Thick Records...
Many fans of the Flaming Lips might know Michael Ivins as that quiet, cigarette- smoking bass player. Indeed, he is often overshadowed by his media-savvy bandmates. However, many may not realize...
Ian Catt has developed a unique style that is behind some of the most interesting sounds coming out of the U.K. today. Having produced and engineered such bands as Saint Etienne, Trembling Blue...
If you were making music with a Macintosh in the 1990s, chances are SoundHack was an important part of your sound-mangling toolbox. It's an exceptionally rich and powerful tool, and it was one of...
Timothy Powell of Metro Mobile Recording has been a music and gear fanatic his whole life. Walking into his main recording truck, M-48, is proof enough of that. I was amazed not only at the...
In the creepy back room of my studio is an old plastic mail tub that we've nicknamed the "money maker". Why the "money maker"? Well, this tub is full of percussion instruments, like tambourines,...
Geoff Daking gets it. With the new Daking FET Compressor II, Geoff has created an instant classic. Those who are familiar with other Daking products will find the same attention to audio craftsmanship...
A couple years ago, I bought a pair of Neve 3310 limiter modules from hi-fi guru Early Bender-Worth (www.hifitown.com). I wasn't familiar with these particular modules, but I figured that if I didn't...
Two members of Digitalfishphones' collection of freeware audio plug-ins, Blockfish and Dominion, have become my first choice for certain dynamics-shaping applications "in-the-box," standing up to both...
Ethan Winer is a name you may recognize. He's been a published author of audio-related articles since the 70s, and he's a regular contributor to many of the online forums. In 1995, he wrote an article...
I usually track "basics" with all the players, instruments, and amps in the same room. I find that musicians perform better this way. Unfortunately, the situation can get pretty "washy" with all the...
In Issue #34, I wrote about my studio's lack of floating floors, and how the Auralex GRAMMA isolation platform reduced the amount of bass-amp rumble escaping the main room. I also noted that the...
I've been outfitting my new studio with various acoustic treatments for the past eight months or so. In my "live" room, I've tried hard to spec out treatments that are easy to mount, unmount, move,...
This is the perfect PCI/ASIO based audio interface for all of us studio owners looking for a high quality, versatile, yet simple, audio interface for a full sized music recording studio. It's best...
During my time as an engineer I have used some of the world's finest compressors, and at the same time, I've heard some of the worst. Having grown up in a studio, pretty much my whole life, I've been...
Is it me, or is modeling getting a bit out of control? Seems like every plug-in, amp, outboard effect, keyboard, and even guitar these days relies on modeling circuitry to simulate some classic sound...
DI boxes. We all rely on them to record electric instruments directly and to perform impedence matching chores. They've never been known as the most glamorous piece of studio gear, but they're surely...
"No, not the Shure SM57," I said to the young clerk at the mega guitar market, "I need an SM-SEVEN." " Dude," he replied. "There's no such thing. You mean a FIFTY-SEVEN." At that point, luckily, I...
This article is partially excerpted from the introduction to A Musician's Guide to Pro Tools, Book Two, which is a continuation of A Musician's Guide to Pro Tools Book One. It was adapted by me to...
In 1997 we ran a great interview with Trent Bell of Bell Labs in Norman, Oklahoma. He's been running that studio for years now, and mostly is working on "regional" acts when we catch up on one of our...
Classic-style indie rock recorded on 1" 16-track decks at Interval Music (Wow & Flutter's space in Milwaukie, OR) and at Type Foundry (a veritable institution in Portland). It has that basement-...
The product of Drew Daniel, one half of the electronic duo Matmos. It's more like a Kraftwerk dance party than Matmos, based on a dare to make a "house" record. Turntable destruction and chopped up...
Winston Rodney is Burning Spear, a roots reggae legend who's still touring. This CD, a dub version of Marcus' Children a.k.a. Social Living, was engineered by Sylvan Morris (king of Studio One and...
I've been digging through many of the recent Studio One and Trojan reissues, listening to all kinds of reggae from the sixties through the seventies. I really dig the sounds, but as reggae eased into...
Dave Fridmann is mostly known for his work with Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev, but other projects he works on have similar traits. He mixed the new Delgados CD at Tarbox Road Studios (his second with...
Jonathan was/is one of the core members of Camper Van Beethoven, playing violin, keyboards, guitar and more on their records. He's also one of those kind of guys who knows just a little bit too much...
Matt Boudreau has been contributing to Tape Op and our conferences for a few years but I hadn't heard any of his work as a producer or engineer. He fills those roles on this CD and does them well. The...
These are both widely available CDs on major labels that are amazingly creative. Radiohead continue their recording relationship with Nigel Godrich (and his magic boxes), this time laying a lot of...
They haven't made too many records since their early '90s reunion, and I was always suspicious of how they might stand next to the classics. Well, this new CD surprised me a lot. Produced by current...
What do you do when your buddy no longer wants to make music? If you're Off Records you put out his CD! Goldcard is Charlie Campbell who used to be in Pond, a Portland band that had some bright...
Joe Chiccarelli is a great pal of ours at Tape Op, so we keep an eye out for work he does (although I was too scared to listen to the Elton John record he worked on...) So here I open up this Clem...
I wonder how many different copies of this record I've bought over the years. I think three vinyl and three on CD now. This is a multi- layer CD, with a remastered regular CD version that sounds...
Beauty Pill, despite member Chad Clark being a studio denizen of note in the D.C. area, isn't a prolific band - having released only two EPs in the last three years. It's also interesting that their...
