Chris Muth of Dangerous Music knows his stuff. Formerly a mastering gear designer at Sterling Sound in New York City, Muth now co-owns Dangerous Music with partner Bob Muller, a unique combination...
When I first walked into Barefoot Studios, a shark and a beautiful mutt greeted me. Elsie, at times affectionately called "the Pooper", runs off to announce my arrival. Welcome to the world of Eric...
John Parish is a well-respected musician and producer. He has made records for and with PJ Harvey, Sparklehorse [Tape Op #12], the eels, Giant Sand, Dominique A and Tracy Chapman, to mention a few....
When I first met Jacquire, he was working at Toast, a studio in San Francisco. He had already developed a reputation for being the man to call when you needed to make something sound unique and...
For over thirty years, the legendary, prolific and influential art group known as The Residents has been making interesting rock 'n' roll, pop and symphonic music and films that are never old....
There is an epidemic sweeping the music industry. No, it's not an STD or computer virus, but something just as bad: Studios are falling prey to equipment theft. Audio gear is being stolen from...
Amidst the flash and glitz of the expensive, superficial hype that sells today's hits to the mainstream, it might seem as if the art of songcraft is at an all time low. Larry Levine remembers a...
Carol Kaye is one of the most recorded bass players of all time, with 10,000 sessions and 40,000 songs under her belt, including a staggering list of hits for Ray Charles, The Righteous Brothers,...
One afternoon, late last summer, I found myself walking down a dead end street, two blocks off the famous Waikiki beach in Hawaii, looking for the address where I was to meet the owner of a local...
Want to pump some air and life into your recordings? Try mic'ing some instruments in stereo with two microphones. To create a stereo effect, the mics can be angled apart, spaced apart, or both. In...
The Alesis 3630 is a very popular, full-featured compressor. It offers up RMS and peak compression, variable knee, adjustable attack and release times, and great metering for under a hundred bucks....
In 2000, Eric Valentine invited us to come down to his now-former studio just south of San Francisco to listen to some music and talk about maybe making a record together. We arrived at the studio not...
Larry gets a break this month, as this issue's 'End Rant' is a behind the scenes peek at how this magazine gets put together every two months. In a nutshell, it's organized chaos and this issue...
You may have noticed from reading the last few issues of Tape Op that we have a soft spot in our hearts for vintage synths, with interviews of Malcolm Cecil (keeper of TONTO), Bob Moog, and Larry...
The DD-2 K-Stereo Processor is referred to as an "ambience recovery device" in literature and on the Digital Domain website. The brainchild of mastering engineer Bob Katz, the DD-2 is built using...
In true DIY style, UK-based engineer/producer Mike Pelanconi has been building up his Drum Drops catalog via word of mouth over the last few years to become the premier online source of top quality...
The VAC-6c pop screens provide a unique solution to the "How do I tame those damn plosives?" dilemma-you know, the overbearing "P" sounds that create huge low- end peaks on vocals when mics are in...
The Folcrom RMS216 is a 1RU passive summing unit with standard D-Sub connectors providing 16 balanced inputs on the back and two XLR connectors for balanced outputs. Each input can be assigned to...
Before I built up my own studio, I used to carry around a portable case with original Neve 1272 and API 312 mic preamps that Brent Averill Enterprises had racked for me. These now sit permanently...
This set of 16 plug-ins works in RTAS (Pro Tools LE), HTDM (Pro Tools HDTM/TDM), VST (Cubase, Nuendo), and AU (Logic, Digital Performer) and will run on MacOS X, Win98, NT, 2000, and XP. It seems like...
I've been a big fan of Radial Engineering ever since Pete Weiss reviewed the JD7 DI and amplifier interface in Tape Op #38. Radial makes great problem-solvers for both the stage and studio, and their...
Recently, I was asked to record a private concert featuring acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Paul Cantelon (who is also an accomplished violinist and composer). The concert took place in a New...
This inexpensive 25-key MIDI keyboard was a perfect solution to a small problem in my studio. Virtual instrument plug-ins are getting better and better these days, particularly some of the ones we've...
The B4 has been one of my most regularly used and cherished VST plug-ins, so just for the sake of nostalgia, I took a look back in the archive of Tape Op reviews and saw that my original review of the...
As most people know, Mackie has become a leading manufacturer of affordable audio products. The company is perhaps best known for its great line of simple but clean- sounding mixers. The company has...
David Bock is very serious about microphone making. In ten short years, he's built up a reputation as a builder of some of the best sounding mics you can buy. His primary focus has been on...
I have to admit to a certain amount of amazement when I first plugged in the ISA 430 MkII and heard what was coming through my speakers. There was that clarity and professional sound that I had been...
The name Geoff Daking has become synonymous with quality-built, great-sounding studio recording gear. He is well respected for his FET Compressor II, Mic-Pre/EQ, and custom consoles. He recently...
What is this box? I've had it for almost a year, and I'm still not sure how to answer that. For one, it's basically two channels of tube circuitry that can be run in normal or overdrive modes. The...
One of the coolest things I saw at the AES show this past October is this little inline XLR barrel that's both a pad and EQ designed for kick drum mic'ing. For rock drums my go-to scenario is an AKG D...
First off, a story: I was tracking some songs in New Orleans this summer, and Dan Kennedy of Great River was cool enough to send me this new EQ to the studio I was at; plus, he sent one of his MP-2NV...
Finally, someone has introduced an affordable DAW controller that has enough faders and virtual input strips that it can handle a typical record/mixdown session and feel like a real mixing...
When Larry Crane emailed me about reviewing the Groove Tubes VIPRE, I was very excited. I had used this unit when it was first introduced several years ago but never had an ample amount of time to...
