Who's the producer/engineer with a resume featuring Rosanne Cash, Annie Stela, Van Hunt, Sheryl Crow, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Sierra Swan, Five For Fighting, Lisa Germano, Tom Petty, Traveling...
Sharon Jones may be the reigning matriarch of revivalist funk, but when I first interviewed her a year and a half ago, she was very clear about her role: she's the face and voice of the operation...
As I get to know Stephen, I realize that his internal mixing board is always on. His current project involves taking field recordings from various locations in Virginia and extracting alien...
Michael Bongiorno faces unusual challenges as a recording engineer. Rather than working in the cozy confines of a traditional recording studio, he sets up shop in a different city every night, but...
John Storyk is not just a famous studio designer and architect; he's also a master of details and implementation, sharing an innate creative sense that many of his longtime clients also possess....
Michael Joly has quickly gained a reputation for ironing the wrinkles out of a well-designed but inexpensive microphone, at a "Bang- for-the-buck" price which most of us can easily afford. Even so,...
Count, a member of the dreamy pop band Halou, is becoming well-known for his production, engineering and remix work. A lucky break (right place, right time) and a distinct sense of doing things his...
The first time I saw Lincoln Fong's name was in the EP credits for shoegazer escapees Moose back in '91, as the bass player. The next time I saw his name was in '93, in the credits for Moose's...
I just picked up a remastered CD version of Bob Dylan's John Wesley Harding, one of Dylan's many permutations of himself, and one where his singing is more emotional than some of his other work. I'm...
I read the letter in the last issue of Tape Op complaining that the reviews in this magazine tend to skew towards the positive. I gave it some thought, and I consider it a fair observation. I would...
Jim Kalamasz has owned and run Spectrum in Florida for over twenty years. Over a decade ago, they were forced to move to a new location, and Jim documented this process on a home video camera. On this...
Like the rest of the Portico series, the 5043 two-channel compressor is a half-width, 1RU-height design that can be racked horizontally or vertically. Each channel has the expected controls for attack...
I love my Alesis Masterlink! It's super convenient to be able to record audio to its built-in hard drive and then burn audio CDs or hi-res CD-R archives. I hate my Masterlink! The user interface is...
When I first read about McDSP's Channel G, I made the mistake of dismissing it as a repackaged application. We already own McDSP's Compressor Bank, Equalizers, and Analog Channel, so I figured Channel...
From micro-limiting to full-on annihilation, the TG12413 has the controls to finesse the sound as precisely as you can hear it, while your signal runs through a classic circuit which sounds the way...
Unterberger, who wrote the great books Turn! Turn! Turn!, Eight Miles High, and Unknown Legends of Rock 'n' Roll, tackles the unreleased Beatle media in this 388-page book. Mostly it's a yearly...
I'm sure a lot of you were checking out the online rumor mills about the Digidesign's new 003. Many of the rumor mongers claimed that it wouldn't be much more than a re-skinned Digi 002 (Tape Op #33)...
When Wunder Audio owner and CM7 creator Mike Castoro was asked to describe his mic, he said it was similar to a Neumann U 47 but better. I would agree. The Wunder Audio CM7 is the best vocal mic I've...
Thrifty New Englander that I am, I often check the daily "Stupid Deal" at musiciansfriend.com. It can be pretty hit-or-miss. Usually, the item is something kind of useless, like an entry-level...
Let me start out by saying that my experience with small-diaphragm tube condensers has been limited. I've never owned one but had on occasion used the McHugh Military tube pencil that The Hangar owns....
I love great-sounding speakers. I guess you could call me a monitor guy. Ever since I blew up the studio's last pair of NS-10Ms in 1990, I've been on a quest for the perfect tracking and mixing...
In the previous issue, I wrote in my "Gear Geeking" column about selling my Pro Tools HD 2 rig and buying a new 2.66 GHz quad-core Mac Pro, an Apogee Symphony PCIe audio interface card, and one each...
For this review, I concerned myself with one question. Can three "blindfolded" listeners tell the difference between Mogami and VOVOX XLR cables? Wow-yes. Test methodology is detailed at the end of...
I hate dragging a mouse to move an onscreen fader during an automation pass. It just seems obtuse-almost as much as dragging a mouse in a circle to turn a virtual knob. I'll draw out the fader moves...
