Ever since I started seeing Brad Wood's producer credits on excellent records coming out of Chicago by Seam, Shrimp Boat, Red Red Meat, Veruca Salt, and Eleventh Dream Day I was curious about him and...
An unsung studio hero? That's how some people see Tim Palmer. With a career beginning in London in the late '70s, he worked on records with Kajagoogoo, Cutting Crew, and Dead or Alive. Later work with...
In 2006 the world lost Arif Mardin, a classic (and classy) record producer and arranger who'd originally worked at Atlantic Records for over 30 years, producing hits for artists like The Bee Gees,...
An unsung studio hero? That's how some people see Tim Palmer. With a career beginning in London of the late '70s, he worked on records with Kajagoogoo, Cutting Crew and Dead or Alive. Later work with...
Years ago John Fischbach, a well-established and respected producer/engineer, came to my studio to record an album that our mutual friend, Luther Russell, was producing. [See Tape Op #21.] In those...
As a studio owner, I'm constantly battling entropy. Whether it's everyday gear, or rarely-used tools and accessories — stuff tends to pile up randomly in corners and cubbies. When I decided to...
The original Apollo [Tape Op #95] is a groundbreaking unit that combines real-time UAD plug-in processing, A/D and D/A conversion, and mic preamps in a single 1RU-height box. While the original unit...
We always ask our gear reviewers at Tape Op to take the product in question into the studio and use it on sessions. I think this is a good thing. To me, there's not much use in the real world for key...
What's a Studio Guitar Interface? Well, the SGI allows us to take an electric guitar, or any high-impedance, unbalanced instrument signal, and send it down a balanced signal path (think mic cables,...
Earthworks, while best known for its catalog of super- accurate microphones, also produces a line of microphone preamps based on the philosophy of extremely-low distortion and fast-responding...
If you are short on time and just want the thumbs up/down on the B32 Vancouver 32×2 mix bus, it gets an enthusiastic thumbs up. All the adjectives that you might find in an adult-film review are...
The SF-2 is a phantom-powered version of Royer's discontinued SF-1 ribbon mic, which means you get to press the +48V button without feeling like you've brought about the end of humanity. After that...
Cakewalk has been in the news a lot lately. First, Gibson agreed to buy them from Roland. Having a guitar maker buy a DAW company is not as odd as it first seems, since Gibson also owns TASCAM, maker...
The original Symphony I/O was already reviewed [Tape Op #87], but Symphony is more than a converter; it is a configurable product line. With six different expansion modules, the Symphony chassis can...
The original Symphony I/O was already reviewed [Tape Op #87], but Symphony is more than a converter; it is a configurable product line. With six different expansion modules, the Symphony chassis can...
The original Symphony I/O was already reviewed [Tape Op #87], but Symphony is more than a converter; it is a configurable product line. With six different expansion modules, the Symphony chassis can...
Before we get to Steve Silverstein's opinion on the newest speaker offering from PreSonus, let me butt in. After reading the first draft of Steve's Sceptre S8 review and his email exchanges with...
The Phoenix Audio DRS-EQ/500 is a 4-band equalizer in 500-series format, loosely comparable to the API 550b. Each band offers fewer frequency points than a 550b, without overlap between the bands. The...
Transparency comes in many colors. The Archangel is a mic preamp that seems to create its own reality of transparency - with unprecedented "passive gain" topology; cool, interesting design; and...
Never saw it coming. Another day at work at the Dock (our spanking-new studio spot in Sacramento), helping my bud John Dwyer (Thee Oh Sees, Coachwhips, Damaged Bug) spray fuzz guitar all over...
Every now and then, a product comes along that sets a new bar for sound quality, features, and price. The Orion32 is a prime example. When contributing writers Tony SanFilippo and Chris Koltay...
Western Dynamo is a relatively new manufacturer, based in Austin, Texas. Started by J. Morris, an experienced studio tech and recording engineer, Western Dynamo aims to produce audio products using...
I would highly recommend Robert Fantinatto's documentary film not only to anyone interested in modular analog synthesizers, but to anybody interested in sound and the electronic reproduction of audio...
Somehow Light in the Attic Records has been given access to the vaults of LHI, the company that producer, songwriter, singer, mogul, and cowboy Lee Hazlewood helmed in the mid-'60s and early-'70s....
