In 1963 in the Welsh countryside, brothers Kingsley and Charles Ward set up shop and began recording rock bands on their family’s farm. A few years later, they became the first...
I vividly remember the first time I was exposed to moving fader automation. I was 12 years old, and the medium-sized recording facility was centered around two seminal Yamaha DMP7 [Tape Op #122]...
Geoff Daking began his career as a drummer in a signed band, then became a recording engineer, and almost three decades ago began building his own brand of recording gear in California. This is to say...
From the requisite hand-wired boutique pieces of the ‘50s and early ‘60s, to the large format commercial consoles that followed, and then right into the modern project-style studio,...
Low end management is the bane of every mixer’s existence. Too much low end can eat up all the space in your mix, and too little makes a mix sound thin and amateur. Depending on your mixing...
Once there was an audio software company – now also making studio furniture – that decided to develop a coaxial monitor with a Barefoot wizard named Thomas. If you’re going to make...
The opportunity to play with this one-of-a-kind microphone from Scope Labs has been an absolute pleasure. Their introductory product, the Periscope, stands in a category of its own because of its...
Yes, the Electron Fuzz Custom Studio will melt your face off. No, it is not just an average fuzz box. Yes, it is badass. No, I don’t want to give this one back. I was introduced to Retro...
When I purchased an unloaded API 1608 [Tape Op #81] console last year, I immediately began searching for a 500 Series EQ that was versatile and affordable, with exceptional sonics. Enter Trident Audio...
When I find a microphone I enjoy, I tend to stick with it for a long time – especially in a specific application. So something I have not done in a few years is audition a new close source,...
With the era of analog tape slipping ever further into the past, growing numbers of newer-generation music recordists have had precious little experience with actual tape. Analog tape, though still...
I bought my first large-diaphragm condenser mic in 2004 for about $100: an Apex 420 that (along with many inexpensive mics of that era) was built on the same circuit as the MXL 2001. These accessible...
