Ocean Way Recording began in a garage in Santa Monica, California, in 1968, as a place to showcase owner Allen Side's custom monitors. From these humble beginnings the empire expanded to include...
I caught up with David J. Haskins, a member of the influential bands Bauhaus and Love and Rockets, during a book tour for his new memoir, Who Killed Mr....
As an audio engineer, you might decide to work with two or more microphones in order to generate an alternative tonal option for a source or else you might want to pick up a partial portion of the...
When I was setting up our interview with musician/producer David J, he asked if I had any interest in speaking with Tony Green, the engineer/recordist for his last few albums. I was going to be in...
Phoenix Audio, maker of Class A, high-end audio tools for the studio, seeks to, "embody the classic British tone, but with a modern twist," which they successfully do. Since 1998, Phoenix has...
For the past 11 years, Greg Wilkinson has recorded the Bay Area's crustiest punk/hardcore/grindcore/death metal/doom/black metal at Earhammer, his warehouse studio in West Oakland. He's also played...
When I was setting up our interview with musician/producer David J, he asked if I had any interest in speaking with Tony Green, the engineer/recordist for his last few albums. I was going to be in...
I caught up with David J. Haskins, a member of the influential bands Bauhaus and Love and Rockets, during a book tour for his new memoir, Who Killed Mr....
Ocean Way Recording began in a garage in Santa Monica, California, in 1968, as a place to showcase owner Allen Side's custom monitors. From these humble beginnings the empire expanded to include...
We are witnessing the dawn of dramatic format changes for audio delivery. On the one hand, we now have streaming audio and, on the other hand, we have the movement away from compressed digital formats...
Allen Farmelo has been writing Tape Op gear reviews for a decade. His reviews are always engaging, educational, and importantly, inspirational. Allen always seems to find an arc up to a concept,...
Here is Arturia's affordable and highly desirable analog synth, the MicroBrute. The little brother to their MiniBrute synth, the monophonic MicroBrute has a new modulation matrix with control-voltage...
Master clocks are a near necessity if you own multiple digital audio devices that are interconnected. Sure, you can forgo a master clock and just chain one digital device to the next, each...
The W2395c is Roger Schult's second foray into the world of 500-series equalizer modules. His first design, the W2377, was essentially a repackaging of his mastering EQ, but in an unsurprising turn of...
Is it an amp or a pedal... or a DI... or outboard gear?!? The Big Trees really is all things to all people. Having used the Audio Kitchen Little Chopper guitar amp [Tape Op #82] a lot in the studio, I...
If you are new to the technique of mix bus compression, the simple explanation is that you are compressing the entire stereo (or multichannel) mix. A compressor on the mix bus (in addition perhaps to...
Magic AB is an easy-to-use and extremely practical plug-in that allows mixers (and mastering engineers) to quickly compare their mixes to commercial references. By inserting the plug-in post-master...
I've written it before, and I'll say it again. If you want to purchase a Windows PC for professional audio work, you should have a professional audio integrator build your computer. The requirements...
Reviewing the Roland VT-3 Voice Transformer [Tape Op #105], an effects unit that includes simple vocoder-like presets, really had me yearning for a device that could do true carrier/modulator...
"Hardware versus plug-in? Hardware versus plug-in?" Wring hands. Repeat. In the early days of digital emulations of classic pieces of hardware, the argument could easily be made that the digital side...
If every DAW in existence ships with several free delay plug- ins, why is Soundtoys EchoBoy one of the best-selling plug-ins on the market? Moreover, why would you want to spend your hard-earned cash...
At first glance, the Seville looks like an RCA Type 77 series mic that's been meticulously restored, recrafted, and repainted by a team on one of the various auto-shop reality TV shows. It has the...
The Variable Mu Limiter Compressor from Manley Laboratories has been an industry standard for decades. ("Variable Mu" is even a registered trademark of Manley.) Inspired by the famous tube limiters...
When I gave a Project Studio Expo presentation in October 2014 at the Audio Engineering Society convention in L.A., my topic was "Where to focus on your studio gear when purchasing with a limited...
I think it's pretty ballsy to call something "Ultimate," but having relied on this plug-in for over a year, I do agree with the name. McDSP was one of the companies that early Pro Tools adopters clung...
After hearing an advance stream of Stop Time, I asked our contributor, Jon Regen, to recount how his new album came to be, and what it was like to work with producer Mitchell Froom [Tape Op # 10]. I...
