For the better part of three decades, Butch Walker has simultaneously been a rising and continuous presence in music-making. From his early days in the late '80s glam metal band SouthGang, to...
It's 1970, and a man runs a respected barbershop in inner-city Philadelphia. One day his five-year-old son asks him for a timeslot to DJ for the patrons. (He also wants to borrow some records). Most...
Ian MacKaye and I have been friends for over 20 years, ever since I convinced him and the band he was in, Fugazi, to come and play at the "Food Not Bombs" 20th anniversary free show in San Francisco...
A frequently overlooked part of hip-hop history and culture, the story of the mixtape deserves to be archived, preserved, and celebrated. Beginning with cassette-recorded board tapes of early...
The second half of the 1960s saw a dramatic shift in the way albums were recorded, not only technically, but artistically as the roles of producer and musician morphed into new conduits for freedom...
I first met Randy Kohrs years ago at the Summer NAMM tradeshow in Tennessee. Randy is known as a hotshot player; a multi-instrumentalist who's respected for his resonator guitar/dobro abilities. But...
Founding members of the band America, Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley, have kept the group America going 50 years, and this year sees the release of Half Century, a seven CD/one DVD box set of rare...
Upstate New York is an odd place, with its mix of old Dutch Farmers, economically depressed towns, and a slew of aging hippies. This is especially true in the town of Woodstock, nestled in the...
One of the cities in the United States that changed the face of popular music more than anywhere else has to be Memphis, Tennessee. It’s also a very important story of racial integration; of...
I imagine many of you have utilized extra shelter-in-place hours to work on DIY projects in the studio or home. I certainly have, and despite all the hours I've dedicated to these tasks, my fixit list...
At the time I am writing this, despite vastly different and confusing advice and regulations from governments around the world, almost all doctors and scientists agree that if you care about the...
There's something appealing about a two-band EQ. It implies a broad stroke – "just a bit of this and a pinch of that" – in a way that is optimistic, confident, and unfussy. Simple tools...
I admit it, I don't always feel like creating a separate aux channel to add parallel compression on my drum tracks. Enter BABY Audio's I Heart NY parallel compressor plug-in, a bus compressor that...
The Hazelrigg Industries VDI is a single channel, all-triode, vacuum tube-based DI featuring the same circuit from the D.W. Fearn VT-I/F and VT-3. The VDI offers an uncomplicated design: Instrument...
Decades ago I grabbed my soldering iron and whipped up this exact device – an adaptor to allow one to externally plug a 9-volt battery into a stompbox's power jack. Given that many pedals no...
I make purchases based on several factors, but often when I'm buying something for the studio it's primarily to fill a hole. I look for pieces that do something different than the gear I already have....
Colin McDowell of McDSP, and his gang of wickedly smart development minions, haven't been sitting back and complacently idling away since releasing the plug-in controlled, all analog APB-16 [Tape Op...
SSL has officially dived into the crowded sea of interface making with the intent of bringing a professional level of sound quality to music makers of all levels. The SSL 2 is a simple two input USB-C...
Is it a modular sound design tool masquerading as a DAW, or is it a DAW acting as a modular instrument? Bitwig Studio blurs these boundaries, creating an environment where traditional linear time and...
SPL electronics is a 35-year-old German company that makes everything from the Vitalizer sweetener/equalizer to a well-regarded de-esser and desktop digital interfaces to mastering consoles and signal...
DDMF is a German company that publishes two kinds of audio software: Outstanding signal processors and innovative utilities that no one else makes but should. Plugindoctor is one example of an...
Let's use some simple steps for choosing monitors, based on how one might select a bottle of wine. Set your monitor price point (much like wine, with monitors you'll likely need to buy at least two),...
I love low end and I try to mix with a lot of power coming from that range. This is tough when your monitors and room start to lose clarity and tightness below 100 Hz. I have to consciously spend a...
With the shift to digital recording and razor-thin budgets in recent decades, recording consoles have disappeared from many modern recording studios. In place of a 96-channel behemoth, a new studio...
If your studio is anything like mine, you see a variety of drums come through and sometimes the kick drum will not stay in place. Developed by drummer Will Butera with his dad Jay, KickBlock is a must...
Based in Austin Texas, Electric & Company builds and restores boutique preamplifiers. The EC6 is a mono tube preamp based on the preamps from the Ampex 600 series reel-to-reel tape machines. The...
The Revelation II is MXL's newest offering from their Premium Studio microphone line. This large-diaphragm, continuously variable pattern tube mic features top-shelf components: Internal Mogami...
The late Tommy LiPuma's career covered seven hit-making decades of music, and musician/writer/etc. Ben Sidran [father of Leo Sidran, Tape Op #135], who worked with Tommy extensively in the studio,...
Senior Writer Dana Gumbiner covers the bulk of this major new software release from Universal Audio, but we've also asked our newest reviewer, John Radin, to comment from a guitarist's point of view....
