From his early days as keyboardist and co-founder of the seminal New York band Material, and his work with Bill Laswell on Herbie Hancock's groundbreaking Future Shock album, Michael Beinhorn has...
There used to be a television show called What's My Line, wherein panelists interviewed a contestant and had to guess his or her occupation. Michael Beinhorn would have been an ideal contestant. The...
I've been a fan of the husband and wife group VIVA VOCE since I first heard their second album, Lovers, Lead the Way, in 2003. To my surprise, the band asked me to assist in mixing The Heat Can Melt...
Tristan Perich is a young experimental musician living and working in New York City. He creates interesting devices to present his original compositions, such as the recent 1-Bit Symphony. Encased in...
Roll Music Systems has been slowly bringing out pro audio products since 2003. Starting as a small recording studio in Minneapolis, this company (Justin Ulysses Morse and John Sommer, aka Johnny...
Early in 2010 I got to work with Bob Clearmountain while he mixed the recent Bryan Ferry album, Olympia, with producer Rhett Davies at (my long-time mentor) Hugh Padgham's Sofa Sound studio in West...
Twenty years after his entry into the Minneapolis music scene, national success with his band Polara, opening his Flowers Studio and mid-wifing countless projects ranging from local demos to...
Roll Music Systems has been slowly bringing out pro audio products since 2003. Starting as a small recording studio in Minneapolis, this company (Justin Ulysses Morse and John Sommer, aka Johnny...
In the insane world of recording and record production, we occasionally stumble across someone whose work puts him or her at many important junctures in music history, yet their name remains unknown...
Teetering stacks of cassettes and CDs line every wall, occasionally broken up by whimsical relics, such as the bust of Elvis lamp and vintage board games. There are a lot of ideas that live in this...
Tape was an imperfect medium. We all used it because it was the only medium available. We grew accustomed to all the flaws and worked around them. As a matter of fact, we used them to our advantage...
In an interview with Bill Skibbe for a "Behind the Gear" article [#44], he said, "One of the most important things you have to be able to do is troubleshoot and fix problems. Because when the stuff...
Here's the scenario: You're reading an article in a magazine about the current state of the music business. You come across the inevitable part where the journalist talks about how empowered musicians...
If you are a budding studio owner or engineer, realize that at many points during your career, you will need to fix problems with wiring — be it a broken wire inside a guitar or a...
My relationship to pitch-correction software is complicated, as it probably is for many of our readers. On one hand, it’s just a tool, like any of the other behind-the-curtain, smoke-and-mirror...
Shockmounts suck. Right after headphones, they are the bane of any studio owner’s existence. Every time I walk back into the studio, I find broken headphones and at least one shockmount that has...
Miktek, located in Nashville, TN, is relatively new on the scene, but their microphones are making a big impression. The C7 is their large-diaphragm FET condenser mic, which is aimed at the very...
Joel Hamilton and Allen Farmelo each spent extended time working with the AnaMod AM670, a solid-state recreation of the Fairchild 670 Limiter, one of the most revered audio components ever produced....
Like it or not, Pro Tools is the closest thing to a standard in the world of DAWs; most every commercial studio needs to run Pro Tools, and if you’re working at a certain level, you need Pro...
Sometimes a very simple basic product that does a mundane but necessary function is a much more satisfying purchase than the latest compressor or plug-in that everybody’s raving...
Bock AudioSo many microphones... I once had a friend tell me, “Every mic, no matter what kind or what condition, will be better than every other mic on at least one thing. Your job is to figure...
Inward Connections from Los Angeles has been quietly producing ultra-high-end tube and solid-state mic preamps, compressors, EQs, and summing amps for about 20 years. The now legendary Vac Rac modular...
People used to find excitement in planning new gear additions for their racks. Now people get even more excited about acquiring new plug-ins for their computers. Strangely enough, the plug-ins that...
Long before the 500-series format craze, Seventh Circle Audio (SCA) was helping ambitious engineers build phenomenal preamps (Tape Op #54). Continuing my DIY quest, I was very excited to learn of the...
For ADD readers: Yes, you can build your own 1176 clone. No, Universal Audio won’t sue you. Yes, it sounds good. No, it doesn’t sound like the current UA 1176LN. No, it isn’t easy....
I love this mic. There - I did it. I didn't bury the lead under my normal lengthy preamble. In fact, I'm going to do the review backwards. The Advanced Audio CM-28 is an amazing deal. It provides...
There seems to be a new trend developing in audio converter design. Up until recently, engineers considered converters to be part of the digital or computer side of their rig as opposed to the...
Okay, since I’m complaining about shockmounts and headphones in this issue, I’m going to go all the way and complain about tuners. Every time I need to use our studio...
Praise for the original TS-1 (Tape Op #60) was generally universal across print journals and web discussion boards. What did Chameleon Labs do to improve this well-received device? The new TS-1 MK II...
WaveMachine LabsDrum replacement software can seem like so much digital voodoo, adding to the “Photoshop-ification” of music production, but really it’s just an extension of drum...
My relationship to pitch-correction software is complicated, as it probably is for many of our readers. On one hand, it’s just a tool, like any of the other behind-the-curtain, smoke-and-mirror...
Sitting in a vegetarian café in her beloved, adopted East Village, Yuka Honda is more concerned about the recent catastrophes in her native Japan than promoting her record. It's understandable....
I first heard of this group when my friends Jules and Amber from Sea of Bees were asked to do the support slot for their US tour. So, I bought the album on iTunes and found myself liking it quite a...
