End Rant | No. 160
One Degree
by John Baccigaluppi
I’ve been fairly obsessed with Promises, an album by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, and the London Symphony Orchestra that came out in 2021. Maybe "obsessed" is a strong word, but I put it on...
End Rants
Sporadic and regular articles from our contributors.
Do You Really Need to be "Doing It Like a Pro"?
by Larry Crane
My recording career did not begin in a professional studio. It began in high school, with a pile of cassette decks, cables, homemade oscillators, Casio keyboards, and cheap microphones strewn...
When is a Mix Done?
by Larry Crane
I sat down to try and write an End Rant describing how to know when a mix is done, and then I became stuck. Everyone’s experience with this can be different, so I dropped a line to some...
Are You Being Lazy?
by Larry Crane
Somewhere along the line, when working on any recording project, there are points where the "real work" needs to be done. Real work, to me, is the time where intense listening skills are brought...
The DynoPopper X-10
by Larry Crane
Photo by Roman Sokal, courtesy of Audio Crowbar Dynamics. Having recently spent more time working on the Tape Op Gear Reviews section of this magazine, one thought keeps creeping into my mind and...
Not So Oblique Strategies
by Larry Crane, Garrett Haines
In 1975, Brian Eno [Tape Op #85] and multimedia artist Peter Schmidt published their first set of Oblique Strategies: Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas. These cards work as creativity resets,...
Open Minds, Open Ears
by Scott Anthony
"No drum machines were used on this album!" "No synthesizers!" These liner note proclamations were, for a time, a "cool" way to indicate a declaration of purity. But bands like Queen, who made these...
What the F#ck is “Industry Standard”?
by Larry Crane, Garrett Haines
After receiving negative feedback regarding her release, a talented artist I’d worked with dropped me a line. Apparently a random critic of her album had declared that “the song was...
Amazing Emotional Responses
by John Plymale
When producing a record one of the main tenets I follow relates to how I get others to use their ears, brains, and – most importantly – their emotions when they listen back to...
The End of the Unknown Craftsman?
by John Baccigaluppi, Larry Crane
The recent sale of Bob Dylan’s one-off recording of “Blowin’ in the Wind” for $1.7 million dollars has left me reflecting on a very different way of evaluating art and...
How to Make a Record
by John Simon
Reprinted from Truth, Lies & Hearsay by John Simon.See interview here (on page 28 in print). Book and poster: www.johnsimonmusic.net/shop
Sorting it Out
by Larry Crane
Recently, I was helping out a client via one of my Virtual Recording Workshops. In his single song session, there were almost 100 guitar tracks, with multiple amps and mics for every part and...
Rob Christensen, a Big Star to Me
by Larry Crane
When I founded Tape Op twenty-six years ago, I had no concept of the ways in which this magazine would change my life. Professionally, it’s been amazing to visit studios and recordists all...