Interviews
By Cara Robbins, Larry Crane
Fleetwood Mac's Rumours came out right before I started high school. I remember most of my graduating class (not including me!) singing "Dreams" at our ceremony in a park by a local creek. Growing up in Northern California, we knew that two members of the band, Lindsey Buckingham and...
Interviews
Who is Steve Lukather? The guitarist, vocalist, and one of the songwriters of Toto. A session player with ridiculous credits, like M...
Interviews
With over four decades of experience, Lenise Bent has worked in almost every field of audio engineering, from studio recordings, t...
Interviews
Looking at, and listening to, U.K.-based mixer Nathan Boddy's seemingly endless...
Interviews
When John Baccigaluppi and I interviewed Trevor Horn [Tape Op#89] in 2012 at his SARM West...
Interviews
Josh Kaufman has been busy. A producer, co-writer, and sideman to the likes of Bob Weir,...
I stumbled across Beauty Pill on Bandcamp while poking around the internet looking for new music. There were a few tracks posted from a forthcoming soundtrack to a play called suicide.chat.room. It was a refreshing break from most of what I had come across that day, and it caught my attention. It was an interesting combination of electronic and acoustic sources, soundscapes, and songs that really captured the emotional space of loneliness and introspection. I went down the rabbit hole, as they say, watching what videos I could find and listening to their available catalog. Their album Describes Things as They Are – recorded while being exhibited in a museum – found itself in frequent rotation (see the online article at <tapeop.com>). I loved the songs, the sounds, and the weirdness of it all. The band's leader and songwriter, Chad Clark [Tape Op #36], and I got in touch. Check out the recent LP, Please Advise and the Instant Night EP that was just released.
For over 15 years, drummer/producer/engineer Danny Reisch's analog-centric studio Good Danny's has been a hub of Austin, Texas' thriving music scene. Danny cut his teeth making records with bands such as White Denim, Other Lives, Heartless Bastards, Pure X, The Octopus Project, David Ramirez, and The Bright Light Social Hour. Additionally, from 2011 to 2016 he also engineered and mixed more than 300 unusually crisp and vibrant live sessions for the pioneering music blog Daytrotter, recording everyone from Lizzo to HAIM to Jimmy Cliff. In recent years, he's expanded his studio and branched out into mixing film scores in surround – including projects for A24, Disney, and Apple – but he's also still recording and mixing bands, as well as playing drums for Other Lives. Meanwhile, he continues to find creative ways to use tape machines in a digital world. Full disclosure: Danny produced and engineered three albums for my band, Shearwater, but this isn't just logrolling. He's a joy to work with; I've always admired his meticulous, energetic approach, his dedication, and his sense of adventure.
We first interviewed Mark Linett in Tape Op #47 about his work with Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys. Since then he's overseen an extensive amount of The Beach Boys' archives, and with the recent release of Feel Flows: The Sunflower & Surf's Up Sessions 1969–1971, I dropped Mark a line to see how projects such as these get done. We also got the chance to talk about his mobile recording work. Check out this interview on the Tape Op Podcast as well!
Stan Shaff's fascination with the use of sound movement as a compositional tool grew out of his roots as a jazz trumpet player. In 1960, he began staging the first of his live "sound sculptures" throughout the Bay Area. By 1965 he had created Audium, the first – and still only permanent – theater for sound movement, in San Francisco. Audium has grown to include an installation of 176 speakers. Today, Stan's work is being continued on in partnership with his son, Dave, who is also a trumpet player. In Stan's own words, "I have always been possessed by the evocative qualities all sounds seem to have, whether natural or electronic. Sounds touch deeper levels of our inner life, layers that lie just beneath the visual world." It should be noted that Stan's work pre-dated, by almost 20 years, the debut of Dolby's revolutionary "split surround" stereo for cinema in 1978 (tested during the release of Superman, then formally introduced the following year with Apocalypse Now). Audium continues to stage performances every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, year 'round, to sellout audiences.
A problem I find with many plug-ins is either a lack or overabundance of controls. I’m either one parameter short of accomplishing a goal, or I tweak functions just because they are available rather than needed. The greatest strength of Mia Laboratories 409 Opto Compressor plug-in is in its ease of...
Dachman Audio is a New York-based company that began by importing and selecting mic capsules for upgrading, replacing, and DIY, and has now added additional premium capsules using American-made 6-micron gold-sputtered mylar. Dachman’s premier product, the DA 87i DIY Kit, is based on the...
As soon as you get your hands on a dialtune Maple snare drum, you know it’s a serious piece of equipment. At 21 pounds, the weight alone will give you an indication of how sturdy and robust this snare is. Built for high-usage, dialtune drums are designed with a patented system that allows you to...
This book, subtitled Bridging Science and Creativity, covers everything that its title implies: How do drums work? Why tune them? How can we record them? What about mixing drums? Author Rob Toulson is a musician, producer, engineer, and professor in London, who also developed the iDrumTune Pro app....
The Epic 5 is a fascinating powered near-field studio monitor from reProducer Audio Labs of Laupheim, Germany. Its noteworthy appearance features an anodized aluminum front panel that is trapezoidal and slopes away from the listening position. These monitors would be right at home in the studio or...
Recently, I reviewed Earthworks Audio's USB broadcast mic ICON [Tape Op #142] and stated in so many words that it looked and sounded incredible while being easy to use. Since my initial review, I've used it almost exclusively for interviews and voice-overs. Not long ago, Brendan Connors reviewed...
This new box from Radial has saved my bacon. I’ve become a bit of an effects pedal hoarder, with a desktop pedalboard rig that has grown to an unwieldy size and become somewhat of a staple for me in sound design and mixing. Most of these pedals run through a 6-channel loop switcher, allowing me to...
Here’s a new affordable, CPU-friendly, and intuitive distortion and saturation plug-in available for both Windows and Mac environments. Fold is from US-based indie developers Delta Sound Labs, and features a wealth of wavefolding and saturation sound design options (ranging from bit-crushed...
The Boss GT-1000CORE is mainly marketed as a new cornerstone for a guitarist's effects pedalboard, but its compact form-factor and advanced functionality make it an exceptional desktop recording and production interface. Connecting it via your modern guitar amp's effect send/return by using the 4...
We’re truly living in the golden age of digital synthesis. I’ve said this before, but I’m bored with skeuomorphic, digital recreations of vintage analog synthesizers such as the Minimoog, although I do own and use quite a few of them! What I find much more interesting is some of the recreated and...
Let me start by saying that I am a firm believer in “real drums,” and I’ve spent countless hours tracking and mixing them. The main thing I’ve learned is that everything matters. I can get good sounds in my little project studio near home, but for anything with a budget I’m heading to the best room...
Raise your hand if you like gear that sounds colorful and big. Funnily enough, a lot of early engineers would have killed for sounds we take for granted these days, the clean ones that might seem boring and lifeless. In an attempt to evolve, we made leaps from tubes and tape to chips and computers....
Focusrite continues to grow its professional line of studio products by introducing the RedNet R1 desktop remote source selector and monitor controller for their Red range of interfaces. Building off my previous review of the Red 8Line interface [Tape Op #143], the RedNet R1 provides for a...
A few months after releasing the MC-3 multi-band compressor plug-in [Tape Op #142] for APB (Analog Processing Box) users, Colin McDowell and the rest of the McDSP crew introduced the Royal Q Equalizer, and the Royal Mu Compressor and Limiter. These are powerhouse plug-ins utilizing the best of the...
It wasn’t until a few years ago, that I finally built my own mixing template for mixing in the box with Pro Tools. I based it on workflows I’d built up in the analog realm, with the goal of reducing repetitive tasks I’d come across while setting up mixes. When this book came along, I wondered how...
FabFilter has a reputation for taking common effects plug-ins, such as compression and EQ, then elevating them to new, mind-blowing levels of utility and complexity. I’m used to thinking, “I didn’t know I needed that!” when watching their overview videos. With Timeless 3, FabFilter has done it...
Goodhertz is on a mission to help give your recordings vibe and character, and they’re doing a stellar job with the plug-ins they’ve put out so far. Tupe is another brilliant addition to their roster. The name comes from adding Tube + Tape: two things most musicians and producers can’t get enough...
The allure of a classic microphone design is powerful, and the emotional tug of a modern clone, that closely resembles its forerunner is undeniable – probably more valuable than many of us would like to admit. On top of that, it can be hard to tell between manufacturers whose aim seems to be “Let’s...