Interviews
By Jeremiah Cumberbatch, Larry Crane
Blak Emoji is the project/band of producer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Kelsey Warren. His recently released third album, Eclectro, is a fun and inventive listen, so I dropped him a line and we got down to chatting about how it was made.
Interviews
Many likely know Danny Elfman's name from movie credits, as he's scored well over 110 films at this point. But some of us ...
Interviews
Suzanne Ciani is one of my neighbors (who has become a good friend), so it's almost too easy for me to overlook how massive her c...
Interviews
Beginning in 1974, when bands needed label attention and access to a proper studio to get...
Interviews
My good friend, engineer/producer and occasional Tape Op contributor Robert Cheek, turned...
Interviews
While talking with Jonathan Meiburg and Dan Duszynski for this issue's Loma...
I've known Beau Sorenson for close to ten years now, and around two years ago I met his wife, Maryam Qudus. They are recording engineers and producers, and both create their own music. They work out of Tiny Telephone Recording (often referred to as Tiny), and Tiny's owner, John Vanderslice (often referred to as JV) [Tape Op #10], and Chris Walla (formerly of Death Cab for Cutie) [#19, #111] figure prominently in their careers. I've gotten to know each of them better in the past two years, as they've been doing occasional sessions out of my Panoramic House Studio. I always enjoy seeing them, as they each exude a very positive and friendly vibe. Even though the pandemic has limited in-person interactions, we recently had a chance to share a dinner at Panoramic with artist Leah Dunn, her cousin Juno Hassid, and my friend Suzanne Ciani, who I had long wanted Beau and Maryam to meet as they're all Buchla synthesizer users. After getting to know everyone better over dinner, we spent the next few days chatting for Tape Op. -JB
Longtime Tape Op contributor Scott Evans has played in a band called Kowloon Walled City for many years. In October of 2021, KWC released their fourth LP, Piecework. Recorded by Scott at Oakland's Sharkbite Studios, and mixed at his own Antisleep Audio, Piecework has been described as, "Intricate, room-mic'd, and mean," by the Chicago Reader. We asked Jack Shirley [Tape Op #115] and Scott to sit down to discuss the making of this record.
I’ve been fiercely loyal to my older computer audio interfaces, ignoring the glut of new options over the years. Yes, I’ve had to buy a host of over-priced Apple connectors to keep my legacy devices hooked up, but that seemed a small price to pay to defy the culture of planned obsolescence! As...
Calling the EQ52 from Ingram Engineering a plain old “EQ” is like calling a rocketship a paper airplane – not correct. You can’t just insert this module into your 500 Series rack, twiddle a few knobs, call yourself a genius, and go home early on your first try. This EQ is one of those pieces of...
The new Galaxy 32 Synergy Core 32-channel interface from Antelope Audio is something special. Advances in technology have made almost every converter on the market a viable option for professional studios. Of course, they all have a thing or two that makes them a little unique, but overall,...
Sennheiser, a German business run today by the founder’s grandsons, took a new direction last year. A longtime player in consumer and professional headphones, microphones, and other technologies (in addition to owning Neumann since 1991), Sennheiser spun off its consumer electronics division to...
Most studio owners have to do some electrical wiring. Always check local codes to make sure you’re follow safety and legal guidelines. Traditionally, spliced wires are twirled together and bound by wire twist nuts. The twist types are problematic because a good bond requires the correct sized cap....
Modeled after the sought-after AKG C 414 EB from 1976, the Peluso Microphone Lab P-414 is reviving a cult classic with a few upgrades to help it thrive in the modern world of recording. Just as original C 414 EBs are becoming increasingly hard to find and used prices are skyrocketing, the team at...
When digital audio workstations were in their infancy, third-party plug-ins were scarce. Even more rare were ones that sounded good. But in those early years, Poland’s PSPaudioware released a masterpiece: The PSP VintageWarmer [Tape Op #29] combined compression and analog emulation to make computer...
Rum (pronounced “room”) is an interesting effect from Klevgrand, a Swedish developer that’s been cranking out innovative plug-ins for the last handful of years. Rum provides room simulation for recorded audio or software instruments. As stated on Klevgrand’s website, Rum is intended to provide...
It may be a rhetorical question, but when did it become necessary to integrate a subwoofer into our monitoring setups? I can remember a time in the early 2000s when subs seemed more of an inconvenient “option,” one that seemingly interfered with session efficiency instead of offering a helpful look...
BABY Audio’s TAIP is a unique plug-in. Lately, we’ve been exposed to some fantastic tape machine plug-in emulations, but TAIP takes it one step further by offering an AI-powered emulation that is incredibly intuitive, musical, and inspiring – perfect for sound designers, mixers, producers, and...
This handsome little wood-sided box houses what is effectively Universal Audio’s first entry into the low-cost USB audio interface market, representing a bit of a paradigm shift for the company’s approach. Unlike UA’s audio interfaces in the past, the new Volt range has no onboard DSP to run their...