Interviews
By Adam Vollick, Adam CK Vollick, Roman Sokal, Nicolay Ketterer
Niko Bolas is a class act. For over 40 years he has operated as an engineer, mixer, and producer. One look at his extensive discography immediately evidences the fact that he is beyond skilled and obviously personable. He works on and off with Neil Young (Barn, This Note's For You), on posthumous...
Interviews
Suzy Shinn was just a little kid in Wichita, Kansas, when she began exhibiting the instincts that have since made her a rising star pr...
Interviews
During the early pandemic lockdowns my wife, Jenna Zine, and I searched out interesting online streaming performances as a way to ke...
Interviews
I first heard of Jacob Collier when I watched his arrangement and multitracked solo...
Interviews
Craig Leon produced a host of who's who New York band debuts in the mid-1970s,...
Bob Clearmountain is no stranger to the pages of Tape Op, as we've chatted with him in issues #84 and #129. But when Marlene Passaro at Apogee Digital asked us if we'd be interested in a discussion between Bob and Jesse Ray Ernster, a young mixer he admires, we said yes. Bob is a legend for his work with Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, and Chic, and Jesse is working with popular artists such as Doja Cat, Burna Boy, UMI, and Kanye West. Jesse grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, surrounded by music. His mother was a singer/songwriter, and his father was a multi-instrumentalist producer with a lakeside home studio. "My dad liked to make records with his friends and hang with the family." His dad recorded Jesse's bands, but soon Jesse decided he liked being in the studio more than touring. He focused on studio work as well as mixing, and soon found himself teaching recording at the Minneapolis Media Institute based in the legendary Flyte Tyme Studios. When MMI shut down in 2016, Jesse decided it was time to make the move to Los Angeles, California, where there was more infrastructure to work in music and mixing. Bob and Jesse work quite differently; Bob on his SSL G Series console, and Jesse entirely in the box (although he does have a few pieces of hardware that he uses on inserts, he's not using any analog summing). His control room is also unique as there is no console or desk, just a wall of modified Yamaha NS-10 monitors. "When I got rid of the desk, all the reflections and comb filtering went away," he explains, "so the monitoring is super accurate now." Read on as Bob and Jesse compare and contrast how they get into the mix. -JB
For Sam Cohen, what started as a means to an end as a teenager in a band has blossomed into a long, fertile career in record production. Sam and I spoke about his recent works with Curtis Harding, his brand-new studio, and his new record, Slow Fawn. One of Sam's key collaborators, Kevin Morby, also talked about working with Sam on Kevin's new record, This is a Photograph.
I first heard about Shahzad Ismaily when our pal and Tape Op contributor, Eli Crews [Tape Op #88] told me he was moving to New York to help his friend Shahzad open a studio. Soon, I realized we'd worked with some of the same musicians, such as Jolie Holland, Carla Kihlstedt, and Indigo Street. Years later, Portland-based songwriter Laura Veirs booked some time at my studio, Jackpot! Recording, and had Shahzad fly out to co-produce her recent album, Found Light. It was an honor to be invited to drop by, get to hear some of her songs in progress, and to chat with them both. Shahzad owns Figure 8 Recording in Brooklyn, New York, and has an impeccable history as a session musician (Yoko Ono, Marc Ribot, Bonnie "Prince" Billy) and as a producer (Cass McCombs, Xiu Xiu [#77], Sam Amidon, Jolie Holland). He's always quite thoughtful, so I knew interviewing him would be something unique.
In my mind, microphones are much like colors on a painter’s palette or a chef’s ingredients. Each one has its own specific flavor that can be useful and powerful in the proper context. Ribbon mics are generally known to exude a lot of character, and Cloud Microphones’ 44 Passive certainly possesses...
Bounce Factory is an application that automatically bounces mixes and stems, using the SoundFlow [Tape Op #149] platform. It was created by mixing guru Andrew Scheps [#133] as a way for him to save time printing multiple mix passes. Take a listen to editor Larry Crane’s Tape Op podcast with Scheps,...
Why review a wireless speaker aimed at audiophiles? Well, because we record, produce, and mix music that people will ultimately listen to. More and more, what they are listening on are not the traditional home hi-fi rigs of the past, but rather Bluetooth earbuds, headphones, and speakers (as well...
STL Tones is best known for their guitar amp modeling software, AmpHub, ToneHub, Tonality, and Libra, which bring signature amp models, pedals, and cabinets, to user’s fingertips. In addition, they’ve modeled the rigs of the biggest names in rock and metal to provide unparalleled accuracy in...
Sound Particles is a software company based in Portugal, and is most known for the immersive audio software aptly named Sound Particles 2. Their new plug-in, Density, creates multiple sounds based on the input signal. It manipulates the audio through granular synthesis, a concept similar to...
With the introduction of UAD Spark, Universal Audio’s new subscription-based native plug-in collection, longtime UAD users (like myself) now have access to a subset of our existing go-to UAD DSP-powered plug-ins available “on the go,” so to speak. Among other benefits, I have the luxury of freeing...
I’m going to immediately annoy a lot of people by describing this microphone with the worst cliché and overused marketing term ever: Innovative. The only difference here is that LEWITT actually pulled it off – it only took them a decade to do it, though. Even if you’re completely burnt out by...
What if we wrote this review in a 1940s radio announcer mode? Where every sentence is obnoxiously alliterative... “The minuscule monophonic Moog Music’s Mavis makes many massive melodies! An ‘A’-mazing manual maximizes the modulation modes! Way-out wave-folding waxes the competition!” No?...
While covering a place and time with far-reaching consequences, Richard Barone’s [Tape Op #54] new book is a delight to read. From civil disobedience to coffee house folk singers to confessional songwriters, there’s so much history, music, culture, and art to discuss throughout this book. In 2017,...
Since setting up my mix studio in Portland, I’ve been a bit annoyed by the noise floor of my Ocean Way Pro2A monitors [Tape Op #116]. It wasn’t until I saw an ad for Black Lion Audio’s new PG-1 mkII power conditioner that I thought that perhaps it wasn’t the monitors causing the buzz in the first...
In the early years of third-party plug-ins, Poland’s PSP Audioware released the PSP VintageWarmer [Tape Op #29]. Although other saturation titles existed, PSP VintageWarmer was widely praised as a must-have for serious engineers. After decades of research, PSP Audioware introduced the PSP...
Introduced in the mid-1960s, the Neumann U 87 was a gift to engineers and producers because a separate power supply was no longer needed due to its tube-replacing FET (field effect transistor) technology. This groundbreaking, solid-state microphone offered three polar patterns, a switchable...
I was first introduced to Vanguard Audio Labs before they even brought a microphone to market. The gentleman who tipped me off about this company was a trusted friend in pro audio. He told me repeatedly over the course of 18 months that “something very exciting is happening with a new microphone...
When I was in the process of rebuilding our studio’s B-room last year, I began rethinking some of the racks we were currently using. I wanted to get something sturdier that would also fit the aesthetic of our space – natural wood, stone, and rustic tile. The various black anvil racks and black...