Interviews
By Joel Hamilton, Corinne Merrell
Known as Kid Koala, Eric Yick Keung San is recognized as an innovative scratch DJ and turntablist, but he's also accomplished a much deeper range of amazing work beyond the DJ moniker than one might be lead to believe. Besides being a member of the famed hip-hop trio Deltron 3030, he's produced...
Interviews
Arising from the artistic sludge metal scene of Savannah, Georgia, Baroness skyrocketed into the hard music consciousness with their first full length Red Album in 2007....
Interviews
Brigitte Angerhausen is a classically trained pianist, composer, producer, and award-winning audio engineer based in Köln (Cologne)...
Interviews
Donn Landee's lengthy discography is a testament to his versatility and skill as an...
Interviews
In 1973, Alhaji Bai Konte's record, Kora Melodies From The Republic Of The Gambia,...
Interviews
Nestled in a multi-use warehouse in NE Portland, Oregon, near a brewery and a...
Joseph Lorge has been quietly working away on an impressive discography over the last few years. Many know him as the engineer who works closely with Blake Mills [Tape Op #115], as they have made records together for Feist, Perfume Genius, and Mumford & Sons. Additionally, on his own, Joseph has helped craft sounds for Ethan Gruska [#141], Phoebe Bridgers, and Christian Lee Hutson. Joseph and I met when he came through Portland, Oregon, mixing front of house for the Blake Mills and Chris Weisman tour – a live show that sounded as unique as the records he has made.
Kim Deal is the founder and frontwoman of The Breeders, whose landmark album Last Splash turned 30 in 2023. She also spent quite some time playing bass and lending vocals to The Pixies, but she's a massive creative talent in her own right, self-taught and scrappy (before she could even hit the record button, she had to learn to solder cables). With her own inimitable aesthetic as a songwriter, instrumentalist, and producer, Deal continues to make her mark on modern music. Additionally, she continues to grow in her understanding of audio techniques, now effectively engineering herself as she has been recording remotely since the more locked down days of the pandemic. Tape Op chatted with Deal over Zoom, her presence animated and theatrical, as she walked us through her continued path forward, despite all of the changing technologies and global disruptions along the way.
Lynne Earls is an Irish music producer, songwriter, and sound engineer based in Los Angeles, California. In addition to owning her own label, custom music production shop, and residential recording studio in Tehachapi, California, she has worked with artists such as k.d. lang, LeAnn Rimes, Lizz Wright, Melody Gardot, Ledisi, Airto Moreira, Flora Purim, as well as producers such as Larry Klein [Tape Op #137], Peter Asher [#137], and Darrell Brown. She met with Lisa Machac of Omni Sound Project to discuss both her career and future plans for her residential recording retreat, Tibet Hill Studios.
If you took at face value the mythologizing of recording consoles as it stands today, you could be forgiven for thinking that Neve, API, and SSL made all the classic desks used for record production in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. But at the height of the analog recording era, it’s fair to say there...
“What is this crazy thing?” is the heading of the second paragraph in Kludge Audio’s instruction manual for the one knob / two toggle switch 509 Rotating Limiter. Before slotting this single-channel unit into my 500 Series chassis, I was giddy at its perceived simplicity. I’m a big fan of gear that...
Remember when hardware reverbs were the sole effects available? I certainly do. In the mid-‘90s, when I began making records in Los Angeles, I would scan any unfamiliar studio for the presence of Eventide SP 2016 [Tape Op #129] reverbs and H3000/DSP4000/Orville Harmonizer units. With those hardware...
Sure, there are a few elegantly functional mic mounts out there (Royer, Audio-Technica, Rycote), but are there any aesthetically beautiful and functional mic mounts available? Manufactured in Portland, Oregon, Ear Trumpet Labs (ETL) have made a name for excellent-sounding and sort of retro-looking...
I’ve had an original one channel hardware Eventide Omnipressor for years, so it’s been exciting to try the new 50th Anniversary Reissue Omnipressor 2830 Au, which keeps the functionality – both conventional and unique – that makes this a special dynamics processor, while adding some interface...
I'm a stickler for using stereo mounts for setting up pairs of microphones or grouping two mics on an amp when recording, and I am usually completely unhappy with how all these stereo bars and mounts are designed. My favorite for years has been a simple one K&M made, with two adjustable arms and...
In what seems to be a growing trend, Freqtube FT-1 is a saturation plug-in for DAWs that uses an outboard analog processor in conjunction with software. This is my first experience with anything from the Freqport brand, and I hope this well-designed analog/digital hybrid is a sign of more to come....
SAMAR Audio is a refreshing voice of innovation. Dr. Mark Fouxman founded the company on his passion for electronics engineering, classical piano virtuosity, and pro audio expertise, and has consistently delivered intriguing contributions to the microphone market – particularly in the ribbon...
The MT 48 isn’t just another desktop interface; it is Neumann’s redevelopment of Merging Technologies’ high end Anubis interface as Neumann and Merging Technologies both now operate under the Sennheiser umbrella. The MT 48 can connect to networks and computers via AES67/RAVENNA IP-based protocol,...
It wasn't that many years ago that my staff at Jackpot! Recording Studio kept mentioning FabFilter's Pro-Q 3 [Tape Op #132] so much that I began using it on everything; they were correct – it’s a well thought out EQ tool that's easy to use and sounds proper. Since I'd somehow remained ignorant of...
The SA-3 is a massive evolution of McDSP’s SA-2 Dialogue Processor. Like its predecessor, it’s still a killer dialogue and vocal tamer, but it’s so much more than simply that. This is a full bandwidth dynamic resonance suppressor. It’s not exactly groundbreaking, as I’ve relied on similar tools...
The Shure SM7 microphone [Tape Op #36] is an all-around workhorse mic that has been ubiquitous in the recording industry since its introduction in 1973. Subsequently, many engineers have recognized the SM7’s versatility, in large part due to its flat and wide-range frequency response, one that...
I have quite a few snare mics, but none that are actually named “Snare Mic.” That's about to change. I'm a drummer, and I've mic’d a lot of snare drums. I usually rely on dynamic microphones as a snare can generate high sound pressure levels (SPLs) that dynamic mics typically handle well. Most...
Recently, I was lucky to catch Stereophonic, David Adjmi’s off-Broadway (Playwrights Horizons in New York City) hit, featuring songs by ex-Arcade Fire member Will Butler and directed by Daniel Aukin. Set within a dazzling approximation of Record Plant Sausalito circa 1976, the show follows a rising...
These two books are both highly disparate but also very similar. More than anything else, I found them fun to read and also inspiring, although in different ways. But in the end, inspiration is exciting regardless of the source or even the subject. Both Mr. Rubin and Mr. Schlarb are white males who...
In Tape Op #107 I interviewed Denny Tedesco about The Wrecking Crew, the documentary film he had recently directed. I'd always wonder how Denny would follow up that fantastic doc, and now we have The Immediate Family, a film about the generation of players post Wrecking Crew – the ones that worked...
Baby Audio collaborated with producer Andrew Huang [Tape Op #85] to create the Transit transition designer plug-in. Like most Baby Audio plug-ins, Transit aims to simplify a complex task, offering an intuitive approach to generating impactful mix transitions such as risers, sweeps, and build-ups...
To list all the classic, quintessential rock 'n' roll recordings that have been tracked at Sound City Studios is beyond the scope of this review – but trust me, you’ve heard them: Nirvana's Nevermind, Fleetwood Mac's Fleetwood Mac, and multiple Tom Petty albums just to name a few. Now available...
UPDATE: ANTI & Enigmatic Amp Pedals Review Universal Audio introduced their first three UAFX Pedals in 2021, and with the release of 12 new pedals in 2023, the line now has 18 different pedal options available for a complete instrument recording and/or signal processing chain. All pedals share one...