I travel a lot. A typical month has me in three different cities across the globe. Therefore, most of my computing is done on a laptop. My favorite laptop accessory is the Macally iOptiJr mouse. It's...
My mom thinks of me as a gadget-kinda guy - probably because she's seen my living room. It's full of recording gear, plus I have a second room full of all sorts of computer gear. To her, it all looks...
Steve Albini's review of the Royer R-121 in a previous issue of Tape Op is what prompted me to try out the R- 121. A quick demo confirmed that the R-121 was a fantastic mic, so I ordered both an R-121...
I can't recall a time when good-sounding mics have been so readily affordable as they are now. I purchased three Oktava MC012 condenser mics for less than it would have cost me to buy three SM-57s....
I still cringe when I think about the first digital mixer I ever used: The Yamaha DMP-7. It was noisy, it sounded gritty, and its user-interface was horrible. But the DMP-7 had scene recall, moving...
FATSO is an acronym for Full Analog Tape Simulator and Optimizer. When digital multitracking first became affordable, it took only one session using 16 tracks of ADAT to convince me that I didn't want...
Many of us don't have the means to afford a rack full of processors to do all the things we need to do as practitioners of our field. So instead, we end up making compromises, oftentimes buying gear...
Quicker than inserting earplugs (and waiting for them to expand). Bright red and big - they're hard to lose. Put them on like headphones and walk into any tracking session without fear of blowing your...
Instead of paying big bucks for prepackaged air check out the ReAir refillable air sprayer. With about ten strokes of a standard bicycle pump, you've got a canister full of compressed air to blow crap...
In my living room studio, I mix on a Sony DMX-R100 digital console feeding my 24-bit Alesis Masterlink via a digital link. Therefore, I don't have much of a need for an analog mixdown processor....
A few months ago, I picked up a Tascam MX-2424 hard disk recorder to supplement my analog multitrack decks. Three reasons convinced me to finally buy a digital recorder. 1. On a number of recent...
I've gone through two and half incarnations of my living room studio. And unlike most home studios, my current setup leans more in the hi-fi direction instead of in the all-in-one 4/8/16-track...
