End Rant | No. 162
First Impressions
by Larry Crane
For 25 years, I have owned and run a commercial business, Jackpot! Recording Studio, in Portland, Oregon. During this time, I have developed a set of particular ideas of how to present my studio...
Columns
by Larry Crane
One Size Doesn't Fit All
by Larry Crane
I do a fair amount of one-on-one remote "teaching," many times working with folks running small studios, as well as a wide range of home setups. It's always fun to face this educational challenge, as...
Intro / TOC #161
by Larry Crane
It's no secret that ever since the internet took over our lives that we live in an "I want it now" culture. That is the opposite of how I started recording music and running a studio. It was 30-plus...
Intro / TOC #160
by Larry Crane
What are the personal rewards of making and recording music? Or, maybe more tellingly, what are the rewards of recording other people's music? Steve Albini & Lil BUB — Mark Pallman from...
Do You Really Need to be "Doing It Like a Pro"?
by Larry Crane
My recording career did not begin in a professional studio. It began in high school, with a pile of cassette decks, cables, homemade oscillators, Casio keyboards, and cheap microphones strewn...
Intro / TOC #159
by Larry Crane
In this issue, we present the second of our interviews with recording engineer and producer Donn Landee, as first seen in issue #157. To say I was thrilled to get Donn into Tape Op is an...
Intro / TOC #158
by Larry Crane
Every issue of Tape Op comes together in slightly different ways. John Baccigaluppi and I will juggle different interviews to run, looking for some magical balance of genres, styles of recording, and...
When is a Mix Done?
by Larry Crane
I sat down to try and write an End Rant describing how to know when a mix is done, and then I became stuck. Everyone’s experience with this can be different, so I dropped a line to some...
Are You Being Lazy?
by Larry Crane
Somewhere along the line, when working on any recording project, there are points where the "real work" needs to be done. Real work, to me, is the time where intense listening skills are brought...
Intro / TOC #157
by Larry Crane
In this issue, we were lucky to speak with friends, family, and bandmates of the late Mark Linkous, aka Sparklehorse, about his recently released posthumous album, Bird Machine. In 1999, we...
The DynoPopper X-10
by Larry Crane
Photo by Roman Sokal, courtesy of Audio Crowbar Dynamics. Having recently spent more time working on the Tape Op Gear Reviews section of this magazine, one thought keeps creeping into my mind and...
Intro / TOC #156
by Larry Crane
As an adjunct to the End Rant this issue, I should explain something about myself and how I work in the studio; something that will likely seem incongruous with my position as Tape Op's founder and...
Not So Oblique Strategies
by Larry Crane, Garrett Haines
In 1975, Brian Eno [Tape Op #85] and multimedia artist Peter Schmidt published their first set of Oblique Strategies: Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas. These cards work as creativity resets,...