Music Production

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 185

Best guide to music production

Tape Op Magazine

Tape Op is the only music geek magazine worth buying — and it’s free. Widely eclectic and ever encouraging, the main premise seems to be “Try, and trust your ears.” Pro, semi-pro, and DIY info sits comfortably side-by-side. Pros read it, hobbyists read it, some kids read it, all get something from it. Tape Op will give step-by step demos of, for instance, modding a certain low-cost microphone to get more bang for the buck written by a guy who sell his own mics for thousands. Or they talk to a guy with a barn full of home-made analog synths or someone who makes music out of sounds from antique recordings. The mag offers information in all kinds of directions, but it only wants you to do your own thing with it, what ever that is. Tape Op’s philosophy: use your ears and twist some knobs, learn all you can, then forget about it. Standards are explained, history is explored first-person, but rules might be thrown out the window. An undercurrent regarding how unrealistic and difficult it is to run a studio coexists with inspiring tales about the pleasure and pride that comes from recording music. The contributors work hard in their own studios and know what they’re talking about. A large community of recordists supports contributing articles and a lively online Q and A page (later edited and published). Recent profiles have run the gamut from legendary producers/engineers to seriously indie/outsider recordists; all have a jones for doing what they do their own way.

A recent, typical issue reviewed a mic you can buy for a steal on eBay for $40 and a mic that streets for $7,000. They don’t waste time writing slagging reviews; they review only what might be useful to someone on some level. On one hand, you can learn a lot by reading about something you may never be able to afford. On the other, you see that despite how amazing, desirable and beautiful that thing is — and this where most music mags stop — you don’t really need it. It might be a great tool for someone, but you don’t have to need it. Record reviews, written in the same “we like this” spirit, lean indie and outside, but might go anywhere. I always read about something I don’t know, but wouldn’t mind hearing. It’s independently published and paid for by ads from all kinds of audio-related concerns, but beholden to no one, so it’s neither slick nor slimy. Other recording magazines often seem to be trolling for sales or hyping an image. Their editorial decisions are suspect, noising on about last year’s retreads, repeating a press release, offering the same tutorials you could find in another magazine — or the library(!). The ‘net offers a lot of basic DIY sites you can learn from, but will they print an interview with Rupert Neve, as issue by issue, you learn about the products that riff on his designs? How about talking to Rudy Van Gelder (who recorded all the classic Blue Note jazz) about taping John Coltrane in the living room of his parent’s house in New Jersey?

I’ve been subscribing since 1997-8 when a producer I met turned me onto it. There is absolutely nothing out there like it. Nowadays my job is production manager/soundcheck and rehearsal substitute/backline tech for a three-time Grammy winning artist. I work with and have hired top-notch audio pros and I learn a great deal from them. Tape Op has often given me insight that keeps me apace in our discussions and what I learn from them takes me deeper into the magazine. However, Tape Op also has allowed me to nourish a side-line in sound designing/composing for theatre when I am off the road. When no one’s paying me and I’m home with the kids asleep, I record my music or occasionally, friends. That is where the knife really gets sharpened and what I have taken in from Tape Op gets put to the test. — John Stovicek

• I finished a session the other day where I went 10 hours without eating anything and kept suggesting breaks. It never happened.
  It’s funny you brought that up. That happened to me last week. A person came in to record five or six songs for basic tracks in two days. It was that sort of scenario. It felt like if they weren’t doing something every second that an opportunity was being wasted. I can deal with that for two days or so. The longest session I worked on was 3 1/2 months. It was four people, and their mom, who never wanted to take any breaks. It was a trial. I remember saying, “You know, I’ll do this again but I need a significant amount of money.” The studio salary didn’t cut it.
  You lost three months of your life!
  Exactly. I broke up with a long-term girlfriend. Everyday was noon to midnight. It was a mixed blessing. Usually the types of bands that come in here are short and quick. They’re paying for everything themselves. We never got into that stride of a big studio getting big sessions that last for months and months. But our main fuel is bands that come in from three to twelve days. No one’s had to give up six months of his or her life to babysit.
• Seating a new head
  Here’s a good way to quickly seat a new drumhead (which allows the drum to better conform to the specific contour of the drum’s bearing edge): Put the head on and tighten it slowly, making sure to maintain even tension around the head. When the head is fairly tight (and evenly-tensioned), take a heat gun or blow dryer and slowly work your way around the outer edge of the drumhead, just inside the hoop and along the bearing edge. Don’t try to get the head hot, just warm to the touch. The heat will make the Mylar conform to the bearing edge almost instantly. Be careful not to get the head too warm, as too much heat buildup will deform the head in a destructive way.
• Tape down one end of the Slinky inside the cone of an expendable speaker (eithera raw loudspeaker or one in a cabinet) – gaffer’s tape works well – and place thespeaker on the floor as shown in Figure 5. Clamp your contact mic to the otherend of the Slinky with a strong spring clip and attach this assembly to the end of a mic boom 3-6 feet up from the speaker, with the Slinky stretched between (Figure 6.) Plug the contact mic into your mixer or a guitar amp and pluck the spring to check your level. Now play some audio through the speaker and listen to the contact mic as the speaker shakes the Slinky – you may want to use headphones so you can distinguish the sound of the Slinky from the music coming directly out of the speaker.You should hear a “spoingy,” vaguely spring reverb-y cloud around your originalsignal.

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Pocket-sized sound manipulator

Korg Kaossilator Synthesizer

For a number of years I’ve been into sound art and electronics, but never had the cash and space for an ARP 2600. I recently acquired a Korg Kaossilator, a fabulous little dynamic phrase synthesizer, which, for all intents and purposes, now serves as my main musical device. Pocket-sized and touch-operated, the Kaossilator is comprised of 100 sounds: electronic beats, synth chords and pads, squelchy bass tones and the odd acoustic instruments. The Theremin sounds alone are worth the price tag. The fun part is creating 8-beat loops in which you can control the tempo and the scales of the instruments selected. I’ve already “composed” a few pieces using just the Korg and will most likely start incorporating it into GarageBand or, perhaps, Max/MSP once my visual programming chops get happening. My only complaint is you can’t edit or remove instruments/sounds as you layer them or control individual volumes. Still, I highly recommend the Korg for beginners and semi-pros that haven’t got a cache of gear and/or software. For standalone equipment, I don’t think there’s anything really comparable to the Kaossilator, except it’s cousin, the Mini Kaoss Pad, which is more for effects.

A hobbyist that was a session drummer in another life (before children), it’s limiting to how often I can make music. Drummers have to deal with the confines of noise volumes (the neighbors), the amount of space required and the portability of your gear. Plus, your output is restricted to mainly the rhythmic aspects of music as well as performing in the more traditional acoustic genres. With two small children, I don’t get to play with the Kaossilator as often as I’d like, but the one-year-old loves to see and hear it in action. While you can use the sounds to record with in your audio software, you can also just plug in headphones and experience your public transit commuting time diminish exponentially. I’ve taken it out of the house a few times. It runs on either a 4.5V adapter (not included) or 4 AA batteries (included). I have yet to really clock the amount of time used with just the batteries, but it’s been a lot longer than you’d get on a laptop. — Gord Fynes

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Software synthesizer

Moog Modular

I remember the first time I encountered a Moog Synthesizer: Switched-On Bach. I was all of 14-years-old and absolutely captivated. All those knobs and patch cords. And then there were the sounds that it made. To an adolescent boy growing up in the mid-late ’60s whose hero was Mr. Spock, it was like a futuristic dream come true — my own musical version of the Starship Enterprise and for only a few thousand dollars. The Last Whole Earth Catalog even featured a review of it by Wendy Carlos herself!

Then I learned how much a few thousand dollars actually was. I tinkered with resisters and capacitors, transistors and chokes, but I couldn’t do anything like that. But this is what led me inexorably to a career in music and recording. Well, and the Beatles helped, too. Flash forward 41 years and many synthesizers, guitars and amps later, I still could not seem to afford that big gleaming Moog dream.

Then a company called Arturia released a virtual software version of my childhood Holy Grail, the Moog Modular V. And there were nine — count ’em, nine! — oscillators. Filters, envelope generators. A fixed filter bank. A sample and hold module. A bank of configurable mixers. And with enough computer firepower, I could finally make the sounds I’d heard Wendy Carlos make. The software even has stereo chorus and delay lines, a very neat addition to the package to fatten up your sound without having to use any outboard effects. And did I mention polyphony? Yes, unlike its hardware predecessor, the Moog Modular V offers up to 32 voices, if you have the processor power to deliver them.

I’ve been using this powerful, flexible piece of software for almost four years now and I have to admit that it does almost everything I ever wanted a music synthesizer to do. It does things the hardware version couldn’t even do. My only complaint is latency (delay). I would never use it live, but then again I haven’t been playing live these days, and if I did, I’d probably sample off the sounds I want to use and do it that way. The software can be used stand alone or as a plugin, for Mac or Windows OS. — Jeff Bragg

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Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

04/13/26

What’s in my NOW? — Semi Chellas

issue #249

Semi C. is a writer.

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PHYSICAL

• Five year diary – only a couple sentences a day, but the perspective that emerges once you are into the second or third year is incredible. Like, it turns out everything bad happens to me on December 11. Everything good is first week of April. I’m on year 7.
• Reading light (bookmark style from Glocusent) – this tiny thumb drive of a nightlight saves me from looking at my phone if I’m awake in the night, with warm and cool settings and different brightness.
• Mandoline slicer (from OXO Good Grips) – makes all slicing and dicing way easier, which makes me eat more veggies.

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DIGITAL

• Duolingo – I am now competent in two new languages, but it’s also a way to be productive and not on social when I’m on my phone.
• Headspace – meditating on a streak!

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INVISIBLE

I love this Toni Morrison quotation:

“Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge—even wisdom. Like art.”

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04/8/26

The Science Book / Encyclopedia of Sensors

Issue No. 112

THE SCIENCE BOOK – THE GREATEST HITS OF SCIENCE

The Science Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained)
by DK
DK
2014, 352 pages, 8 x 9.6 x 1 inches

Buy on Amazon

The Science Book is DK publishing’s “greatest hits” of science. Laid out chronologically and full of diagrams and photos, it gives you a coffee table book experience but in a manageable way. No book clocking in at 350-ish pages could be totally comprehensive, yet it includes most of the major scientific milestones from 600 BCE to today without being dry or overwhelming.

I found that I was able to gain a better understanding of principles that I only marginally understood, like Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, which is clearly laid out in layman’s terms and with genuinely helpful visuals. Genetics is a particularly complicated topic that has always fascinated me, so I was especially drawn to the chapters that tackled it and found a diagram using bees to explain recessive traits to be one of my favorite features. The individual chapters are broken up into sections and use sidebars and trivia to keep things interesting, so no matter what topic you land on the information is always accessible. I haven’t read it cover to cover, but rather peruse whatever topic catches my eye and always find something I didn’t known before. Textbooks devoted to science have an unfortunate tendency to be dry and technical, so I am especially excited to share The Science Book with my son as he gets older, with the hope that it may help him develop a real interest in science and an appreciation of its value. – Amber Troska

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SENSORS – THE FINAL VOLUME IN AN IMPRESSIVE SERIES OF ELECTRONICS GUIDES FOR 21ST-CENTURY MAKERS

Encyclopedia of Electronic Components Volume 3: Sensors
by Charles Platt and Fredrik Jansson
Maker Media
2016, 256 pages, 7.9 x 9.6 x 0.4 inches (softcover)

Buy on Amazon

With this somewhat slim but jam-packed volume, Make: contributing editor and electronics columnist, Charles Platt (here joined by Fredrik Jansson), completes his detailed explorations of the modern, common electronics components most useful to today’s electronics hobbyists and other DIYers.

The first volume, which Wink reviewed earlier, covered batteries, power supplies, motors, resistors, capacitors, inductors, switches, encoders, relays, diodes, transistors, and more. Volume 2 covered LEDs, LCDs, audio, amplification, digital logic, and related components. This third and final volume examines common (and a few not so common) sensors for detecting location, presence, proximity, orientation, oscillation, force, load, human input, liquid and gas properties, light, heat, sound, and electricity.

Like all of the volumes in the series, each component section in Sensors is divided into what it does, how it works, variants and values of the component, how to use it, and what can go wrong with it. Each entry is generously illustrated with clear color photos, charts and graphs, and cut-away diagrams of the components (all done by Platt). Thoughtfully, the component images are all photographed on a graph paper background, so you can get some idea of their actual size.

One of the things that I think has made the Make: Electronics series such a great success is that Charles Platt is a smart, endlessly curious, and details-oriented electronics enthusiast who knows what questions fellow enthusiasts might have about how a component functions and what it’s useful for. He is not an engineer, he is a professional amateur and I often find that such amateurs write better tech books than professionals. In Volume 3, he and Jansson do another admirable job of writing in a style that is non-intimidating to the beginner, but no less rigorous to the more seasoned circuit designer/builder.

These three volumes, taken together, provide you with the reference material you need for spec’ing components for most common hobby-level electronics projects. Or, if you wanted to, you could significantly increase your understanding of basic electrical engineering by working your way through them, one component at a time. And given how lovely the books are, how well photographed and illustrated, how readable, doing so would not be a hardship.

Over the course of the past seven years, Charles and Maker Media have released five books in the Make: Electronics series and two component packs. I’m biased (I helped instigate this series as an editor at Make:), but I think this collection is one of the most significant things Make: has done. We set out to create the Getting Started in Electronics [http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Started-Electronics-Forrest-Mims/dp/0945053282] for the early 21st century. The success of the series speaks for itself. I’m now just waiting for a new generation of high-tech innovators to tell us enthusiastically how they cut their teeth on the Make: Electronics series. I like to imagine that they’re teething on the resistors, capacitors, and ICs as we speak. – Gareth Branwyn

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Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.

04/7/26

Folding Bikes

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 184

Quick folding bike

Brompton

My new best friend is the Brompton T6, a foldable 6-speed bicycle made by the Brompton company in England. Living in an urban area and having a bike that folds is basically like having wheels for feet; and in the world of folding bikes, Bromptons simply cannot be matched in their compactness and riding quality. They ride beautifully and smoothly thanks to a conical rear shock absorbing block. They take about 10 seconds to go from fully unfolded to fully folded and are compact enough to take inside anywhere — metro, hotels, restaurants. I, at least, have never had a problem storing it. There are other makes of folding bikes (like Dahon) but time and time again I see people that own Dahons who simply won’t bother folding them and chain them up outside because they’re so cumbersome. What’s the point of owning a folding one? Brompton spare parts are amazingly easy to install yourself (the manual is very comprehensive and detailed in how to upkeep the bike). I bought mine six months ago and it has completely transformed my day to day existence. It’s a true lifestyle changer. Check out the front carrier accessories too. Fill that with other cool tools and that’s basically all you need.

[*Today, the closest available model to the T6 is the M6R.] — John Root

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Premium folding, touring bicycles

Bike Friday

A folding bike is a compromise between ride quality and foldability. Moulton makes great artisan folding bikes with very unique design. Brompton also makes lovely folding bikes (previously-reviewed), but kind of artisan and pricey. I like the previously-reviewed Strida if all you have to do is ride 1-2 miles to the transit station. It’s not much good if you have to ride for more than 15 minutes. Citizen Bikes are awful, but some people who have never ridden a nice bike seem to be able to tolerate it. Dahon is starting to make some pretty damn good folding bikes at reasonable prices.

But my favorite is Bike Friday. It can fold into a suitcase that won’t incur over-charges on airplanes. Super light. Rides like a real bike, in some ways better. They have a few different models (even tandems!); I’ve ridden most of them — they are all good. I optimized my choice for quality of ride, but you can build them with ease of folding in mind by specifying what you want in terms of tools/no tools. For instance, some models require tools to fold for airline travel, but not for folding to stash on cars/buses. The Tikit models, on the other hand, explicitly requires no tools for folding at all.

These bikes are not cheap. I am a self-admitting bike snob. I value ride quality. Most low-cost folding bikes just feel cheap. The difference is in the custom-fitted frame, and better design details, higher-quality components and etc. (Bike Friday has been doing it for years). But you can get on a good Bike Friday for $1200. If you want, you can spend up to $3000 or even more for extras, but the frame is the same. These guys have great customer service, too.

I love mine. When it was recently stolen, I was heartbroken. Bike theft is like pet death. If you see my yellow Bike Friday (it has my wife’s name “Arwen Griffith” on the top tube), throw rotten fruit and stones at the asshole who stole it. — Saul Griffith

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Portable transit for urbanites

Strida Folding Bike

This folding bike has won both design and race awards. I’ve used it for seven years to traverse New York City, commuting two miles one way: in and out of Grand Central, the subways, buses, etc. A lot of folding bikes break down so that they’re bulky and awkward. The Strida is long and narrow, and carries like a photographer’s tripod — I can fold it while running down the platform at Grand Central. An easy way to visualize it is to picture three tubes in a triangle. Two points are hinged, and the third is a latch. When unlatched, the tubes fall together to look like a group of parallel tubes with a seat and wheels. Assembly is just forming the triangle, then click and go. This design is very clever, yet simple and robust.

The bike is unusual because there isn’t much maintenance (tire pressure and brake adjustments only). Unlike the Brompton, the Strida is a single gear with (dry) belt drive, which means no shifter or greasy chain, no tension adjustments and no caught pant legs. Even though there is only one speed, I can still climb reasonable hills. The tires are mini fat tubes, so you can jump curbs and hit potholes without any problems. The bike has a very, very tight turning radius, and while riding, your posture is quite upright – like a boulevard bike, not humped over like a road bike – so you can see traffic while riding in a suit and tie. The construction is solid, not flimsy in the least. I stripped mine down for size: removing the luggage rack and fenders so that it would easily fit in the overhead rack on the train. No one has ever bothered me for a bike pass on the trains or buses. If you buy one, be prepared: people will stop you often to ask what it is. I once had two teenage girls run out of a restaurant (and hang up their cell phones) to stop me and ask what it is. For a brief moment, I actually felt trendy! — Bruce Hartleben

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Bike hacking

Atomic Zombie’s Bicycle Builder’s Bonanza

A fun and detailed guide to hacking unusual bicycles from old bike parts. With a bit of welding here and there you can take castoff bicycles and repurpose them in dozens of imaginative ways. Here are notes for customizing choppers, tandems, unicycles, and crazy stunt bikes with frames found at the dump. How to strip down a bike to its useful components, and what to keep in mind as you modify its design and performance. — KK

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Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

04/6/26

Retro Recomendo: Followable

Recomendo - issue #508

Our subscriber base has grown so much since we first started nine years ago, that most of you have missed all our earliest recommendations. The best of these are still valid and useful, so we’re trying out something new — Retro Recomendo. Once every 6 weeks, we’ll send out a throwback issue of evergreen recommendations focused on one theme from the past 9 years.

Home DIY videos

How To Home is a YouTube channel with excellent videos that demonstrate how to complete common household repairs, such as wiring switches, fixing faucet leaks, and threading wire through walls and ceilings. Unlike many DIY videos, these feature high-quality audio, are well-lit, and aren’t blurry. — MF

Culinary curiosities from around the world

Gastro Obscura is an Instagram account with photos and descriptions on unusual foods from around the world. You’ll find Japanese cream puffs that look like kittens, fruit that looks like an exploding planet, fruit that tastes like chocolate pudding, and lots more. It gave me a greater appreciation for just how diverse the world’s culinary options can be. — MF

Laugh out loud caricatures

Watch sidewalk artists in Waikiki draw extreme caricatures of customers, and their customer’s hysterical reactions. The drawings are much more exaggerated than typical caricatures yet they look uncannily like the subjects. I was laughing along with the people who bravely sat for the drawings. A guaranteed mood lifter. — MF

Quick research explainers

Two Minute Papers is a YouTube channel featuring short videos (sometimes 5 minutes long) created by a professor who reviews new research papers in visual programming, artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer graphics, simulations, and other state-of-the-art computer science. He explains the research’s significance, while running very cool graphics demo-ing the results. I find it a painless way to keep up in this fast moving field. — KK

Strange images

The instagram account Welcome.jpeg calls itself a digital museum. It’s kinda art, kinda meme, kinda kitsch, kinda weirdo. It collects oddball, strange, unorthodox, found images and delivers these misfits as little visual collections. It’s my guilty pleasure. — KK

Joyful social media

I’ve intentionally cut down on my social media time, but there’s one account I never scroll past because it always makes me smile: Official Stick Reviews on Instagram. It’s the internet’s go-to spot for stick reviews submitted from around the world. Initially, I thought it was satire, but I soon realized the enthusiasm for finding cool sticks is both genuine and contagious. Here’s a good example. — CD

04/5/26

Book Freak #204: Living for Pleasure

An Epicurean Guide to Life

Get Living for Pleasure

Wake Forest philosopher Emily Austin rescues Epicurus from centuries of misunderstanding, revealing that his philosophy isn’t about wild hedonism but something more radical: the pursuit of pleasure without anxiety. The result is a practical guide to tranquility that speaks directly to our age of overwork, social comparison, and endless striving.

Core Principles

Pleasure Means Absence of Anxiety

Epicurus’s insight was counterintuitive: the greatest pleasure isn’t intense sensation but ataraxia — a state of tranquility free from mental disturbance. True pleasure comes from what is absent: anxiety, fear, unsatisfied longing. Being satisfied with having what you need is itself the highest pleasure. The goal isn’t to add more but to remove what disturbs.

Sort Your Desires

Not all desires are equal. Austin identifies three categories: Natural desires (food, shelter, friendship) — pursue these freely. Extravagant desires (fine dining, enriching experiences) — enjoy occasionally without dependence. Corrosive desires (wealth, fame, power) — these are insatiable by design and generate more anxiety than they relieve. The key is recognizing which category a desire falls into before chasing it.

Friendship Is Essential, Not Optional

Nothing diminishes anxiety more than a community of trustworthy and supportive friends. Epicurus considered friendship the most important ingredient of a good life — more valuable than wealth or status. Deep relationships aren’t a nice addition to a well-lived life; they’re the foundation of it.

You Can’t Separate Pleasure from Virtue

It is impossible to live pleasantly without living prudently, honorably, and justly. Epicurus wasn’t offering a shortcut around ethics — he was showing that genuine pleasure and ethical living are inseparable. Dishonesty, cruelty, and injustice create anxiety; integrity creates peace.

Try It Now

1. Identify something you’re currently striving for. Ask: Is this a natural desire, an extravagant desire, or a corrosive desire? How would satisfying it actually change my daily experience?
2. Notice a moment of anxiety today. Pause and ask: What am I afraid of losing, or failing to get? Is that fear proportionate to reality?
3. Think of a pleasure you recently pursued that left you feeling worse afterward. What category of desire was driving it?
4. Consider your friendships. Are you investing in deep, trustworthy relationships — or spreading yourself thin across shallow connections?
5. Try Epicurus’s thought experiment: Imagine having “enough” — your needs met, anxiety absent, good friends nearby. What would you actually add? Maybe you already have more than you think.

Quote

“Nothing diminishes our anxiety more than a community of trustworthy and supportive friends.”

04/3/26

What’s in my NOW? — Semi Chellas