Scott McDowell

Hey, did you hear that Cranborne Audio just dropped its first compressor? Every single unit this company designs is filled with so much amazing...

ARC ON·EAR is a hybrid headphone amp/DAC with built-in EQ correction for popular professional headphones. Like most audio workers, I do a ton of work...

I was delightfully surprised when I happened upon the new 1029Stereo VCA Compressor from AEA. Isn’t the company best known for its great collection...

The two-channel Carnaby HE2 is the new flagship version of the Carnaby Harmonic EQ® designed by Cranborne Audio. What do I mean when I say, “Harmonic...

ARC Studio is an easy-to-use acoustic room correction tool, and one of my favorite recent studio upgrades. Set up is relatively simple; while it does...

I’ve loved listening to music in headphones since I was a child, but I’ve come a long way from those flimsy freebies that came with my yellow Sony...

A few months ago, I was hired to work on the audio engineering team at a production camp put on by Sony. One of the events at this camp was a demo of...

Call me an AI pessimist, but my initial reaction was lukewarm when I considered trying out the Vocal Reverb plug-in from Antares Audio Technologies....

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...

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...

The latest compressor from Empirical Labs is similar to Ike and Tina Turner’s classic cover of “Proud Mary,” in that it ranges all the way from nice...

Gregory Scott's Kush Audio has done their 10,000 hours when it comes to designing audio compressors. It was a decade ago that Kush released the...

The Carnaby 500 is a groundbreaking audio processor. Hands down, this device is stunning. At first glance, it looks like a three-band EQ – which it...

If you’re reading Tape Op reviews and love recording with ribbon and dynamic mics as much as I do, then you’re probably already familiar with...

If you find yourself chasing modern low end, you’ll eventually end up playing with a subharmonic synthesizer. There are plenty of options, ranging...

I’m a big fan of distortion plug-ins – these days, who isn’t? If you are, you’ve got to check out THERMAL, from Output. There’s so much to this...

We’re huge fans of Eventide over here at High Bias Recordings. Eventide units have been an integral part of the sonic fabric here both on the front...

"Why did the producer cross the road? Because that's how The Beatles did it!" I forget who first told me that joke, but if you can...

The most remarkable thing about McDSP's APB-16 is just how simple it is to use. One of their ads says, "The Future is Here," and...

Steinberg is on an impressive roll with sexy hardware interfaces, collaborating with Yamaha and Rupert Neve to deliver products that lean into the...

My studio in San Francisco is built around an Avid control surface instead of an analog console. Because of that, I rely exclusively on outboard to...

Apogee and Sennheiser teamed up to make a smart in-ear headset/microphone combo. As a proud owner, I was eager to find out of this magical hybrid...

With the Scheps Omni Channel, Waves has delivered a next generation channel strip that plays to its unique strengths in the best way possible. Over...