Interviews

Reading Materials

THE BEATLES RECORDING SESSIONS

The Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes, 1962-1970

This book is required reading for all Tape Op readers. Writer and researcher, Mark Lewisohn, also wrote the highly informative liner notes to the Beatles Anthology series of CDs (while he helped compile them) and had studied the vaults of recordings previously as he was compiling this book. It runs chronologically, explaining who did what on every day of recording at Abbey Road. Sometimes it's amazing, going into detail for the Sgt. Pepper's... recordings, and other times it's depressing, watching the end of the Beatles through the fragmented recording sessions of Abbey Road and Let it Be. It's mostly just amazing to see how they progressed from simple little pop songs to understanding what could be done with the new recording technology and how George Martin brilliantly let them explore these ideas and came up with so many of his own. I guess, what I'm trying to say, is that even if you hate the music, this was the band that really took recording in new directions, even existing as a "studio-only" band for four years. It should be obvious that the history of the Beatles in the studio would be of interest to anyone who records any kind of rock/pop/indie music. And it's an amazing read.

MICROPHONE MANUAL

Design and Application

MORE INTERVIEWS

Recording Nona Invie’s <i>Self-soothing</I>
INTERVIEWS · ISSUE #167 · Apr 2026

Recording Nona Invie’s Self-soothing

By John Baccigaluppi

On Friday mornings I go to the new releases page on Tidal and wade through the new music released each week. I'll check out records from artists I know, but what I really enjoy is finding new music from an artist I'm not familiar with that resonates with me. On the last day of...

M. Ward
INTERVIEWS · ISSUE #167 · Apr 2026

M. Ward Leaving the Door Open to Chaos

By Geoff Stanfield

Geoff Stanfield spoke with M. Ward for an episode of the Tape OpPodcast in August of 2023, around the time of his album supernatural thing was released. Here they dig into his love of collaborations, his analog approach to recording, and more.

Daniel Tashian
INTERVIEWS · ISSUE #166 · Apr 2026

Daniel Tashian Having Fun

By Larry Crane

In 2017, one of my best friends, Craig Alvin [Tape Op#137], kept texting me about a record he was engineering. He was saying how amazing the process was, and how awesome the results were. The album turned out to be Kacey Musgraves' Golden Hour, which went on to be a platinum...