If Sytek can do it......

Recording Techniques, People Skills, Gear, Recording Spaces, Computers, and DIY

Moderators: drumsound, tomb

User avatar
Leopold
buyin' a studio
Posts: 841
Joined: Wed May 07, 2003 8:51 am
Contact:

If Sytek can do it......

Post by Leopold » Sun Nov 06, 2005 2:35 pm

So I was just thinking about how much i use my Syteks, RNLA, RNC and how often we recommend them on this board. So how come a small company can build a 4 channel mic pre for about $800-$900 , the same thing with FMR and their products, they are able to do it?? Yet these big behemoth corporations still churn out sub par stuff with 2 channels and the same price?




Is it too much to ask? Seriously can't Presonus or Aphex or ART step up?


Eddie
"I raged against the machine and all this money came out!" Bart Simpson

joel hamilton
zen recordist
Posts: 8876
Joined: Mon May 19, 2003 12:10 pm
Location: NYC/Brooklyn
Contact:

Post by joel hamilton » Sun Nov 06, 2005 3:09 pm

All we can do is support the stuff that is good, and ignore the stuff that is poopy.

If nobody was buying the poopy stuff, the company would have to rethink the product line...

Why cant we have a good president? ;)

meblumen
steve albini likes it
Posts: 376
Joined: Tue May 13, 2003 6:43 pm
Location: NYC

Post by meblumen » Sun Nov 06, 2005 3:46 pm

I have to imagine that many of the larger companies put just as much money into their advertising budgets as they do into their manufacturing and R&D departments. That subsequently drives up the price as well. Plus who knows how high the profit margins are on the FMR and Sytek stuff? BTW didn't Sytek raise the rise on their pre's?

User avatar
Phiz
buyin' gear
Posts: 503
Joined: Sat Sep 25, 2004 5:21 pm
Location: San Francisco

Post by Phiz » Sun Nov 06, 2005 3:58 pm

FMR does 'cut corners' to make their product less expensive, they just choose to do it in areas that correspond with values and needs that are common on this board. They directly state that they don't try to make pretty 1U components. They use wall-warts. Not all connections are balanced. They don't spend much money on advertising.

The are making trade offs, just a different set than most other companies, and I love them for it.

User avatar
heylow
george martin
Posts: 1265
Joined: Fri May 02, 2003 2:27 pm
Location: The Dreadful Midwest
Contact:

Post by heylow » Sun Nov 06, 2005 4:57 pm

joel hamilton wrote:All we can do is support the stuff that is good, and ignore the stuff that is poopy.

If nobody was buying the poopy stuff, the company would have to rethink the product line...

Why cant we have a good president? ;)

BAM! On both accounts, at that.

But seriously...this is one thing I wish more people did with everything from gear to movies to records to clothes. I have always said that your dollar is a vote and when you buy crap, you vote YES!

I'm not saying that you can only buy Neves and Distressors and what not....I'm simply saying to buy and loyally support those companies that do right by at least TRYING to make a valuable product at which ever price point is chosen.

Man...way to go off, huh?


heylow

User avatar
soundguy
ghost haunting audio students
Posts: 3182
Joined: Wed May 07, 2003 12:50 pm
Location: NYC
Contact:

Re: If Sytek can do it......

Post by soundguy » Sun Nov 06, 2005 5:43 pm

Leopold wrote:So I was just thinking about how much i use my Syteks, RNLA, RNC and how often we recommend them on this board. So how come a small company can build a 4 channel mic pre for about $800-$900 , the same thing with FMR and their products, they are able to do it?? Yet these big behemoth corporations still churn out sub par stuff with 2 channels and the same price?




Is it too much to ask? Seriously can't Presonus or Aphex or ART step up?


Eddie
In a nutshell, sytek is basically making products for recording engineers. Presonus and ART are making products to sell through the musicians friend catalog which ranges from recording engineers to kids getting into recording to whatever. The products are essentially the same but they really couldnt be more different. ART is all about image, sytek is about good sound coming out of the speakers. When I was in high school, I bought an ART multi effects thing. Everyone else at my school had one too. If you wanted to be cool, you bought that box. Had nothing to do with the way it sounded. When I was 15 it could have sounded awesome or shitty, I wouldnt have known the difference anyway. With stuff like that, the marketing on the products is like EVERYTHING.

dave
http://www.glideonfade.com
one hundred percent discrete transistor recording with style and care.

joel hamilton
zen recordist
Posts: 8876
Joined: Mon May 19, 2003 12:10 pm
Location: NYC/Brooklyn
Contact:

Post by joel hamilton » Sun Nov 06, 2005 6:30 pm

My ART multi FX thingy was my first foray into sampling and I used that 2 sec sample time for like a ZLLION projects, even after I had a 16trk tape machine and was fully rockin all kinds of "awesome recording gear" like 57's and a DBX 160.

So true, that the marketing is EVERYTHING, which is why I sound like a broken record saying this:

Ignore ALL advertising that says anything. Especially if someone claims to have a solution to a problem. A problem they invented to sell the box....

Hegemony. Look it up...

(the after effect of propaganda, basically).

It creeps into your brain even if you dont actively think you need to "phatten up your traxxx."

User avatar
joelpatterson
carpal tunnel
Posts: 1732
Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2003 5:20 pm
Location: Albany, New York

Post by joelpatterson » Sun Nov 06, 2005 6:59 pm

Like have you ever actually read the Sweetwater catalog? It's a whole new language, a vague appeal to how dissatisfied you must be with whatever you have. And it's vague the improvements they're talking about, because it's all absolutes. Absolutely what you got from us last time was absolutely the best, but this is absolutely better. You sly dog you.
Mountaintop Studios
~The Peak of Perfection~
Petersburgh NY 12138

mountaintop@taconic.net

joel hamilton
zen recordist
Posts: 8876
Joined: Mon May 19, 2003 12:10 pm
Location: NYC/Brooklyn
Contact:

Post by joel hamilton » Sun Nov 06, 2005 7:04 pm

Inexperience leads to some funky purchases in the pursuit of better recording. Advertizing appeals to the compassionate love and want for experience, which can not be bought.

Again: If you buy the same baseball glove derek jeter uses, will you be better at baseball?

If you are tracking a record at avatar, in the "A" room, will it automatically be as good as anything else that was recorded there?

If you know thatbonham used ludwigs, and you get the exact kit, hell, HIS kit, will you be john bonham?

There is practice involved in anything. Keep recording. Make what you have sound amazing, or at least reveal ITS limitations rather than showcasing your own and bitching a lot about gear....

User avatar
joelpatterson
carpal tunnel
Posts: 1732
Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2003 5:20 pm
Location: Albany, New York

Post by joelpatterson » Sun Nov 06, 2005 7:07 pm

How you say, word?
Mountaintop Studios
~The Peak of Perfection~
Petersburgh NY 12138

mountaintop@taconic.net

User avatar
nacho459
re-cappin' neve
Posts: 748
Joined: Wed Jun 30, 2004 10:53 pm
Location: Pasadena USA
Contact:

Post by nacho459 » Sun Nov 06, 2005 9:41 pm

Well, if you think of the RNC it is unbalanced, not rack mounted, and uses a wall wart. They could put it in a 1ru chassis add an internal shielded power supply and more op amps or transformers to balance the thing and it would probably cost you twice as much. Little things add up.

Companies understand marketing and they make gear that appeals to that market. The prosumer market is way bigger then the real pro audio market. That's why you see companies like AKG making $100 mics. People tend to be visually oriented so if a piece of gear looks awesome people will be more likely to buy it and companies know that, that's why they take really cool photos and place these photos in their magazine adds and not just a spec sheet.

Building inexpensive quality solid state gear is easy, the hard part is designing it. FMR cuts a lot of corners, but they are for the most part just cosmetic. A lot of what you pay for when you buy a piece of gear is the chassis and interface. Look at that BLUE mic pre that's $1000. $700 if that has gotta go into the box. Even with the stuff I have DIY'd a large chunk of the expense is the chassis, engraving, and all around not making it look like crap.

Spiderhead69
steve albini likes it
Posts: 300
Joined: Thu Jan 29, 2004 11:01 pm
Location: The Ice cream truck in my neighborhood plays Helter-Skelter

Post by Spiderhead69 » Sun Nov 06, 2005 10:07 pm

Some people like Ford trucks, some people like Chevy trucks...

But no matter who you support....support Tapeop advertisers...

ok, I'm drunk...

TapeOpLarry
TapeOp Admin
TapeOp Admin
Posts: 1665
Joined: Thu May 01, 2003 11:50 am
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Post by TapeOpLarry » Sun Nov 06, 2005 11:37 pm

Think about the fact that you've never seen a Sytek ad, that FMR does little tiny ads in Tape Op sometimes, and that neither one shows up at AES or TapeOpCon or ever has a PR person call for reviews or has a Mercenary Edition.

They build cool, ugly stuff that works well and is affordable because they cut all those corners. People that do the research know the stuff is good. People that only go to GC or read catalogs don't know they exist.

I do know that FMR wishes they had set a higher base price for the RNC as they barely make any money producing them, even with thousands sold. That sorta sucks as it might make it harder for them to be around...
Larry Crane, Editor/Founder Tape Op Magazine
please visit www.tapeop.com for contact information
(do not send private messages via this board!)
www.larry-crane.com

mjau
speech impediment
Posts: 4023
Joined: Mon Sep 29, 2003 7:33 pm
Location: Orlando
Contact:

Post by mjau » Mon Nov 07, 2005 6:43 am

You guys have hit the nail on the head - for most of the manufacturers, it is about margin. How much profit per unit sold is what drives manufacturing, pricing, marketing, etc, etc. I've always wondered how much of my money that went into buying a piece of gear actually helped pay for the marketing assholes to tell me how much I needed that piece of gear.
Viva la RNC! Viva la Sytek! Viva la revolucion!

User avatar
jrsgodfrey
re-cappin' neve
Posts: 735
Joined: Wed May 07, 2003 7:19 am
Location: Queens, NY
Contact:

Post by jrsgodfrey » Mon Nov 07, 2005 6:53 am

Also, all told, in the real world I find that "simple" gear is the best gear, even if there is a tradeoff. The Sytek pre couldn't be more basic (but I love that mute switch and wish everyone did that). The Hamptone I have been loving -- simple. The RNC, dbx 160, most Neve eqs, API pres, all easy to use intuitively -- that is by listening.

Simplicity has an inherently low price point, in that, over time, much time and effort is saved and value added by making it easier to get where your going. So a 1073 and an RNC have that in common, despite the payout, and over time the price discrepency becomes less meaningful.

Complexity, on the other hand, is often expensive up front AND down the line.

With chips and DSP and the Microsoft all-in-one ethos, its easy to make, sell, and market complex, multi-function boxes at a high margin.

There are complex things that are worth figuring out, of course, and that can be very rewarding. But day-to-day, having basic tools that just work -- that aren't obstacles -- makes me happy.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 80 guests