Day trip: Sonic Circus!

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jetboatguy
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Re: Day trip: Sonic Circus!

Post by jetboatguy » Mon Jan 15, 2007 3:04 pm

joel hamilton wrote:Tony, Marc and I (Studio G) all hopped in a snazzy rental car and FLOORED it out of NYC
Man !
the suspense is killing me... what kinda car was it ?
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Is that the thing where they take a good old sine wave and they chop it up into little bits?" --- Rupert Neve

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Post by ceilingcat84 » Tue Jan 16, 2007 4:51 pm

joel, we want pictures once it's installed... :)

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Post by joel hamilton » Tue Jan 16, 2007 8:48 pm

ceilingcat84 wrote:joel, we want pictures once it's installed... :)
Of course!
That will be the fun part....

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Post by jrepro » Thu Jan 18, 2007 2:08 pm

Congrats Joel!!

Awesome board for sure.

One good point I think Joel and others make is to buy good gear. You might not need a $6k U47 microphone, but a stock Nady 1050 is not a substitute. It's more like pouring money down a drain. IMO. In a month, you will sell it to buy a CAD. In a month you will sell the CAD to buy an ADK. In a month you will sell that to buy a Charter Oaks/Peluso/Pearlman etc. This really goes for all gear including mics, comps, pres and boards. It's really worth the wait, to save enough for the more "studio standard" gear or gear that you will not out grow for some time. That could be an ADK or Peluso, or that just might be a Neumann U47, but I can guarentee it will you will out grow the cheap gear in a short period.

I use NEVE and API preamps all the time, and I will not out grow them! Money well spent. I've sold every inexpensive pre I have ever owned.


Joel, I also hear you on the MOD- $- Pit. I often say, "IF" you have to tell a story when selling a piece of gear, your not going to get what it is worth $. When you go to sell the NEVE, all you do is say is its a NEVE with these modules in it. Done. I know a lot of guys spending some coin on modified Chinese Mics. When they go to sell it, it is still a Nady, Apex (insert any name) microphone. If your gonna buy a Chinese mic, make it a good one!

Joe

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Post by joel hamilton » Thu Jan 18, 2007 9:24 pm

So true, Joe.

When I just got an M49, it cost SERIOUS money, but I didnt feel like that money was out the window, at all. It feels like money in the bank when you get an amazing piece. You know you can sell a classic neumann microphone for at LEAST what you bought it for, even like one minute after you get it in your hands!
That same moment will drop the value of your ADK to ebay "going rate" used price even one second after buying it. The ssame goes for weird brand stuff... If you get into some weird old compressor, you need to really love it, and have it become a part of your work. I have done that with things like the symetrix 501 or certain other "not-a-zillion-dollars-to-buy" pieces. Saving up for something snazzy is truly one of the joys, IMO, and once you have saved enough for a U47, lets say, you really are not tossing that money like you would if it was a car or something that will devalue with age. If you buy a neve 1073 today, you will TOTALLY be able to sell it for as much as you paid for it, if not more in ten years. Try that with a Nady....

That does not mean that the less expensive tools are crappy, in fact I love many of these kinds of things in the studio. This DOES mean that unless you really love the thing, and get good use out of it, WHY would you buy it? because it is more affordable? Recording is not based on "value" or "cheap stuff" at all. This is not a game to me.

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Post by Barry Jive » Fri Jan 19, 2007 5:34 pm

joel hamilton wrote:So true, Joe.

When I just got an M49, it cost SERIOUS money, but I didnt feel like that money was out the window, at all. It feels like money in the bank when you get an amazing piece. You know you can sell a classic neumann microphone for at LEAST what you bought it for, even like one minute after you get it in your hands!
That same moment will drop the value of your ADK to ebay "going rate" used price even one second after buying it. The ssame goes for weird brand stuff... If you get into some weird old compressor, you need to really love it, and have it become a part of your work. I have done that with things like the symetrix 501 or certain other "not-a-zillion-dollars-to-buy" pieces. Saving up for something snazzy is truly one of the joys, IMO, and once you have saved enough for a U47, lets say, you really are not tossing that money like you would if it was a car or something that will devalue with age. If you buy a neve 1073 today, you will TOTALLY be able to sell it for as much as you paid for it, if not more in ten years. Try that with a Nady....

That does not mean that the less expensive tools are crappy, in fact I love many of these kinds of things in the studio. This DOES mean that unless you really love the thing, and get good use out of it, WHY would you buy it? because it is more affordable? Recording is not based on "value" or "cheap stuff" at all. This is not a game to me.
I don't know about this. It seems like you're essentially predicting the future, saying that a U47 or neve 1073 will retain it's current (perhaps inflated) value indefinitely. The popularity of equipment waxes and wanes for a variety of reasons as I'm sure you're aware. Weren't U47s seen as arcane and antiquated in the late 70s and 80s? I'm not saying it's useless ephemera, or even a bad purchase, because of course those are great pieces, but gear as an investment lasting longer than say, a year, seems like a pretty tricky proposition.

-Eric

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Post by joel hamilton » Sat Jan 20, 2007 9:01 am

Barry Jive wrote:
joel hamilton wrote:So true, Joe.

When I just got an M49, it cost SERIOUS money, but I didnt feel like that money was out the window, at all. It feels like money in the bank when you get an amazing piece. You know you can sell a classic neumann microphone for at LEAST what you bought it for, even like one minute after you get it in your hands!
That same moment will drop the value of your ADK to ebay "going rate" used price even one second after buying it. The ssame goes for weird brand stuff... If you get into some weird old compressor, you need to really love it, and have it become a part of your work. I have done that with things like the symetrix 501 or certain other "not-a-zillion-dollars-to-buy" pieces. Saving up for something snazzy is truly one of the joys, IMO, and once you have saved enough for a U47, lets say, you really are not tossing that money like you would if it was a car or something that will devalue with age. If you buy a neve 1073 today, you will TOTALLY be able to sell it for as much as you paid for it, if not more in ten years. Try that with a Nady....

That does not mean that the less expensive tools are crappy, in fact I love many of these kinds of things in the studio. This DOES mean that unless you really love the thing, and get good use out of it, WHY would you buy it? because it is more affordable? Recording is not based on "value" or "cheap stuff" at all. This is not a game to me.
I don't know about this. It seems like you're essentially predicting the future, saying that a U47 or neve 1073 will retain it's current (perhaps inflated) value indefinitely. The popularity of equipment waxes and wanes for a variety of reasons as I'm sure you're aware. Weren't U47s seen as arcane and antiquated in the late 70s and 80s? I'm not saying it's useless ephemera, or even a bad purchase, because of course those are great pieces, but gear as an investment lasting longer than say, a year, seems like a pretty tricky proposition.

-Eric
The M49 is not being made any more, and there are more people than ever before getting into recording music/audio on many levels. Even if the M49 was reissued exactly, the originals would be sought after. Of course, people may be born with a USB port in their neck in the coming years, but for now we require a good quality microphone to record something, regardless of the capture format. If we are recording at 96 bit, 10 billion k, we still require something to convert wiggling air to electricity. Seems like the M49 or U47 will be a useful tool for many years to come when you look at it that way. There is also no turning back from demand... when you say that U47's were thought of as "antiquated" in the 80's.... first of all, if you look at the advertising of that era they would have you believe that you should throw away your fairchild 670 and get a Dbx 160 x with the stereo link.... the reality is that you can look at the session pictures of anything from peter frampton to average white band and see a U47 somewhere, on something... something important. Just like the ads today say you should throw away your "old quirky" stuff and get the "reliability" of the plug-in version for the daw flavor of the month...

Even if hardware compressors go away altogether (unlikely), there would be nothing to compress without a microphone! ;)

I do not claim to be able to see the future, but i can certainly see that the U47 has gone UP in price every 6 months for a long time, just like U67's and M49's and fairchilds.... up to whatever the market will bear, and that seems to climb even...

If you want to own something for a lifetime, then the market value doesnt really matter as much: you would be recording with these tools and noot seeing them as an investment (in and of itself).

BUT: if you maybe want to record for a few years, then you want to have a kid and get a "normal" job, you could start a really nice college fund for your newborn with the U47 you bought in 2001 for 4500 dollars, because you can sell it today for 10 grand. Try that with the stock market... Or try that with an MXL....

Reasonable short term, if you buy an M49 for 7k, use it for 5 weeks, decide it doesnt sound completely awesome to you compared to your CAD e300 you got on ebay for 300 dollars, and sell the M49 for 7300 dollars.... ya know?

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Post by Meriphew » Sat Jan 20, 2007 12:39 pm

Have you seen the Wunder M49 yet? I'm very curious as to how close to an original that will be.

What's the ETA on your Neve Joel?

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Post by joel hamilton » Sat Jan 20, 2007 1:51 pm

Meriphew wrote:Have you seen the Wunder M49 yet? I'm very curious as to how close to an original that will be.

What's the ETA on your Neve Joel?
Still aiting for a final commission date, but march sometime is the idea....

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Post by Marc Alan Goodman » Mon Jan 22, 2007 4:27 pm

jrepro wrote:One good point I think Joel and others make is to buy good gear. You might not need a $6k U47 microphone, but a stock Nady 1050 is not a substitute.
All I want to know is....


... Where are you still finding U47's for $6K? Damn have they blown up.

Although apparently Telefunken USA is making the VF-14 again, which (assuming they work) might shift the market around a bit.

-marc goodman

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Post by joel hamilton » Tue Jan 23, 2007 7:39 pm

Marcocet wrote:
jrepro wrote:One good point I think Joel and others make is to buy good gear. You might not need a $6k U47 microphone, but a stock Nady 1050 is not a substitute.
All I want to know is....


... Where are you still finding U47's for $6K? Damn have they blown up.

Although apparently Telefunken USA is making the VF-14 again, which (assuming they work) might shift the market around a bit.

-marc goodman
So funny, I thought the same thing... like "I WISH it was 6k for a U47...."

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