i have 50 cents, what professional studio can i buy?

[krylenko]

i don't rant much, but this has been pissing me off.

doesn't anyone actually save for better gear anymore?
all i ever see on message boards these days is "I need X, but I only have Y dollars, what's the best deal?" Y is usually less than the price of a decent Taco Hell meal.

when i was a kid, if you wanted something, you didn't just buy the cheapest piece of crap you could get with that week's couch money. no, dammit, you looked behind that couch every day until you had enough money to buy the best slingshot possible. then you knew that slingshot would let you hurt people for a long time, instead of breaking the first time you ran from an angry kid with a newly bleeding head and it fell out of your pocket.

this isn't about financial irresponsibility; i would've thought easy access to credit cards would make everybody buy more good stuff.

instead, we have people who can't be satisfied with $5000 word clock generators advising people who want a top-shelf mic pre for a buck with their burger.

there's a lot of good cheap gear, but 3 or 4 $100 mic pres do not equal one good $500 pre. that applies to every part of the chain, but everywhere i turn people are trying to cut corners instead of maximizing value.
do people just not realize that quality costs money?
or do they just not care about quality?

this also isn't about pushing big-ticket stuff, just the fact that the more you spend, the more you get (within reason). buying a new piece of gear with every paycheck will give a complete recording chain, all right - a chain of crap. unless of course you make a lot more than i do ($25k gross this year, for the record).

i certainly realize the reality of limited funds and budgets, but that's the point of saving up! i can hardly afford gear, but what i do buy from now on will be great stuff, more or less regardless of cost. i want quality! am i the only one?

the irony is that the people this hurts most are the ones who do it most, the ones who can only afford one great piece of gear per function. they have the most to gain from not accumulating crap. yet this doesn't happen and i feel like a geezer talking 'bout my childhood (i'm 24, for pete's sake!)

what's going on?

[joel hamilton]

It is much better practice to buy a 150 dollar condenser mic, then argue about your amazing results that sound just like you hear on records where you know they spent ZillionS!

I have no idea when this concept came to be the norm, but you are speaking the truth.

How many times have we all scoffed at "throw away your kitchen! we have invented a can opener that will make your dinner at home while you are driving to work!!! for 19.99!!!"

But now people go do EXACTLY the same thing with audio gear.

I think advertizing is partly to blame. Ads used to read like ads. Now they read like facts. Brilliant on the advertizing agency's part, but the hegemony seems to be strong.

People are buying this shit, and it is the advertizer that teels them they will never need a neumann, because they put a tube in a soup can and called it a mic.

There ARE deals to be had, but SO MUCH OF THIS STUFF is junk! not COOL JUNK, just Junk!

Word up, my man. Good luck convincing anyone that saving up for something good is better than just buying a bunch of shit.

[Bear]

But something else you must consider--for some folks, getting that $300 condenser IS saving up.

In my current situation, it'll take me around 4 months to gather the extra $300, unless I happen to sell some paintings. And I guess I could wait a few years to buy myself a really nice mic, but that seems unreasonable.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all disagreeing with what you're saying here. Knowing where to put your money is a big part of things. I've already made enough bad purchases to know that an $80 compressor is pretty much just throwing the 80 bucks away, but sometimes people are just working within their means. They're not always being cheapskates who expect beautiful results from butt-ass gear.

Butt-ass is my new favorite word.

[krylenko]

i heard or read somewhere the idea that advertising has become so hyperbolic it's destroyed its usefulness.
that is, if every product is the best (as routinely advertised), there's no point in choosing a particular product, and you're back at square one.
that seems totally accurate to me.

the price/performance relationship should be obvious to anyone who's ever owned a car - you can't buy a ferrari for a yugo price, and you're rightly suspicious of other people or ads who say it's possible.
if you want ferrari performance, you have to pay for it.
most people only need and can only afford honda performance, and that's fine.
but you can't buy a geo metro and expect even honda performance from it, let alone ferrari. and using 3 metros doesn't make any one car 3 times faster.

people are much more realistic about cars than audio; is it just because so many people don't, won't, or can't judge for themselves?
i realize gear can be more intimidating and harder to judge than 0-60 speed, but in most of the posts that annoy me it's obvious the poster doesn't really know what they're talking about or what's possible.

learning how to use the gear probably makes its worth more apparent...

[krylenko]

bear, i have no problem with people trying to maximize their buck.
i also don't want to add to the butt-ass gear snobbery already out there.

it's the people who want instant gratification and have uninformed, unrealistic expectations that grate on me.
whenever an audio messageboard gets a few new users, there's a plethora of samey posts that all boil down to "i'm cheap and clueless. what can i buy with one paycheck that will make me sound like Z big-name artist? oh, and i need weed money left over too."
then everybody sighs and explains that it's not that easy, or that cheap.
i just saw this on another board.

i know people have to learn somewhere, but there's a butt-ass load of info out there. questions are great when you have some idea of what you're talking about. until then, they're just clutter.

[cgarges]

it's the people who want instant gratification and have uninformed, unrealistic expectations that grate on me.

BINGO!

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[psychicoctopus]

when i was a kid, if you wanted something, you didn't just buy the cheapest piece of crap you could get with that week's couch money.

There is something good to be said for cheap gear. It forces YOU to work harder. Not that great gear will make your dinner for you while you drive home, but wringing a satisfactory sound out of mediocre equipment is a learning excercise. You learn the weak points of a design, whether its a compressor, mic, board, etc... kind of like jogging with ankle weights??

I imagine that when somebody with a beginner's experience uses a great mic, they might put it up there some random-ass way and think, yeah this sounds great, cos its worth $2000.

I agree, advertisements are bold about overstating the qualities of entry-level audio equipment. Yay capitalism. When I have purchased cheap ass gear, it's for the function not the quality. Ain't fooled by the marketers. But sometimes, there's shit you need to make the system work and no money to put a permanent piece there. That said, I will be ditching my ART headphone amp as soon as possible...

Cheap gear... good to learn on. Annoying once you have!

[cgarges]

There is something good to be said for cheap gear. It forces YOU to work harder.

This is one of the best comments I have ever heard regarding recording:

"I have seem people at their studio put up a 57, one lowly 57, as a mono overhead, aimed all weird and out of phase with the snare mic and the kick mic and declare "this mic sucks as an overhead!"

Then they happen to put it up three days later, and by chance, the phasing is right on, and they declare "the 57 can really work as a mono overhead."

The mic didnt morph overnight into something amazing, it was just placed better, by a person. "

-Joel Hamilton

This is a great example of an uninformed individual. (Not Joel, the person in his example.) I didn't really have much of a point here. I just think this is a brillaint statement, sort of relevant, and definitely worth repeating. Thanks again, Joel.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[Bear]

it's the people who want instant gratification and have uninformed, unrealistic expectations that grate on me.
whenever an audio messageboard gets a few new users, there's a plethora of samey posts that all boil down to "i'm cheap and clueless. what can i buy with one paycheck that will make me sound like Z big-name artist? oh, and i need weed money left over too."

I see where you're coming from now.

I've met a lot of people who heard an album that was recorded on a 4-track (or 8-track, or now, a DAW), went and bought a similar set-up and wondered why they didn't sound as good. But it's simple. 1. The band you admired used their minimal equipment really well. 2. The songs they recorded on the 4-track were good songs to begin with (key point there). 3. They skipped on the weed money and put it towards mics.

And I can say, working with junk gear has really taught me how valuable nice gear is (or will be). I agree with a lot of Psychicoctopus's points. But I can also say that if you really spend some time with your poopy gear and pay lots of attention to details like mic placement, you can get something decent. But now we're back to the "uninformed" part of the annoying people equation.

And isn't butt-ass a catchy word? Anything that says the same thing twice in one statement is fantastic.

[krylenko]

Cheap gear... good to learn on. Annoying once you have!

i totally agree. i used to make some kind of butt-ass living buying and selling gear on ebay. it was the greatest thing ever.

i got to try a bunch of gear i'd otherwise have wondered/fantasized about. now i have virtually no gear lust and i know how a lot of different stuff sounds.

i'm at the point where really good gear will immediately improve my tracks, which i'm already pretty satisfied with. then i can start learning to mix all over again!

bear, i didn't realize right off that you're the one with the cool sig line. did you make that up or find it somewhere?

[jessejamietig]

I've been reading posts like this on different message boards for a few years now, and I think we are all forgetting about one basic thing....

A GOOD SONG!

Sure it helps to have a really nice mic pre and mic in your signal path, but a good song wiill come through no matter what. It doesn't matter what you record it to (digital or analog) or what it's mixed on (mackie/radio shack mixer or neve/ssl), if the song sucks the record will suck as well. It's a simple concept.

Think of some of the more lo fi recordings that are out there that are great
great songs, but not (by most standards) great recordings.

Chris Whitley - Dirt Floor
Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska
Just about everything Daniel Johnston has done.

I didn't really realize how much of a great songwriter and performer Bruce Springsteen was, until I heard Nebraska. I was always put off by all of the flashy production going on around him. Daniel Johnston is not a great singer or performer, but his songs come across beautifully.

Yes high quality gear is important, but it won't fix a bad performance or a crappy song.

[wing]

I've been reading posts like this on different message boards for a few years now, and I think we are all forgetting about one basic thing....

A GOOD SONG!

no one forgot, that seems kind of irrelevant to the main point-- he's just saying that people are too lazy and cheap to save up for something of better quality and would rather just settle for something that seems to be a better value, more stuff for less money. you can sit there and talk about good song stuff all day, but it still won't change the fact that it sure is true so many people are too lazy or cheap or whatever to save up for something of higher quality... be it recording gear or an instrument (sometimes). i mean, what if you have good songs already but you're still too lazy or unwilling to save up for something of better quality? then your point is totally irrelevant.

i agree with krylenko... seems there's a lot of people who would rather get something cheap than wait and pay just a little more. and they may have good songs too.

[ahmedgarcia]

Todays society is not about saving, it is about spending to make the economy work. This is how my 13 year old and his friends think. Don't save, buy and then ask someone else to buy something else for you. Instant gratification. This is different then in the '70's and '80's. I beleive I read it once that the US was the worst savers of money.

I remember growing up and being tought HOW to mow lawns and work so I can save and not spend on first impulse. I do that to this day. Walk into a place, really want something, then I walk away from it and not impules buy. And it is hard. If i really want it I will go back at a later time and get it, and if it is not there, oh well. I grew up like this all my life 'cause we were poor.

It took me 18 months to purchase my first Marshall head in 1986. JMC 800. And then another few months to purchase two cabs at pawn shops. Good ol' lay-a-way. Full Marshall stack was my reward and It rocked.

So young ones are going to act like they were taught. Instant gratification, then on to the new thing...

my 2 cents.

[trodden]

Its just kinda funny that people are complaining about other peoples poor judgement on gear aquirement. If you live you life through the banjo mart catalog, then that is too bad. but shit, some people only have that path available to them at the time. Eventually they will learn. Unfortunately, its the expensive way to learn. The cool part is, with their crappy gear, if they are enjoying what they are doing, making music, contributing to the creative needs, the fuck, who the fuck cares what the price tag said.

But the only thing i really have to say is. You gotta have weed money. really, that is not an option. I can think of many other things to cut from the budget way before the weed money. SHit what would i do without my "back medicine." DUh.

[krylenko]

Its just kinda funny that people are complaining about other peoples poor judgement on gear aquirement.

i just want them to stop asking the same damn questions on every existing audio forum!

The cool part is, with their crappy gear, if they are enjoying what they are doing, making music, contributing to the creative needs, the fuck, who the fuck cares what the price tag said.

agreed.
butt-ass. (not referring to anyone, just wanted to type it.)