Does equipment matter?

Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2005 10:56 am

maintiger wrote:

... put a total newb with the most expensive guitar in the Universe and you are definitely not gonna get an instant Segovia. Or if you can, please let me know! Very Happy

Sure - there's a TDM plug-in for that - didn't you know??? You can't buy it, you can only hack it from Kazaa. I'm hoping they release it soon for DirectX or VST - I've got 52 guitarists hanging around waiting to sound like Segovia!

Laughing

J.

Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 12:12 pm

I usually make my hi-end purchases when I see a need and the budgit allows.
Last night I was doing a project for GC pro, and they brought in this mic for me to demo. I did not recognise the logo (it was a big H ) It sounded very smooth and warm. After the session, I asked what it was and it was a Hosa. I thought they made lo-end cables. I have no idea the price range, but it being a Hosa I suspect lo-end. I did a search for Hosa to see some specs and only found something related to flowers.? The mic was a tube mic and had a variable pattern switch. This is a very good disposible type of mike for lo-end projects. But then again who knows maybe it is a hi-end mic. You get what you pay for.

Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2005 1:59 pm

Well, I don't do music, nor am I a "Hi-Fi-idjit", as a amtter of fact, I have sold my so-so stereo (the best I could afford), and bought meself a piano-lacquered radio from Henry Kloss (well, the company, hehe). When I want to listen to something where I need to hear the details, I'll either put on the HD25-1s, or the RS-1s.

I do radio (i.e. as a journalist), and quite early (as in my socalled "career") I bought myself an HHB Portadisc, as that was more or less the new "industry standard". I was never quite pleased with it, though, having been taught how to "do radio" on analogue gear. I bought meself some Røde mics, but I still wasn't satisfied (I was looking for some warmth and precision in my interviews and "clean-sound"). Then, after a two hour long interview, the Portadisc didn't write the TOC, so all was lost. Without having ever heard it, I phoned and bought the SD722, simply because even if the recording would get screwed up, I would likely be able to extract it from the HDD, not to mention that the simultaneous recording on the CF-card gives me peace of mind - to the extend that digital can give me that.
Now, I'm in awe of how good that recorder is. How nice the pre-amps make my interviews sound. It's even better than the Nagra (reel-reel) I was using when I was taught how to do it.

If I had a choice, though, I'd be using that micro-nagra thingy with the hand-rewind!.

Does gear matter? Well, yes, but too much gear is like too running around with seven zippos in your pocket. Of course it is nice to have a lighter, even a good one, one that gets the job done well, and it doesn't hurt if it satisfies the eyes either. But it has to get a specific job done.

Less is more to me, in most cases, but equipment does matter.

About the "ears" discussion - if "ears" shouldn't matter, why don't we all record in 128kbps MP2 ...

Anyways, I know I fall quite a lot out of this group, but any job has it's own demands - even mine. Smile

Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 5:16 am

I think I may be the only one to post on this thread who is currently using modern budget gear.

Ok, just a little background, hang with me guys. Played drums in a band and I always thought it would be great to do some recordings of our jams. Well this escalated from using an old boombox with a built in mic to record to cassette, to getting a microphone to plug into the 1/8" slot on my soundboard, to finally going to school to find out how to use my newly bought Behringer Eurodesk SL2442FX-PRO Mixer, Nady CM-88 condensers, and my CAD drum-mic package.

Well school taught me as much as I ever wanted to know and has secured my interest in getting a job in the industry and trying to scrape a living from being an engineer.

I had my first true recording of a friend's band recently which occured in my garage and everything went just fine. The group was playing grea t, (I truely agree with the above who posted that the most important part of a recording is the talent, both of the band and the engineer,) and while I can't say that i'm an experienced engineer, I AM satisfied with the resulting quality of the recording. Using all cheap quality mics/preamps (except for an AKG D112 I purchased recently) I was able to achieve an ok listening experience.

Now here's the crazy part. *Gasp*
I used the EQ that came with the board, (1 parametric, 2 non-variable shelving) per channel, and output through the RCA/CD to the 1/8" jack on my extremely cheap soundcard into Adobe Audition. Not only this, but I don't own a set of monitors yet (I'm currently saving up money to get the Alesis MKIIs) so I output this in turn through my computer speakers. *faint*

This is about as budget as I think you can get, (I have to start somewhere), and while I am not overly happy with the quality of the recording, I did all I could possibly do to scrape a somewhat accurate sound out of my equipment and I am happy with how it sounds with what I had to work with.

At this point, I am only interested in getting workable gear that is within my budget. The only things I can afford at this point are the semi-pro options and I will do what I can to make the most out of the gear available to me, but the high end gear is certainly not available to everyone.

Expensive gear does sound better than low end gear, there's no denying that whatsoever. While I don't have the experience yet to differentiate between different options within high end gear, i'm sure i'll get there some day. All I know is that i'm young, I have an education, and each day will bring more joy to me knowing that I can record music. No matter what I use to do it. Whew, thanks for reading.

Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 3:50 pm

Howdy everyone; I have been reading a lot on this forum in the last couple of months and learning a lot. For that, I say thanks to all.

So let me, if you will, jump into this pool. I'm a newbie at recording, but not at life.

On this topic, which I have done a some research and some thinking of my own, I keep these ideas in mind, especially if I feel an episode of "gear lust" coming on. What would BB King sound like on a crappy Walmart guitar? He would sound a hell of a lot better than me and 100,000 other guitar players out there with their expensive guitars, that's what he would sound like. How about what Robert Johnson did in the 20's? I don't believe they had a lot of expensive recording gear back then, but he sure did something very memorable. On some article on some web site by some professional recording engineer I remember reading this quote "You can make a good record with a two by four, if you know what you're doing", a slight exaggeration, but pretty much sums up the whole argument.

I plan on keeping those ideas in mind as I expand my gear inventory. And anyone who isn't rich and doesn't want to go broke, might consider adopting this attitude about equipment.

Just my $ 0.02.

Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 1:34 pm

Hi Kurt. ...I hear what you say and I agree with you.
On the gear thing. Of course it matters yes. I own second hand gear , but its all pretty good stuff. Good preamps etc.
Its the way you use it that matters I think.
And I agree with you re the golden age of recording etc. We must be grumpy old men, but I think we're right. All you need to do is have a listen to your old vynil LPs .... they're beautiful.
Just like the classic old films and the brilliant artists and actors that produced them. Sadly we are losing a generation that I don't believe we will ever see the likes of again.

cheers Wink

Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 10:22 am

Being an intermediate, self taught person of audio recording I can honestly say that I know and hear the differences between consumer, semi-pro, and pro equipment as far as digital goes. I've had a lot of people take me under their wing and I've seen a lot of pro studios and interned at a few of them. Don't ask me what the set-ups were and exactly what equipment was used because I don't know anything but a few brand names.

For myself and my studio that I use to record people I can only afford consumer grade equipment. I use a medium grade, highly used PC with an E-MU PCI card and Behringer 8-channel mic pre. After my exposure why do I use this "absolute crap"? Because I was tired of not having a multitrack system and I bought what I could without going for broke. If you want a full equipment list of what I use and then judge me look for my thread in this forum, it's not to far down the list.

I use the set-up for recording my own bands as well as others that are looking for a decent demo for cheap. Around me, $20/hour recording time gets you the worst crap that you ever paid for. I do it and put all of my best editing, ear work, and ideas into it. The truth? For what I work with no one else in the area does a better job for less than $100/hr. I could charge more, but then I would lose business. If the band that I'm recording is low on talent, at least people can hear it clearly because it's my job to make sure that they can.

Does equipment matter? Of course. Especially in MY cases it has to do with the reliability of product more than the quality because most pieces in my price range put out about the same sound. But let me tell you, good use of a parametric and gain adjustments goes a very, very long way when working with consumer grade products. Just my own experiences.

For the record, 44.1k (and 48k which I use) sucks; analog is better than digital, but high quality digital is more acurate than analog; but my SM57 rocks my guitar cab when accompanied by a good quality condenser.

Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 9:36 pm

Kurt I know how you feel and why you get pissed.
I was on a gun range and this dude beside me had a Rugger MK II bull barrel target pistol ( A really nice target pistol) and was shooting holes in the frigging ceiling. No where near the target
Great gear in the wrong hands make the music even worse.
When you put real bad crap in great equipment it sounds like real, real bad crap.
I use a Sony DMX R100 but the D/A's don't cut it so I have to rely on outboard D/A's. It's not an SSL but at least I try to make it the best it can be.

Some people really don't want to put S**T under a microscope. They would rather throw a greasy turd in the pool.

My hearing isn't what it use to be that's even more reason I need good stuff so I can have an edge on ME.

I have different sets of tubes for my tube stuff, each set makes the piece sound different.
Any one that says gear doesn't matter just plain can't hear.
Nothing we can do for their hearing except maybe pray for their healing
Larry

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:03 pm

I believe that the answer to this question lies in what will become of the final recording. I believe that the world would be a much happier place if everyone knew about 1 bit resolution. This would, in my mind at least, mandate the use of high end equipment to provide a highly acurrate representation of the music as the artist originally intended. These tools, thank goodness are not readily available to every pretengineer with a pro tools rig. And why should they be when all anyone is going to do is dither the recording down and squash it into one of those nice little packages they call an mp3. If this is what you are planning to do with your recording then a couple 57's and an m-box are just about all that you need. All of this banter though is somewhat irrelevant to the bottom line. Does little Suzie care anything about how good her new favorite song sounds (much less the equipment used) while it is blaring entirely too loud out of her ipod? I think not. And because this is the case, premium quality sound will have to remain treat for the enlightened few. All hail the allmighty dollar!?!?!

Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2007 10:06 pm

Gear is nice to have, but the song is definitely the most important part. I would rather listen to the Mountain Goats, who recorded the bulk of their early albums on a boombox, than Fall Out Boy any day. Robert Johnson is another perfect example of how the song is much more important than the quality of recording.

Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 9:13 am

The gear should be dependent on how good the producer is, how experienced he is, and how well he could use the equipment.

I personally know 2 bands, one of which recorded in a semi professional studio, with all that it takes in terms of equipment to make a good sounding record, and ended up with a senseless punk record which sounded like it was recorded on an eight track. (no kidding.)

The others, recorded at home, using one emu 1820M, using midrange guiatrs, (exeptable of course). And from what I've listened to, the record sounds incredibly better, and the music is fantastic and original. (the drums were recorded in a studio of course, no choice there).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to prove that equipment doesn't matter. I'm trying to prove that good equipment matters only when it's in the right hands. Begginers, shouldn't go crazy thinking they should spend their whole savings on hi-end equipment to get good sound, cause they won't. A producer should make the best out of what he has, and when he had, he should draw the line further with better equipment.

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 12:18 am

Everything has a point of diminishing returns.

If a recording is made in a booth environment even the marvelous U87 sounds unremarkable when compared with that same microphone used in a world class music studio. (BTW-I love using the U87 for my narrations)

Sure the very best microphones and recording hardware will make a better recording in your bedroom studio, but the sonic improvement will hardly be worth the $$$ investment without a great room.

Some how each studio operator must find a good balance for the environments they record in.

Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 12:05 pm

I just want you guys to see how utterly rediculouse this topic is, becouse we can go on and on about it, but the bottom line remains the same: its just too subjective. That is what i like about this form of industry, there is no such standard to what you have. You just have to go with what works.

i agree with you all on certain points, but weather you can do a lot with a little on a tight budget or have the money and ability to record somthing crisp, punchy and clear on the hi-end stuff, it just comes down to a matter of taste.

Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 12:09 pm

Well, hey...at least the good news is, it's such an old topic that, unless someone reposts to it, it probably won't get that much attention.

Oh wait....snap...you just did.

Oh man...now I just did.

Damnit.

Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 12:29 pm

ha ha

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