What kinda crazy does this! Did you hire him an engineer, too? Cause I bet he's gonna need it.
But seriously I don't think you should be fired at all. Buying a studio setup all in one trip to the store can't be a normal occurance. The only issue might be the drum mics. Why not splurge for some REAL mics instead of the PG's. Oh, and maybe headphones?

sounds good but why 2 828mkii's? this is like 40 inputs for 5 mics...

by the way, what would be your comission on a sale like that, if you don't mind us asking...

maintiger wrote: sounds good but why 2 828mkii's? this is like 40 inputs for 5 mics...

we really should of had like 20k-25k to work with....but this way it will more or less be a mic issue as he bulids his studio (he's 16)

maintiger wrote: by the way, what would be your comission on a sale like that, if you don't mind us asking...

I will let you know when I get my check....honestly not a whole lot....A music store job is not going to pay that great....untill you get in to stricly high end gear

Reggie wrote: What kinda crazy does this! Did you hire him an engineer, too? Cause I bet he's gonna need it.
But seriously I don't think you should be fired at all. Buying a studio setup all in one trip to the store can't be a normal occurance. The only issue might be the drum mics. Why not splurge for some REAL mics instead of the PG's. Oh, and maybe headphones?

yea mics were the issue...

but i mean by "fired"do you hate or like the setup

wheres the audiogaff when you need him?

(he's 16)

:evil:

Where the hell did he get $13,000?!? When I was 16, all I had was a cheap portable mono casette recorder!

lot's of cash but i think the pg drum thing was a bad move!
for that money i'd buy the missing links... sm-57 and an akg d112 and should have invested on a few acoustic treatment...

8-) Rich parents must rule. Or maybe he sells drugs; that would make me less angry somehow.

but i mean by "fired"do you hate or like the setup

I knew what ya meant; I was just making joke that the kid will probably need to buy an engineer to make it all work for him.

If I was 16 (or years older for that matter), I wouldn't turn my nose up at that setup.

I had a recording studio in a commercial space that I sold at the end of 2003. I wanted 20K but when I was offerd 15K I considered myself lucky and took it. A mom bought it for a 17 year old kid, a senior in HS. She took a second mortgage on her house to do it. The thing was in escrow for three months during which I offered the kid to come over and learn as I was in the middle of a band project. He came once- what can you do- I offered to be available for help after they took over and he called just once- some program question or other. I am sorry to say that they lasted a year and they were gone. i guess when you are 17 you know everything that there is to know. When you get older that's when you know you don't know sh** 8)

And by the way, CaptainAudio, welcome to RO!

xavier has a point here...
i really think that all these new technology and tools is killing music! people tend to work a mix instead of a song!
when all we had was a guitar and maybe a tape recorder with a mic we'd bust ourselves trying on different things, new melodies, new guitar riffs and so on... this days everybody's more worried with how the recording sounds!
i've just managed to get a few new things on my home studio and so on! and i feel i am in this category! instead of making music i find myself looping a simple bass line and then adding stuff and so on...
this leads me to the poor recordings we have these days! everyone now thinks they can do it so what we hear is sometimes great music so wrongly recorded that kills it...
life...

why not a 896hd rather than 2 828s? he could have spent the extra money on some better mics and had more mic pres. Should have went with the good audix drum pack(D series mics) if anything.

David French wrote:

(he's 16)

:evil:

Where the hell did he get $13,000?!? When I was 16, all I had was a cheap portable mono casette recorder!

Yeah , I had two cheap portable mono cassete recorders, that I used to"ping-pong" back and forth between each other (played out loud into each other)...generation loss , background noise, whatever! :evil: ...... 8)

Yup, that was me! Fun, wasn't it? The sad thing is, I was 16 in 1996. :shock:

For a 16 year old with cold hard cash, you should have sent him out your front door and pointed him to the front door of the nearest 4 year university. That, IMVHO, would have been a far, FAR wiser investment of this money than any studio setup for a 16 year old kid that doesn't know squat. Face it, if he had to have you put this entire package together for him, this was a complete waste of money considering his obvious lack of knowledge, experience, and expertise. $13k is a heck of a down payment on a good college education. (I hate my student loans, and in some way, I envy this poor idiot who's being coddled by his overly supportive, completely unrealistic parents!)

What was the time frame of this transaction, between this kid putting $13k on your counter and him walking out the door with the gear? 16 years old, with $13k outlay at his own discretion, is not something I can even comprehend. Were mom and dad involved in this at all???!!! They should have been slapped all the way up and down the street for letting such a stupid purchase take place. I'd say you ripped this kid out of about $13k. You should have told him what today's recording environment is REALLY like. There's simply no room in today's world for a completely inexperienced 16 year old kid to compete with experienced professionals for business. And if he bought this only for himself, he'd better be the next Jimmy Page, RUN DMC, or N'Sync, and somehow I highly doubt that's the case if he walked out the door thinking he got a great deal by buying some Shure PG mic's after dropping $13k. Otherwise, you should have sold him a mic and a stand alone recorder/mixer and told him to come back in a year after he had mastered multi-tracking. Did you even bother to ask him if he had a decent space/room to put all this in? One that was already acoustically sound (no pun intended at all) and able to accomodate a studio setup? Was there any counseling at all as to whether he really knew what he was spending this money on and keeping the expectations of its performance and ROI in check? I'm actually kind of disturbed that this kind of thing could take place.

Before I learned how to play guitar, I would certainly hope that as a musician, in my early days, before I knew what the difference between a fret and the bridge was, a guitar salesman wouldn't have pulled a top of the line Gibson Les Paul off the shelf and told me, "THIS is what you REALLY need to be a great guitarist." That's why he is (or SHOULD be) a salesman. Regardless of what my initial spending cap was, I'd hope he'd keep me in check and tell me I should start out with a bottom of the line nonamebrand acoustic to learn a few things on, and then work my way up from there.

You have just lived up to the stereotype of a salesman. This was, again, IMVHO, an irresponsible and ill advised sale to an unsuspecting customer, regardless of how legitimate the source of the $13k was. Just because he had a very high ceiling on how much he could spend does NOT, by ANY means, justify this transaction.

But don't ask me how I REALLY feel.............

And welcome, Captain Audio, to RO. No hostility meant at all, but you did ask for our opinion, and that's my take.

ha ha... :P I did not see this coming :o

:roll: based on how you ASSUMED the transaction took place... yea I would consider my self a (can you cuss here?) a Di#kwad salesman also. let me be the first to tell you it did'nt happen that way AT ALL! :twisted:

Im not going to get in to this with you... Nor am I going to justify my job description.... Im guessing you hold a little resentment twards sales people... beleve me I UNDERSTAND...I didn't pop out of my mom in a suit and tie with my bottom line in mind...I have had my fair share of experince with sales people selling me stuff I did'nt want or have....

:D no harsh feelings tho.... ok and thanks for the welcome...

ps the mics were not shure pg....pak it was a good pack I forgot the name tho... :oops:

Well, I wished my parents had bought me a 13K studio when I was 16. I certainly would have known what to do with it... :mrgreen:

Damn 23 Y/O and i just got above the 13g mark for my set up (stricktly a vocal studio for hip-hop/Pop)

.....jdsdj98 rant..........

If he would have turned him away with all that money, then he should have been fired FOR SURE! :)

8-) This is one of the more entertaining threads I've read.

OK, OK, so maybe I was a little harsh. I didn't assume anything, though. I just asked a few questions that would better explain the scenario, but they went unanswered:

1. Does this kid know anything at all as to how to use any of this stuff?

2. Is this studio for himself, or the beginning of a commercial venture?

3. Did he walk in with a list of gear that he wanted, or did he just lay the cash on the counter and say, "I want a studio"?

4. What was the time frame of the transaction?

I'm just as curious as the next guy, and this is, as someone said, one of the more entertaining/interesting threads I've read in a while. It's a lot of fun to think what I would have done with that kind of money at that age. It's not something that happens every day.

No bitterness toward salespeople at all, Captain. I have a select few that I trust tremendously and deal with exclusively. Good, knowledgeable salespeople are very valuable to all parties involved in a transaction like this. My point stands, however, that IF a beginner who owns nothing and knows nothing walks in to buy anything, whether it's a guitar, mixer, microphone, car, snowboard, whatever, IMO, it shouldn't be the sales person's job to wring every available dime from them before sending them out the door. The salesperson should hold 'em back and say, "Hold on, buddy. do you REALLY need all that to start with?" Know what I mean?

Great thread. Fun story. Cheers. 8-)