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anonymous 3 May 2005

This is more of a theoretical thing, since I don't exactly have ten grand to blow right now, but I was wondering where the seasoned veterans put their big bucks?

Comments

anonymous Tue, 05/03/2005 - 21:54

If your room is less than 3500 SQ Ft. - Bass traps. Acoustic treatment. At least $1500 on this alone. Either that or find a good room.

Gradual approach:
Convertors and monitors next
3 good and varied preamps
Mics
Assuming you have a computer and software.

All at once:
Monitors
A Yamaha 02R96V2
Mics

For me personally, right now, 2 NEVE 1084s would be nice.

anonymous Mon, 05/09/2005 - 13:29

I'd get 2 Apogee Rosetta 800s, Vintech Audio 473, and API 3124(or Millennia HV3 8 channel).

Plenty of mics right now.(maybe I could use a Royer 122)
I need better converters and more pres for sure.

I'm tired of wasting my money on digital gear and software.
I've learned the hard way that great analoge gear is far better than great digital gear.
If I had 20K to invest I could get killer results!
"sniff"....I don't though. :(
Anyone know a rich person looking to get a tax break?
:lol:
Aaron

DonnyThompson Sat, 01/23/2016 - 23:21

The front end - the tracking chain - is of far more importance to me than anything that could be inserted or tapped into later.

Mics are the most important thing. Having a really good pre and converters is also very important, but it all starts with the microphone(s).

My recording style is different from many others here, though, in that I'm working primarily with solo artists and duo acts; so other than for real drums, I don't require anything more than 8 input channels at a time.

After the mics, three very nice preamps of each style - super-clean SS high gain pre ( like a Millennia or Grace), a good single channel tube preamp, and then something with a transformer ( which I already have with the ADK), with which I can choose from a variety of XFO and OpAmp combo's to get different character. The, a high quality conversion system. Having the best mics and pre's in the world don't mean a thing if you are using a poor converter to get that sound into your digital work station. The chain will only sound as good as its weakest link.

To that, an LA2 and an 1176.

But I'm not gonna get anywhere close to all of that stuff with 10 G's... I could eat that up just in mics alone, so I won't even mention a Pultec rack.

As an engineer who is passionate about sound, all of these things pop into my head pretty quick based on past experience with using a lot of the pieces mentioned.

But as a businessman - especially THIS business - that ten grand would be much better served being put into a retirement fund or paying down current debt; because in this day and age of relying on a studio to make a living, the odds of recouping your investment on any of that gear are very, very low.

IMO

kmetal Sun, 01/24/2016 - 20:42

An 8x8 Burl mothership, a dangerous 7.1 configured monitor controller. Lol $10k spent.

I think $10k gets you about the same amount of audio gear as it did 10 years ago. Pre 2000's is a different price structure, although I'd have to excersise my finance degree to see the relative proportions.

DonnyThompson Sun, 01/24/2016 - 20:51

Well... It depends...

That 10k now might be able to buy you more than it used to, even with inflation included.

If we're talking "dream gear", then, no... you'd need a lot more now than you would have needed then.

But in terms of home/mid level digital audio, a lot of the gear is much less expensive now. One of the reasons for this is that there are many more manufacturers in the game now than there used to be, and that increases competition between them - meaning they are all vying for our hard-earned dollars, as opposed to 25 years ago, when there were only a few companies that made the hardware necessary for digital audio production.

As an example, 25 years ago, Presonus as a company didn't even exist yet, and Focusrite was still in the big dollar console and hardware processor market.

The price spread between "fair" quality and "high" quality was much wider then, with nothing really in between. These days we have far more choices, and in a multitude of price ranges. The bare-bones "home" quality gear available in the $50 - $100 range today - the Samson, Behringer, Tascam range - would have cost upwards of 4 times that amount 20 years ago.

You can now get very good sounding 8 channel USB/FW pre's/i-o's for around $40-$50 per channel. Presonus, Focusrite, A&H... all make i-o's and console/pre's of really nice fidelity, certainly very useable. While they're maybe not the quality of an Antelope, Grass Valley or Millennia, it's still very nice sounding gear, and at a fraction of the cost of what it would have been priced at back in the 90's.

The other thing that drove prices higher in those days, was the proprietary market model. If you were using Pro Tools in 1995, you HAD to use Digidesign's hardware, or at least that's all that was supported. Now, there are so many hardware manufacturers for computer audio, that you have your choice, and you're not enslaved to having to buy one particular model in order for your DAW to recognize it, and that has brought the prices way down.

I think you can get better quality conversion now for a lot cheaper than what it was priced at in the 90's, or even into the early 2000's... as I've heard told from colleagues of mine who dropped big money into those pricey stand alone converter systems 20 years ago - that these days, even the converters in entry level pre's/i-o's are just as good sounding as those big dollar systems from that time, and as we know, they are much cheaper.

And, the boutique, ultra high quality converters from Antelope and such these days can be had for only a couple grand, yet, had these been available at that time, these same models would have been priced a LOT higher than they are now, which would have made them pretty much untouchable then to most people, unless you had the equipment budget of Ocean Way... LOL

It seems that it's the analog gear that has skyrocketed in prices. True classic pieces - LA2's, 3's, all the various 1176 models, Focusrite Red Series, Pulse Technologies, Neve, SSL, API, and a slew of hi-quality knock - off clones that came about as the result of the invention of the 500 series rack system - those are the pieces that command the higher prices. Now, whether those prices are justifiable or not can only be determined by the user. There are some people who swear by that analog gear; they can't live without it, while others will claim that they can achieve the same sounds ITB. Obviously, the majority of people like the analog gear, and the only proof required to show that are the prices that these pieces command.
And, while there are many older pieces that do sound wonderful, and do live up to their reputation(s); as has been mentioned before ( Kurt mentioned it just recently Kurt Foster ) there's a BIG difference between classic/vintage and something that's just "old and used". ;)

FWIW

kmetal Sun, 01/24/2016 - 22:41

It's jntersting because 11-15 years ago was when the last of the comercial Studios were running dry, and great gear could be had dirt cheap. I think this was before analog and brand name gear came back in vogue, and especially for the home user. There was that point in time where RME was acclaimed for its onboard pre amps, people were using digital mixers. In between tape and hybrid/round tripping, there was pure cold digital. It was a small window in time. 97/98 was right around when I started. I didn't really know what reel to reel was, or pro tools. Lol. The first recording I did was at a home studio to dat tape (I didn't engineer, but that got the bug started, the mixer mackie?? And the gear favsinated me)

Btw Kurt Foster you can get a reissue la-3 for 1500 new. ;)

DonnyThompson Mon, 01/25/2016 - 05:34

I think it's safe to say that most of us here started out as musicians first, and then caught the studio bug; either through recording at a real studio, or investing in our own little recording rigs at home, so that we could at least get our ideas down... the thing back then was to use the gear you had at home to arrange and write with, and then once you had it the way you wanted it, you'd go to a pro studio to track and mix it.

Now, everyone with a copy of Reaper and a $79 mic and $69 interface thinks they are a "studio", and they flood the internet with songs and mixes of a such a mediocre quality, and do it to such a great extent, that people have actually become acclimated to that mediocre sound. Of course, I'm not referring to anyone here, as we're all professionals and we still strive for the best sound that we can get. But the majority of the people out there consider themselves to be a success, and their songs to be good, if they've managed to do nothing more than to get a performance to a track and add reverb or delay to it.
And because there's no real investment to speak of anymore, there isn't the value placed on getting a song tweaked right in the compositional stages, and because the recording investment is really only a few dollars more than what their computer costs them, and because worldwide distribution of their mediocre recordings are pretty much free, we're swamped with crap, and barraged with noise that drowns out the true gems that are out there.

Some of us invested more than others did, and there were some very nicely equipped home studios; and as we added gear for our own use, eventually we thought about recording others to help pay for that gear. And for some of us who did that, we took it even a step further, and began engineering as an occupation.

The difference between today's studios and back then, ( besides the gear) was that in those days, you could actually make a nice side living as an engineer, while continuing to gig as a professional musican. Between the two, you could pay your mortgage or rent, your utilities, your insurance, buy groceries, make your car payment, and still have a few bucks left over for fun ( or more gear, LOL)

Today, the frequency ( and pay) of sessions and live gigs, for both of these occupations, is at such an all-time low, that you pretty much need to do both just to survive - and that's if you're jackpot lucky.

IMO of course.
-d.

kmetal Mon, 01/25/2016 - 11:40

Kurt Foster, post: 435690, member: 7836 wrote: not the same tho.

True to a degree, but how much of a random used la-3 is 'the same' as when it was released? You figure techs of varying skill levels, parts availability, wear and tear, bright ideas for mods... That's mostly what's out there. I'm sure there are a few pristine all originals out there, but they aren't easy to get. At least the reissue are specd out the same as each other, with a consistent build. This is even more important in a pair. Btw I passed up a pair of mercenary audio modified la-3s, right outa the mobile truck for 2k for the pair. So I think prices are all over the map on those things.

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