I want a $1,000/pr. for my W295b's because they are so special sounding. Some of my other favorite 'el cheapo' tools are an Ashley SC-50 compressor (great for lead guitar!!) Some Neumann 'TEVa' eq's... CBS Labs "Audimax" and "Volumax" compressors and limiters... Loft 450 analog delays, damn near anything 'Acoustilog' has ever made rules... and of course the venerable Shure SM-57 (greatest mic ever made!!... they rarely sound great, but never sound like shit!!).

Your mileage may vary...

Hmmm cheap eh?

I will get back to ya on that...

Not sure if these are cheap enough to qualify, but:

Oktava MC012s
Rolls miniture 4 channel headphone amp
Atlas triangular base mic stands

Cheap is relative but the AMR Peavey VMP-2 2 channel mic pre eq for 700 and the VCL-2 two channel el op compressor for around 900. Both are all tube signal paths and sound great. Lowest priced professional tube mic pre and el op compressor on the market IMO. A couple of years ago (and a lot of dollars ago) I considered these high ticket items, that is what I get from hanging out here I guess.

OK! I got it!

My $100 Sony cassette ghetto blaster, with phono inputs..

I always do my final mixing on it..

And! Pro Tools "For Free" (available off the Digidesign website), OK it's only 8 tracks but we do vocal editing with it (on a laptop) and it's good for an intern to mess around with...

:w:

ok. I know this means I'll never be able to find another one, but Peavy made a guitar spring reverb with a tube front end called "Valverb" for a minute some years ago. It does several things very well; 1) instant twin ca, 1972, spring reverb and all, 2) provides a great warm front end for d.i. guitar, 3) has a killer tremolo, maybe the best part of it. Creamy warm. To top it all off, the faceplate (1 rack space) is chrome.

•DBX163X Compressor,@$50-$75 has 1 control besides level input, a slider for compression. These half space units sound perfect for many rock guitar sounds. The High-Z input is good for tracking a 'less pretty' bass sound.
•Behringer Edison, @$75-$100 used, and killer spatialzer
•Boss AutoWah AW-2 guitar pedal@1 bag of weed for any guitarist that has one & doesn't use it: Bus straight out of board (I know, I know, the impedences won't match) with a Bass, and add this back with your original bass sound
•Baby Monitor, mine is a fisher price..@$20: Place in front of live drum kit. Mic "reciever" with sm57, or whatever mic is laying around. I would suggest recording this onto it's own track so you can slide it foward in time, because there will be a time delay. Killer 'lo fi' effect. I like muting all the live 'pretty' drums and letting this track solo in 1 part of a song for great contrast.

Now I guess I'll chain all these together & see what it sounds like.

RFX Vibraflange. Not strictly a recording thing. But it is sweet. Ibanex GX40B "studio" bass amp. Not very loud but it is just the sweetest sounding Bass amp I have ever used. (by the way if anyone knows what I might do to find a bigger louder version of this amp I would be in your debt forever)

phat

Valverbs are pretty easy to find in the $200-300 range. Keep looking online and you'll find one. I think I paid $225 for mine. Check the guitar stores that keep a used inventory online.

The only cheap thing I have that I love is the Furman HDS-6 headphone system. It has 6 inputs and lets musicians create their own headphone mix.

I have a pair of Eckmiller W86a, bought them for $150, they are passive and have only 10 khz and 60 Hz (+-15db, 3db steps) in these frequencies, they sound better than my Focusrite ISA 110.
Very good for vocals, acoustic guitars and over the mix.

Andreas
kosi@snafu.de

go try the dbx386 pre ,really great sound ,CHEAP but remember to bring your blindfolds when comparing them to much pricer pre,s, you might be very plesantly suprised