Key Of Grey

Photo courtesy of davetron5000

July 5th, 2008 – When I was in school, many of the students had their own studio setups. If you examined their gear list, however, one thing would become clear: the more gear a person had, the more mediocre gear was part of that list.

When first starting out, producers and engineers have a tendency to want to get a lot of stuff. Unless they have a lot of money, however, the gear will probably not be of the highest quality. In the world of audio, you typically get what you pay for. A cheap piece of gear will usually have a lot of nice lights, and have a lot more features crammed into a fancy case. One might be tempted to pick it up because on paper it looks like an awesome deal. Unfortunately, cheap gear is cheap because it’s made of cheap components. The EQ you just bought will likely sound mediocre and break down on you when you need it the most. Unfortunately, by the time you realize this, the resale value for it will be next to nil.

Good gear, on the other hand is very expensive, and usually only does one thing. However, it does that one thing well, and is made from premium components. It will last a while and should you want to upgrade, its resale value might actually appreciate. Typically, good gear doesn’t look fancy at all, but you can tell that it means business.

So is it better to have a lot of mediocre gear that does a lot of things, or a few pieces of nice gear that do very few things? You can probably guess where I’m going with this. If you want to compete with the million dollar setups, you have to be able to sound like them. What will give you the best sound? You need the best possible signal into your setup. This means that if you’re on a budget, you shouldn’t worry about reverbs or phasers (gear typically used for mixing), you should concentrate on the signal into your computer. You need a good microphone, a good cable from that microphone to your good preamp, and a good convertor to get that signal into your music software. Those items should be your first priority.

These days, music software plugins can be used in place of mixing gear. Sure, you might not get the analog signature sound of a piece of expensive gear, but you can get a good approximation and usually greater control. If you really want to have a professional mix, I suggest taking it to a mix engineer that has all that fancy gear. You will have saved a lot of money by taking your time and tracking the songs outside of a professional studio. As well, the better the quality of your recording, the less time a mix engineer will have to spend “fixing” the tracks, thereby saving you more money.

My recommendation for all of you that want to step up the quality of your production is, save improving your own skills which is priority one, to only buy good gear from now on. Save up, and invest in something that will last you a long time. Ultimately, you will be happier with what you’re hearing, and so will your clients.

Here is an example of basic industry-standard gear to invest in for a home setup: Neumann U87 (the industry standard for pop vocals), Universal Audio 6176, and an Apogee Rosetta 200. The gear list I might buy in the future (keep in mind that I’m on a tight budget) to get most of the sound at about half that price: Neumann TLM-103, Universal Audio 610, and an Apogee Duet.