Can you justify spending more than $1000 on any one piece of gear?

[AdamWathan]

Spawned from some offtopic conversation in another thread...

What recording gear have you bought that cost you more than a grand that you think is 100% necessary for the quality of sounds you enjoy? Basically what I'm looking to do with this thread is kill my own personal gear lust by having people post examples of different pieces of gear that sounded great on different productions and are not over the top expensive boutique stuff.

Like, "Man I love my U87 so much!", response, "Do you like the vocal sound on *insert record* better than the sounds you get with the U87? Well that was an AT3035!"

So what did you buy for a ridiculous price that you think you NEED?

The only thing I've spent more than $1k on is my Onyx 1200F. Justifiable to me because I got 12 preamps vs. everything else on the market with only 8, as well as 4 headphone outputs vs. max 2 on everything else. So the $1700 I spent on that saved me a couple hundred bucks on extra pre's as well as a couple hundred on a decent headphone amp.

Saying that, Dave Otero still managed to put out mixes on his old Firepods that shit all over anything I've ever done

 

[Metaltastic]

I think largely it depends on the style; when it involves a lot more subtlety and natural air, that's when I think that last few % that the extra thousands gets you makes the difference, but for metal, where everything is tracked individually and so much time-based stuff is added after the fact (not to mention the sheer amount of shit constantly going on) it doesn't matter nearly as much! But one piece of gear I'm glad I spent >$1k on? My Dual Rec

 

[AdamWathan]

They are snaggable for under $1k if you persevere long enough though, so that doesn't count I'm mostly talking about mics, mic preamps, monitors, outboard, etc. here, it's kind of hard to find any really solid amp any lower than the $800-$1200 range really (except of course the almighty 5150 )... To talk about amps, this thread is geared more in the direction of, "Man my Diezel Herbert is the sickest sounding amp ever!" followed by, "Yeah except the guitar tone on the last Stampin' Ground record kills your recorded Diezel tones and that was done with a Peavey XXX"

 

[Metaltastic]

Oh yeah, no argument here dude, damn near every awesome tone on ANY metal album I can think of was some sort of Peavey (usually 5150), Marshall (usually JCM800), Mesa (usually Dual Rec), or Engl (usually Savage 120), all under or around $2k! And please, no one mention Lateralus as an indicator of an awesome Diezel tone, cuz that really does nothing for me!

 

[Melodeath]

Me, personally? No, I can't.

I haven't spent more than $1k total on any one piece of gear. The closest I've come was $800 for my new interface, and I'm even having trouble justifying that, as its not more than twice as good as my previous interface, which was $300. My new interface is definitely better in certain aspects, but I definitely don't think it "sounds better" and it's missing certain features I didn't even realize were important because I took them for granted on my previous interface (master knob not affecting headphone violume).

Maybe I'm not the best person to ask about money though. When I think of gear price in terms of "days of work," it's hard to think any gear is worth its price

 

[colonel kurtz]

my onyx 1640 set me back about $1500 for the board and the converters...but like the OP said, it's totally worth it, as it's an all-in-one, hassle-free solution on my front end

 

[Ermz]

For me it's mostly about security and peace of mind. I like to have 'the best' or close to it so I can just not worry about gear and focus on the act of making records.

I've got a few things that were over 1 grand. The Millennia, the ASP8s, the PC and the Hellraiser. I use all 4 pretty regularly.

 

[Charlie E.]

Waves Platinum and Studio bundles. Macbook Pro. AKG 414 (although that's more like 900ish but close enough).
Do I need to justify it? L2, SSL, and API plugs sound great. Macbook Pro runs great, and the AKG 414 is the most versatile and greatest condensor mic I've heard.

 

[exoslime]

it depends...i would say.
if you use it very often, and its important for your workflow / process, then its ok, and easy to justify yes.
but if its just a gimmick and only "nice to have", then no

i paid for my mackie onyx 1620 + firewire card like 1400 euro back than, that was well worth the money.

i also got a few guitars above the 1k mark, and for me at least, they are worth every cent, because i play them every day a few hours.

currently, i´m saving up for an royer r121 ribbon mic, which is about 1.4k euro, and i´m still not 100% sure if its worth the saved money...
sure its an amazing mic... but i´m still yet undecided, its alot of money, and i would probably only use it to record my amp.

then except my amp, i dont have any that "expensive" equipment, onyl one, an akg c414, was quite not so cheap, but i like it and use it very often, so its ok.

 

[The Unavoidable]

I haven't spent that much on a single item, but I will probably pay about 2k for a Dual Rec in the coming year (Hopefully). Yeah, everything is more expensive here, fuck off

 

[Metaltastic]

For me it's mostly about security and peace of mind. I like to have 'the best' or close to it so I can just not worry about gear and focus on the act of making records.

I've got a few things that were over 1 grand. The Millennia, the ASP8s, the PC and the Hellraiser. I use all 4 pretty regularly.

Yes, but Australian dollars don't count, since the exchange rate seems to be like 3:1 AUD to USD

 

[egan.]

This is a pretty loaded question because we can all name examples of good records done on mediocre gear and we also all know that Andy with adats and soundcraft is better than me with HD3 and Neve.... but that isn't really the point is it?
To use the original example, to me the 4033 sounds good for the money and the u87 sounds great. Granted there are a million guys who could get their 4033 tracks to sound amazing but that doesn't mean I shouldn't take every possible advantage in my quest for the best production I can get.
The other thing to remember is that the price to performance ratio goes down the more you spend, but that doesn't mean that it's not worth more money to get a little better. For example my great river certainly doesn't sound 10x better than a pre on my digimaxLT but the cost (per pre) is about 10x greater. Still, whenever I listen to that pre I am 100% satisfied with that purchase and to a certain extent feel as though it's a bargain.

Don't even get me started on instruments....

 

[AeternusEternus]

Well, the thing about these items isn't just diversity. Some people will sound better on a 3035 than they will on a U87. I used to work with the old vocalist for Calico System, and he had been up and down the spectrum of mics in the studio and on the stage, and he settled on a goddamn 58 of all things. Me personally, I've spent lots of money on heads/racks and played through as many as I could, and ultimately, the tones that sound best for my kind of music come from a Marshall JMP1 preamp and some software. But, my favorite-feeling guitar is this PRS McCarty with a Brazilian rosewood neck that I don't own yet.

You just can't associate a price tag with the gear that fits you, you know? Like, sometimes the inexpensive stuff is what works best, and sometimes it's the expensive stuff. Regi Wooten plays a Squier Stratocaster, and I don't blame him at all, because it's what he's most capable with when he puts it in his hands.

Just don't shop by price!

 

[colonel kurtz]

To use the original example, to me the 4033 sounds good for the money and the u87 sounds great. Granted there are a million guys who could get there 4033 tracks to sound amazing but that doesn't mean I shouldn't take every possible advantage in my quest for the best production I can get.

on a sidenote, it's pretty tough to differentiate between a 4033 and the newer U87's...

 

[egan.]

Well, the thing about these items isn't just diversity. Some people will sound better on a 3035 than they will on a U87. I used to work with the old vocalist for Calico System, and he had been up and down the spectrum of mics in the studio and on the stage, and he settled on a goddamn 58 of all things. Me personally, I've spent lots of money on heads/racks and played through as many as I could, and ultimately, the tones that sound best for my kind of music come from a Marshall JMP1 preamp and some software. But, my favorite-feeling guitar is this PRS McCarty with a Brazilian rosewood neck that I don't own yet.

You just can't associate a price tag with the gear that fits you, you know? Like, sometimes the inexpensive stuff is what works best, and sometimes it's the expensive stuff. Regi Wooten plays a Squier Stratocaster, and I don't blame him at all, because it's what he's most capable with when he puts it in his hands.

Just don't shop by price!

I agree with these points. The caveat I would add is that whatever the price of the gear that (honestly) moves you towards your goals is always justifiable (if you can afford them).

 

[gabriel g.]

Good things:

Macbook pro 2500€
Mackie Onyx 1640 : 1600€
Waves studio classics : 1165€
Waves platinum : 1600€ (but I only paid 600€ hell yeah)

Not that good things:
Hughes and kettner warp T
sold it and bought a Engl thunder (best choice)

Amazing things under 1k:
Yamaha hs80m (!!!!!!!)
Drumagog
Steven slate drums
Ibanez sz
LG 32" lcd TV (totaly kicks ass)
Rode NT2A (!!!)

and most important:

Nike Air MAX


The thing is:

You realy need the great dynamic range of an ssl/api/audient mic pre when you recording classical music or jazz.

Metal/hardcore is not that dynamic music.....

But If I had the money I would buy all api/ssl/neve/chandler/great river/manley/neumann/peavey 6550/mesa.......

But at some point we all have to decide if we want to spent another $$$for gear....
I made my decicion, and I only want spent money for recording gear I earn with doing records....for now

 

[PhilR]

1K isn't a ridiculous price at all. When you're starting out spending £300 sounds like a lot, but when you start making enough money to call yourself a business then your expectations change. We threw down over £1600 on an API 3124+ and our next monitor upgrade will likely be a pair of Barefoot Audio units which cost in excess of 4k. When we started out spending £100 on a microphone almost caused us physical pain.

We just bought an A Designs Pacifica though which we got for £800. Bargain!

 

[AdamWathan]

I'm not opposed to spending cash, believe me for a 22 year old kid who has only recorded 2 bands demos for free outside of my own stuff I have invested a pretty ludicrous amount of money in gear (about $10k in the last 18 months) :/ I just love hearing stories about how, to exaggerate my point completely, "The Black album was recorded with 2 Behringer ADA8000s, a couple of SM57s and mixed entirely ITB with free VST plugins"...

Lately every time I think I want something expensive, I seem to find an example of a record where I am totally 100% stoked on the sound of whatever element I would be using said expensive new gear for and then find out it's something wayyyy cheaper than what I'm lusting after. It's a huge relief to be able to find stuff like that to convince me I don't need to blow that kind of cash to get the tones I'm after.

 

[Soundlurker]

>$1000?

Monitors, without a doubt.

 

[ahjteam]

What recording gear have you bought that cost you more than a grand that you think is 100% necessary for the quality of sounds you enjoy?

Genelecs