is expensive gear that important?

[xstatic]

I love my 2192 also, but sadly it may be up for sale due to a retooling of certain parts of my studio for logistical purposes. One thing that may be very important to remember about those older albums that always seem to come up in these topics.... Most of the gear used on those albums is the most expensive stuff you can get nowadays. EMI TG console? OUtrageous price if you can actually find one. Original Telefunken 251's and U47's etc... all VERY expensive nowadays. Original LA2's, 1176's, Fairchilds, etc... once again, the best of the best still today....

What I really meant with my original comment is this though.... The people who constantly minimize or deny the importance of having good gear either have not used the good stuff so have no business commenting, or can not obtain it and are resentful or jealous. By denying its importance it justifies what they are using. There are certainly gear sluts out there though. There are certainly people who know nothing of how to use things but still buy it. However, the fact that these idiots own the stuff does not in any way shape or form detract from the quality and benefits that the equipment itself can impart. I hear people talk all the time about how this album or that album was done using budget equipment etc... The truth is that those albums, at least the ones that have had any degree of success, are few and far between. In addition to that, many people comment on them without truly knowing how it was actually done and exactly what was done. You have companies like Mackie constantly talking their products up and putting examples out there, and much of the public likes to point that out and make it sound much more common than it is.

The raw truth? Manley gear has probably been used on 100 times as many grammy, platinum gold etc... albums than Mackie. Neumann has been used on MANY more succesful projects than MXL. It may not be purely coincidence that the very people who seem to have the most success also find using the right tools to be very important. I am sure that every one of those people will attest to the fact that the song and the artist has to also be great, but I am also positive that all of them will also attest to how important using the right tools is.

 

[cusebassman]

I love my 2192 also, but sadly it may be up for sale due to a retooling of certain parts of my studio for logistical purposes. One thing that may be very important to remember about those older albums that always seem to come up in these topics.... Most of the gear used on those albums is the most expensive stuff you can get nowadays. EMI TG console? OUtrageous price if you can actually find one. Original Telefunken 251's and U47's etc... all VERY expensive nowadays. Original LA2's, 1176's, Fairchilds, etc... once again, the best of the best still today....

What I really meant with my original comment is this though.... The people who constantly minimize or deny the importance of having good gear either have not used the good stuff so have no business commenting, or can not obtain it and are resentful or jealous. By denying its importance it justifies what they are using. There are certainly gear sluts out there though. There are certainly people who know nothing of how to use things but still buy it. However, the fact that these idiots own the stuff does not in any way shape or form detract from the quality and benefits that the equipment itself can impart. I hear people talk all the time about how this album or that album was done using budget equipment etc... The truth is that those albums, at least the ones that have had any degree of success, are few and far between. In addition to that, many people comment on them without truly knowing how it was actually done and exactly what was done. You have companies like Mackie constantly talking their products up and putting examples out there, and much of the public likes to point that out and make it sound much more common than it is.

The raw truth? Manley gear has probably been used on 100 times as many grammy, platinum gold etc... albums than Mackie. Neumann has been used on MANY more succesful projects than MXL. It may not be purely coincidence that the very people who seem to have the most success also find using the right tools to be very important. I am sure that every one of those people will attest to the fact that the song and the artist has to also be great, but I am also positive that all of them will also attest to how important using the right tools is.

"I like the way Snnnrub thinks!"

Yes, whole albums have been recorded on a dictaphone with an MXL 990 and a Nady preamp, in a dungeon basement with awful first reflection properties, and have turned out well - but that's the extreme minority of cases!

It would seem obvious that that is the case, but no one has actually said it. Its the minority case for a reason - the tools we home recordists have are, in fact... sub par to the gear in professional studios *gasp*

Harvey may find the occassion to use a 990 or other MXL mic, or some other random piece of inexpensive gear because he understands the tools inside and out, and can make it happen! And not in every situation!

Put simply, if you could really get by with just the inexpensive crap that everyone makes the mistake of starting out on, then every engineer in the world who has any sort of talent could invest a couple grand in their own studio, and start making profits immediately.

But the reality? ...Is that those of us with just the cheapo stuff and the lack of talent all give our bedroom setups a flashy name, and produce mediocre output (at best) when our friends come over to record.

I know I won't be opening a pro studio any time soon, and I've been working with this crap for years, and own some decent equipment myself. Better gear might help me learn faster, but it isn't everything. On the other hand, even the world's greatest studio engineer isn't going to be able to even come close to commercial quality every time in an untreated room with the stuff that appears at the top of musician's friend's top-seller lists.

Have we discussed this in enough threads yet???

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I love my 2192 also, but sadly it may be up for sale due to a retooling of certain parts of my studio for logistical purposes.

I don't suppose you'd mind letting me know if/when that happens?

What I really meant with my original comment is this though.... The people who constantly minimize or deny the importance of having good gear either have not used the good stuff so have no business commenting, or can not obtain it and are resentful or jealous. By denying its importance it justifies what they are using.

I really don't disagree with any of your points made in this post. However, let's not forget that those albums alos had something other than gear working for them. They also had the likes of people like George Martin, Alan Parsons, Roger Nichols and Bob Rock at the dials. And also, for every Dark Side of the Moon or Aja, there are a thousand other albums also done on top shelf gear that are nowhere near the top of the list and that sound relatively poor in comparison.

I'd point myself out as an exception to the above-quoted description and as someone who is trying to make an entirely different pont. OK, maybe I can't afford an Amek Galileo with Rupert Neve customized preamps driving a tube U47, but over the years I have tracked and mixed on just such a chain, including several others of similar quality that included plenty of original UA, Manley, Drawmer etc. gear.. I fully understand first-hand the difference such gear can make in the right hands.

And I am not jealous for not owning either one one myself. I have no interest in owning either one, quite frankly...Well, OK, I'll take half of that back; the Neumann might be nice to have, but I have no practical use for a big coal burning desk, no matter how sweet it may sound. And even the Neumann would arguably be a pretty illogical way for a project studio to spend several thousand dollars unless or until they had already spent four times that much on decent live room w/vocal booth to stick it in and some nice Neve or GML pres to stick it into.

My point is not to minimalize the value of good quality gear, it's to maximize the value of the operator of that gear. What's the point of giving a $4000 guitar to somebody when the only chords they know how to play are "the monkey claw" and "the boy scout"? Equally, what's the point of giving giving a pristine twenty thousand dollar signal chain to someone who knows nothing of gain structure? Or, to get right to the heart of it, none of it matters if the person playing and/or operating the gear has a tin ear and thinks smiley EQ with no dynamics actually sounds good. Give them a U47, an 1176 and a strip of Neve going onto a track of Studer, and the result will still sound like crap.

On the other hand, there's pleny of reaason for giving average or even entry-level gear to someone like you or Harvey or Tom. It won't sound as good as the Big Stuff; of course not. I'm not naiive or spiteful enough to try and argue otherwise. But I guarantee it will be something worth listening to (assuming a decent artist of course), and that any deficiencies in the esoterica of the production quality will be easily forgiven and forgotten.

Since I came to this board, the biggest problem, by FAR, that I have discerned in the home recording community in general, is the belief that audio equipment makes the sound itself, and that all they need is the right combination of gear and all their problems would be solved. Just push the Big Red Button and they'll sound platinum. No need to worry about the actual engineering. As you know, this is pure fantasy.

The Big Boys use the Big Gear because they know how, and the gear responds to them. They prefer working with it as tools because it makes doing a quality job easier. But they enjoy using it as toys because they're gear sluts.

And that's where the light needs to be shone in this debate, IMHO, if only because it's a corner of it that has remained pretty dark: Technology serves only two general purposes in life: as a tool or as a toy. Regardless of whether we're using Manley or Mackie, regardless of whether our name is George Massenberg or George of the Jungle, regardless of wheter we're making the next platinum seller or a one-off CD-R to give to our buddies in study hall, we should always ask ourself where the line is between tool and toy in the gear we desire.

G.

 

[TerraMortim]

SouthSide, go for it with the UA 2192. It's a great sounding converter, I love mine.

I love UA stuff. yummy