My new piece of gear...the story...

A

applejax

New member
Well dont know if this should go in the studio building and display...but I mostly hang out here and thoguth I'd share my story on my new piece of gear :)

Well ..i really wanted a roland 2480. Flying faders, compression on every channel, 8 xlr ins (compared to 2 on the 1880 that I had), 16 TRS ins, VGA, mouse and keyboard support etc and all the extras!! Well I went to the VSplanet board and asked around. Now I'm not loaded so I wanted to keep my budget limited...so I asked if anyone was selling one fore $1000 US. And they all laughed at me and called me a noobie etc not knowing anything about it and I'll never get anything if I try and ask for stupid prices.

I had been looking on ebay all summer for one too...and they all came with monitors/extra fxboards etc and i just didnt want that. For me, I just wanted the unit itself because that's what my budget permits. Well a guy on the Planet was selling one with extras and didnt give a price and asked people to e-mail him with offers. Well I e-mailed him and negotiated with him and he was willing to send it to me for $1000 US but I'd have to pay shipping. Fine with me that's 1220 CDN and that was in my budget. So I sent the money and it all went well and i was on it's way.

Well I just got my 2480 last wednesday..and let me tell you. I was damn happy when I got it but hear this:

the shipping costs were OVER 200$ CDN for GROUND shipping... from Nashville using UPS. and frig they said it'd come on monday morning... and it comes WEDNESDAY night!!...I was like this is bull. Also shitty thing for Canadians buying from US...we have to pay duties/taxes on most items which is f-ed up. Like 15% tax PLUS some other duties AND brokerage fees too... Luckily I didnt have to pay duties on the 2480 because of some classification (which is good of course! Considering it's made in Japan)...but i had to pay over 200 CDN for shipping...150 for tax...over 70 for brokerage fees...AND it came late and frig also the box was squished to hell. Boy, was I mad. I bought it for 1220$ CDN (or 1000 US) which is a really good price for it...when they list over 6 grand CDN lol! so I had to pay over $400 extra just for it to come to my house LATE and the box fucked up. Like really this is good service lol??? Anyways the guy I bought from is a great guy! and this was my first real buy online...and it was over 1000 so my parents werent to happy when they realized they had to put another $450 on their credit card ontop of the original price (i had to use credit card because I used paypal) for taxes and everything else.

Anyways, it's a wonderful unit but I havent had much time to record the past week because I've been working all week doing sound for some plays/musicals here in town and reffing soccer (all of the provincial games were this weekend so I've been up at 8 am to 8:30PM in like 27 degrees Celcius (is that spelled right LOL). So all I've got are some guitar tracks layed down. But I really need to buy a good dedicated LDC for vocals, like a SP C1 or C3 (which are good mics for my budget). And I need to buy more mics for multi-instrument micing (like DRUMS :D).

Hopefully I'll have more time to fool around with it. I dont like reading manuals alot... I like just learning on my own so i've spent alot of hours just fiddleing with it lol! I remember things alot better that way! lol But last night and tonight I've had late nights (2AM or more) recording more guitar and I just thought I'd let you guys know that I'm finally getting more in to recording than I ever was. And I'm able to do ALOT more than before! :) well, Thanks to anyone who's read the whole thing :) Goodnight!!
 
That's pretty shitty man. I'm not comfortable buying off websites anymore just because of the border fees. I bought two arms for 2 splash cymbals a few months ago, which was like approx. 50 dollars. Well the border charges were almost 50 dollars as well...which makes me glad I didn't have a bigger purchase.
 
I have purchased several items off eBay from sellers in the U.S. I always try to have the items shipped via USPS. I also ask the sellers claim the EXACT amount of the value of the item that I purchased in order to avoid paying additional taxes. I bought a Tascam M208 mixer on eBay for $187.50 U.S. The seller claimed the value for insurance purposes was $500.00. So sure enough, I had to pay the taxes on the $500, and not the $187.50. You have to file a request for reimbursement from the tax dudes to get some of your $$ back. Hope this will help anyone else who buys from south of the border.
 
Beatles said:
I have purchased several items off eBay from sellers in the U.S. I always try to have the items shipped via USPS. I also ask the sellers claim the EXACT amount of the value of the item that I purchased in order to avoid paying additional taxes. I bought a Tascam M208 mixer on eBay for $187.50 U.S. The seller claimed the value for insurance purposes was $500.00. So sure enough, I had to pay the taxes on the $500, and not the $187.50. You have to file a request for reimbursement from the tax dudes to get some of your $$ back. Hope this will help anyone else who buys from south of the border.
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Turn the sellers in to USPS for insurance fraud, heh :mad:

I always state the actual value when shipping to Canada; my problem is many Canadian buyers on eBay want me to label it as a gift with no value. Nice try, but I like my insurance coverage :mad:
 
I agree with you mshilarious. Keep it honest, its the best way. I did however deal with a great guy from N.M. whom I bought a Tascam 246 from. To make a long story short, I had to wait a long time for the item to arrive cause his bank was screwing him around with the US money order I sent him. We had some friendly emails going back and forth, and I understood what his bank was putting him through, and he was thankful because I was patient about the transaction. In the end he declared it as a gift (without my asking) as he wanted to do me a favor for havng to wait so long. Sometimes things just work out that way.
 
So much for the NAFTA is right!! I mean why do we even need these damn duties anyways...

And well, beleive it or not, labeling it as a GIFT is only good for $60 or less CDN. So it wouldnt work otherwise anything above that usually has duties and taxes but it depends on the item for duties. And most items are OVER $60 so it wouldnt matter. And yeah when the guy shipped it to me he put the value as $1000US, so he was good and honest about it... he didnt put like 4 grand or something dumb like that. lol

Always be honest about the actual buying price because if you're only recieving $1000 for it then it's the price WORTH to you and not "$5000 new.."
 
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