Not Getting Ahead Of Yourself/The Price You Pay

[Armistice]

lol @ the level of granularity on the poll...

Where's the $20K+ category? I have mics that are more than $1000.

You'll realised you've arrived somewhere when you don't lust after newer, shinier gear any more because you already have it. Then you can concentrate on music.

I'll exclude capacity type upgrades (PC, more channels etc.) from the equation there...

 

[aaronaycox]

I have been modest "gear wise" and have still surpassed the $1000 mark by a great amount. I have that in my KRK monitors and Tascam 2488Neo. Thow in cables and accessories and the price goes even higher. Now, add in my Pro Tools, The studio desk, interface, etc and the price continues to climb.

This is not a cheap hobby. It will cost you money, time, more money, more time, and.......... Yeah, money and time.

Some of us, such as myself can get a little carried away with our set ups. Do I need a 40" LCD TV as a computer monitor? No, but it looks good while I'm working. Do I use all of the microphones I have? Not all at once, and some can serve dual purposes. Do I really need a 48 channel mixer? I have yet to use all 48 channels at once. This list could go on and on, but I am tired of looking around the room to see what else I can tell you about that is likely overkill.

I was always taught to go bigger than needed. Not enough can cause a problem, but too much is a blessing.

 

[aaronaycox]

My beloved wife made all of this possible, by saving my money. She did that for about 15 years. Back in about 2001, about a week before Christmas, she walks up to me and says, "How long have you been playing guitar, anyway?" I answer, "30 years, 12 of it for money." Her next question, "So what do you think it would cost to track, mix, and master your first album and do the first run of production?" I responded, "$20,000, plus $5,000 in high end guitars". She thinks for a second and says, "We can do that. I think you should go down to the guitar store and buy the acoustic guitar and the electric guitar you would own in a perfect world. Do it today. Try to keep it under $10,000. I love you dear, Merry Christmas".

I think I may be in love with your wife. I haven't met her, but............


All joking aside; you are a lucky man my friend. It is good to have a supportive wife. Without my wife I wouldnt be where I am today.

 

[Track Rat]

Same here. My wife will overhear me talking about some gear and it suddenly will appear at the studio (well, before the money went away it did).

 

[grimtraveller]

When people say that home recording is cheap compared to the early days of recording, it certainly is. But the more I think about it, $1000 is no money at all. In England, that's £632 and 32 pence. Let's imagine that I was going to go absolute, scraping the barrel bottom line here. Most stuff used. A computer, interface {I'd need at least 6 inputs as I record drums}, Reaper, 4 mics, crummy cables, 3 cheap £10 heaphones, even crumcake stereo speakers to act as monitors, low rent instruments {a cheap bass, a crummy electric guit, an acoustic}, all this would eat well into that £632. And as I said before, there's no virtue in recording with tin cans and string for the sake of being able to say "You can get good results with next to no money". It's an oversimplification {as is the opposite, that you need lots of money}.
Also, we're subject to market forces. Shure and AKG set their prices. We don't.
Sometimes people with expensive gear can tend to lord it over those that don't. But by and large, when spread out over years, £10,000 {$15,815} isn't much, especially for stuff that has not only stood the test of time but has lasted, still performs admirably and will continue to do so for years to come.

 

[fat_fleet]

I'm between 3000-4000 for recording equipment and about the same for instruments. Definitely a modest setup compared to some folks around here. But if you use the stuff all the time it's easily worth it.

Most folks that I know who don't record can easily spend 200-300 in a weekend on large ice coffee drinks, cigarettes, takeout and gas station food, taking the kids to movies, swilling PBR at some dive bar etc. And cable. They all have cable. And gigantic TVs.

 

[Track Rat]

And cable. They all have cable. And gigantic TVs.

Thank God for that or I wouldn't have a pot to piss in.

 

[fat_fleet]

Hey, whatever keeps em off the streets

 

[Supercreep]

.................Lol.

Let's just say that I "spent a lot".

 

[Bristol Posse]

I have spent a lot but a good deal of that has been offset by the fact that a lot of stuff that I bought to try I was able to re sell for about the same, or in some cases more than I originally paid for it. (Hooray for ebay where some people are so addicted to the thrill of bidding they will buy used + shipping for the same, or even more than retail new!)

That said my Interface alone cost more than $1000 and over the last four years that I've been messing around with recording, if I look at what has actually stuck with me I'm, probably around the $16,000-$17,000 mark if I include buying two nice guitars and three keeper tube amps in with the recording gear, and since I couldn't make music to record without them I think they should get lumped into the overall cost

averaged out over the 4 years that I've been doing this it's still actually less per moth than membership and green fees at my local golf club that I would have to pay to play a 4 or 5 games a month, plus whatever I would spend on buying clubs, balls, etc etc. So comparatively speaking it's not that expensive when I really think about it

 

[suprstar]

Resale value is also a rather important factor:
Ex: I buy 6 behringer pedals for $30 each over time. They take a beating, fall apart, etc. So I try to sell them. I'll probably be lucky if I get $30 for all of them in a bundle.
vs. I buy a nice, quality Electro-Harmonix pedal (that wont take a beating or fall apart since it's quality) for $100. Keep the box in storage, if I ever want to sell it (which I probably won't since it's nice... and im a gear hoarder) I would have no problem getting about $80 for it. Yeah, I'd still be taking a loss. BUT not as big of a loss as I would be taking on the Behringers.

I'd give ya $75 for it There, you lost $25 on it, and if you're getting $5 per behry pedal, you lost about that much on each of the behrys too. Buying expensive gear, you may lose a lower percentage of when it comes to resale value. Cheap gear will lose a higher percentage, and those 2 values kinda come together just by the nature of it. You're GONNA lose $25 on a pedal.

I have cheap versions of everything, nothing expensive at all. An Epi LP is my most expensive guitar. Of all my mics, my shure 55 and cad m177 are the best ones. My best mic pre is a dmp3. krk monitors. All sorts of behry and phonic gear, real bottom of the barrel stuff.. If this cheap stuff didnt exist, I wouldn't have any 'studio' at all. I'm not interested in selling any of it, so resale doesnt matter to me one bit. It's decent entry level stuff for me. I'm not to the point where I can honestly say my cheap mic pres or interface or whatever are the reason I can't get a better sound.