hey all. so… i’m a 19 year old college student. i’m moving out of my bedroom turned 90s-ish studio next fall, and i’ll be grappling with recording music in a very limited environment (an apartment). i won’t be able to take much of the bulkier stuff i’ve collected, and i’ve actually been thinking of selling some of it for more “high end” and modular things. this anticipation and wondering has had me pondering a sort of existential question about music gear…

is it better to have many low-mid level pieces of gear? or is it better to have fewer high end pieces of gear? and does high end gear invariably hold it’s value better when it’s time to sell?

i’m planning on soon selling a few pieces of gear that i never use, and what has struck me with nearly all of them is how i’ll probably be selling them for less than i bought em for. this is both because they’re not high end, but they’re also vintage pieces and are exclusively subject to used market trends.

i’m just curious what everyone’s thoughts are on the mentality of “buy once, cry once” and if i should finally succumb to it for the sake of future-proofing my set up. a good API preamp will never make me think about “oh man i know i’ll get something better one day”

Assuming you're going to be poor, I would just keep what you need and leave the rest behind until mum tells you to get rid of it or it appreciates in value, whatever comes first. If it's just low-end junk, I'd sell it and start off lean.

Would really help to know what kind of music you're doing. You could probably get away with a single mic, an interface, some monitors/headphones and a bunch of plugins on a computer. Tons of stuff is released like that every day.

i make simple overdub rock and roll in my bedroom. guitar, bass, drums and singing. i have an 8 track RtR so i certainly dabble in analog, but i got a deal on a clarett + 8pre recently and i’m basically digital for good now. i’ll likely be bringing that piece with me. the tascam 38 and big ramsa board? probably not. they’ll stay put, because i don’t wanna sell those guys. i’m fully expecting to just make acoustic demos and write songs when i transfer to my 4-year school. the question at the center of this thread is not so much about “will fancy stuff make apartment recording good?” but really “how can i set myself up so i won’t be selling gear at a loss anymore?”

see, here’s the thing: my actual instruments can be considered pretty “choice.” i’m rocking a 1970 ludwig drum kit with vintage zildjians, i use vintage teiscos with vintage twin reverbs from the 1970s and my acoustics are nice sounding 70s lawsuit pieces. i consider most of these (especially the drums) to be things that i’ll probably keep for life. the same cannot be said about my recording gear… and i’m wondering if a change to that fact that is worth it.

Agree with you on instrument choices.

How's the apartment though? are you going to be able to play drums? Fender Twins are pretty f'n loud too, I might want to find a low watt tube amp and a good DI box so I could sneak in drums during the day, but record guitar and bass at night without bothering people.

Anything digital is going to have a limited shelf life, with some exceptions, namely those with ADAT are still truckin' today.

I use 25-year old Apogee AD-16X/DA-16X converters for 32x32 I/O and they still sound great, but they'd be useless without the ADAT I/O.

Then there is stuff that is dated sounded, 80s/90s reverbs and FX, samplers, etc. that may have a short-lived revival, but probably won't be a revered classic.

But overall, you can't really think about gear as being an investment that's going to appreciate over time, only that it's a useful tool that you're getting value out of.

Of course you could drop a bunch of coin on some classic Neve or API which should hold it's value and may even appreciate over time, but that's really not necessary today to make music.

i never considered my equipment to be an investment beyond its expected lifespan.

some equipment lasted longer, some didn't, depending on a variety of factors and specific preferences that only developed over time/which were not (or only minimally) foreseeable at the time of purchase; this includes a considerable amount of gear which was considered 'timeless classics' (and continues to be so by many people)...

...or in other words: the current utility value means much more to me than what i might get for it if sold in the future!

i agree with you on digital. that’s sort of why i like analog, even if it’s a crappy medium. analog is analog is analog, and even if it’s a fostex r8, there’s no “shelf-life” to that sound because it is what it is. it’s a moment in time. digital, by virtue of trying to be perfect (as well as being software which is reliant on modern technology which is still advancing year after year) isn’t as valuable when things get better and things get even more prefect-er. compare that to things which may be obsolete but have “a sound,” and there’s invariably some reverb price hike waiting to happen.

i’m keen on the idea of selling odds and ends i don’t use and dropping that coin on some API, because while i don’t think it’ll appreciate in value, that stuff surely does hold its value pretty well. plus it sounds fantastic.

as for drums, i really don’t wanna be taking my drums around and in an apartment situation, i really doubt i could use them at all. maybe i could get away with an elliott smith style snare and brushes thing, but that’s about it. the way i use fender twins is cranking the preamp gain, and lowering the master for some weird distorted tones. there’s potential there….

iMO, the only reason to go for "many low level pieces of gear" is if you are tracking bands and you need a lot of mics and preamp channels simultaneously.

Even then, the beginner should get a "golden channel" for most overdubs. One no-excuses mic and preamp. Hardware compressors and EQs can wait. Because you can always revisit a mix, the same audio is just sitting there year after year. But you can't always revisit a tracking session. Players change, they move away, they develop a new style, they "lose the magic", who the hell knows?

to me the only way that gear is an "investment" is in the sense that I can make money using it during my ownership period. I think I have only sold an handful of things in my entire life. And I am pretty old.

If you buy quality gear, that you researched thoroughly, there is little motivation to sell unless you are getting out of the game altogether.

Would you be upset if your used car sold for less than you paid for it? If items are selling for less than you paid for, then they are not "vintage". They are just "used" and "old". Only one unit in a thousand achieves the Holy Grail Unobtanium Status whereby it is worth more than you paid for it. And it is not often predictable at the time when the gear is new. I personally have never made this "appreciation" a consideration when shopping for gear.



This motto is my guiding star!

Yeah, drums are tough. Hopefully you can hook up with somebody with a rehearsal space or a house they rent and bribe them to let you cut some drum tracks... or just another excuse to visit home besides laundry

But that's kind of the nice thing about digital is how convenient it is, like you could easily cut some drum tracks at home or somebody's house and then bring them back to your apartment a lot easier than with a tape machine.

I had a Fostex R8, but when the heads go, they're basically done and can't be relapsed and the edge tracks were f'ed up and basically unusable, so I sold it.

Still looking for an Ampex 1" 8 track, but they rarely come up for sale.

The future is a total crapshoot. I've been through the guitar thing, and the recording gears thing. Stuff that you are sure is going to be a hit a few decades from now, will be worthless, and things that seem like they'll fade, explode. Music stores were hanging Flying V's outside as advertising signs in the 50's. Les Paul Bursts were discontinued because nobody wanted them. Radio stations through out gear that is now massively expensive, and studios replaced vintage tube mics with SS, and tossed out the tubers.

Regarding more mid-low end gears vs a few high-end? It's nice to have high end gear. There's a sense of solidity and security in that. 40 years ago, low-end gear truly sucked. In the 80's, a cheap low-end compressor vs. an 1176 or LA2A was a miraculous difference in quality, immediately. Those days are gone, but peoples' faith in expensive stuff always sounds "better" lingers. Sometimes it does, subjectively. Sometimes not.

Even reliability. Perception is that pricy stuff is reliable and cheap craps out quickly. Not so. It's like cars. A cheap Corolla (well, $25k is cheap now) will go 250k miles with very little maintenance. A BMW M4 coupe at $90k will have problems, and cost a fortune when it does. It's a lot more fun to drive, but both get you to the same destination. Features are key, and you pay for those. But track a vocal through a high-end (or even not so high-end) interface preamp, and then through a Great River, and post them up blind, asking which is which. Then ready yourself of some eye-opening surprises.

Commercial studios and professional sound engineers NEED expensive gear to survive. If I'm paying $100 an hour in a room, I don't want to see a bunch of Behringer stuff in the rack, and Rode mics. Nobody does. They got that stuff at home. Again, features come into play. The features you need to mix David Gilmore at United Center are gonna cost. Can't go in there with a Behringer Wing.

I only buy what I need to get the job done. Obviously I make better decisions today than I did 20 years ago because I've hopefully learned a few things but the rule of thumb is still the same.

I've never thought of buying gear as an investment. I do own a few vintage Neumann mics that are likely worth more today than they were when I purchased them but that was never the goal.

When I do make a purchase, I'll buy the best item that I can afford. I've never skimped on an item so I could buy 2 lesser quality items but I am also not a pro studio. I think it is a different conversation for someone trying to make a living off of their studio and expertise. As someone mentioned previously, if you are needing to record a full band, you may need to look at cheaper options so that you can get enough stuff to get the job done.

Many years ago I had plans of putting together a studio with a friend of mine who is a successful songwriter in Nashville. I had the money so I bought top of the line gear and enough to record a full band. Unfortunately our dream of building the studio got hijacked for various reasons and I ended up with a ton of great gear that was not getting much use. In hind sight, that was a mistake albeit with good intentions. I lost money. Not a ton, but enough to make me realize my mistake.

It all comes down to what your goals are, what you finances are and what your situation is.

the one actually-good thing you have is the drum set with the zildjians. you are planning on not keeping that, but dragging along a lo-fi tape recorder and a junk mixer.

the most important things are your monitors, acoustic treatment, and microphones. prioritize around that.

the DAW/computer is the greatest quality/capability leveler in the world. your macbook is as good as the grammy award winner's. your Protools is as good as the million dollar studio's.

This is exactly it. If you're young and broke, buy the minimum necessary to do what you want to do, nothing else. Financially, equipment isn't a very good investment even in the unlikely event that it does appreciate in value. The value is what you do with it.

All that means is make buying choices that do not result in losses, in other words get second hand stuff that appreciates in value as opposed to loses it.

But mostly, get stuff you need. Because you need it. Mostly.

Also, forget the 'futureproofing' part on any other level. It never ends.

It's best to have the tools you need to get the job done. Equipment should never be thought of as an investment. If you find good deals on quality gear used, you hopefully can sell it for what you paid for it. If you're lucky, you MIGHT get a little more, but even in that case, the return won't be as good as what you would have gotten by parking your money in a decent investment fund. So why do it? Because you need the tools to do the work. And that's all they are. Tools.

Furthermore, don't buy things you don't need. Even inexpensive gear nowadays is quiet and clean and capable of producing excellent recordings. Resist the voice that says some new piece of gear will make your recordings better. It won't. And going into debt for gear is, with only a couple exceptions, a stupendously terrible idea.

i specifically plan on not taking those pieces around. this move has me looking down the barrel of this hobby and thinking to myself, “should i sell things in favor of better, fewer things?” because i suddenly realize that i can’t move around bulky stuff.

there are things that can stay put in my bedroom while i’m away and they just chill there. a lot of my forever equipment (mainly instruments) will stay here if they’re unusable in an apartment. but when i look at my actual recording gear, it makes me question whether a rehaul is in order because a lot of this stuff is both not amazing AND bulky. it works in the bedroom but it can’t be moved around easily.

should preface this move by saying that it’s only an hour and a half out from my home. not a cross-country brand new life or anything. i can go back over a small break and record a whole album if i prepare myself well enough.

Think bare bones....

I pared my studio down to mostly bare bones. I have my Interface, monitors, microphones, and 3 channel strips. I also have the approptiate accessories like mic stands and cables. The other significant bits are my room treatment panels. I have bass traps and absorption panels and one set of gobos.

The channel strips provide a bit of flexibility when pluging directly into my interface is not going to do the job. Outside of that, I use plugins over hardware.

Oh, and I do have a number of pairs of headphones. Closed back for tracking and open back for checking mixes.

I still probably have more than I need but this is close to bare bones. I built a desk out of 4" by 4"s, 2" by 2"s and plywood. I also built 2 boxes as racks that the monitors sit atop. I can disassemble the desk with a drill and the abosroption panels and bass traps are all moveable.

My space is not large but even with the above list of stuff, I have my amps, guitars and keyboards as well and they are all ready to go so I do not have much to do as far as setting up to record.

Maybe some of this will be helpful.