Equipment love

During the course of writing these blog posts over the last year or so, we have said many times that choice of equipment is less important than the creative decisions you make when writing, arranging and recording your music.

Great recordings sound good because of the creative decisions talented producers and engineers made, the choice of gear is less important. talent will always get something special out of "lesser" gear, but the talentless will struggle to make a good recording in even the best equipped studios.

It's also important to recognise when we have developed a creative and emotional relationship with a piece of equipment, and not exchange or upgrade it when a technically superior model is released.

We made this mistake when we sold our Akai S1000 samplers and started using technically superior and more powerful software samplers. Software samplers are fine for sample replay, but for recording sound and getting creative something is missing. Even seeing a picture of an S1000 makes us smile. They revolutionised our music making and the tactile control interface and software environment was brilliant once you'd mastered it. An experienced S1000 programmer was like a virtuoso musician. MPC owners know all about these emotions.

We feel exactly the same about some old digital effects processors we own. Here's some gear we love ..

Yamaha REV500 reverb
Roland SH101
Korg Wavestation
Drawmer DS201 gate
Lexicon PCM60 reverb

All these devices have been superseded by superior software plug-ins, but we don't get the same buzz from plug-ins.

What we're saying is that sometimes the way you feel about a piece of gear enables you to create your best work. To make great music it's not necessary to be constantly upgrading gear and learning the latest techniques. So save some cash, dust off that beloved neglected device at the bottom of the cupboard, and feel the love!

Thanks for reading
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