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Post by drbill on Jan 10, 2022 13:39:03 GMT -6
Here we are at 2022. I thought a little perspective might be fun for us all! Everything’s freaking expensive now right? Well…. Recently I bought something that sent my mind reeling back to 1993 when I got an 8 track Pro Tools II system! 8 channels with two 424’s. Pretty pricey and my first DAW ever!!! I was certainly excited. The hard drive that came with the system was a whopping 650MB. Just barely large enough for CD production. Wild. Then my brain went fast forward to 2022...as I recently purchased a raw Western Digital 18TB (YES 18TB!!!) SATA drive for $299, and it got me to thinking….. The Pro Tools HD was 650MB, 3RU, 14” deep, weighed about 25 lbs and cost $3,500. [Side note : it was beautiful BTW]. The new 18TB cost $299 and fits in the palm of my hand and cost $299 + tax…. So it got me thinking……there are 1,000,000MB in every terabyte. So that means that there are 18,000,000MB in the new SATA drive. Curiosity had me wondering how many of the 650MB drives would have fit on the new WD drive. So I did the math. Turns out I could fit 27,692 of the Digidesign drives on the new WD drive. Then I got to thinking about the price differences between 1993 and now. 27,692 X $3,500 is a whopping : $96,922,000 in 2022 dollars. YIKES!!!!!! Yup. Having that kind of drive space in 1993 would have cost almost $100 Million USD. But wait - what about inflation? Since 1993 there has been a 92.35% cumulative inflationary price change. That’s when my head started to hurt. If you really want to mess with your brain and the cost of HD space, think about THAT! Glad to be in 2022. Almost ALL gear is a bargain and significantly BETTER compared to the early 90’s. If you were there, you know that. So many great options and incredible bargains out there these days - even though biz is significantly more challenging. Wishing 2022 is a great year for all of you. Those were my New Years thoughts...
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Post by jmoose on Jan 10, 2022 14:04:14 GMT -6
1993 I was in high school...
Couple years later I bought a new Dell system... pentium 3 and paid through the nose to upgrade to 512mb RAM and a whopping 10 gig hard drive. I was king! Whoa 10 gigs! What am I ever going to do with all this space?! I'll never fill it...
First studio I worked at had a Sound Tools system. SDII files... only stereo using the Panasonic DAT's for I/O. Edits took an hour to render. Slow Tools.
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Post by drbill on Jan 10, 2022 15:03:45 GMT -6
1993 I was in high school... <snip> Edits took an hour to render. Slow Tools. Young punks..... Yeah, but in 1993, we charged $50-65 an HOUR for it to render. SCORE for the "slow tools"!!
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Post by deaconblues on Jan 10, 2022 15:03:48 GMT -6
I remember Zip, Jaz, and Orb disks chewing through my college work-study earnings with how frequently they failed. Nowadays I can do multitrack recordings to something that looks like a Texas Instruments calculator for not much more money and it all gets backed up in the cloud.
We have it great in 2022. Thanks for the reminder!
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Post by drbill on Jan 10, 2022 15:10:04 GMT -6
We have it great in 2022. Thanks for the reminder! You bet! IIRC, that entire 8 channel PT system cost somewhere between $25-30k. I know upgrading the RAM from 8MB to 20MB on the IIci was about $1000 alone. Finding reasonable compressors or mics was unheard of in that era. Getting a 2" machine, and a console to go along with it, and all the associated wiring........ $$$,$$$.00 Yup. 2022 is inexpensive in comparison. And IMO, better from a gear / sonics / options perspective. The downside, it's not so easy to find a vintage U87 for $600 anymore or a vintage LA2a for $500.... There is that.
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Post by bgrotto on Jan 10, 2022 16:03:13 GMT -6
We had a SCSI bay at Mad Oak when I first started there...the drives were relatively massive at the time (~125GB). The bay held two drives at once, for an astounding 250GB of storage. And...the bay itself, once turned on, sounded like a fucking jet engine. Easily 90dbSPL. Probably more. It was completely insane. Good thing we had a sound-proofed machine room 🤣
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Post by bgrotto on Jan 10, 2022 16:03:23 GMT -6
Oh, and it cost like $6k. LOL
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Post by svart on Jan 10, 2022 16:15:03 GMT -6
1995 I got my first *real* computer. Something like a 240MB HDD. Somehow or another I ended up needing a new drive maybe in 1996 or so and they had just come out with 1GB HDDs for like 300$.
I just bought a name brand 1TB USB drive for something like 60$ on sale.
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Post by Chad on Jan 10, 2022 16:17:19 GMT -6
Here we are at 2022. I thought a little perspective might be fun for us all! Everything’s freaking expensive now right? Well…. Recently I bought something that sent my mind reeling back to 1993 when I got an 8 track Pro Tools II system! 8 channels with two 424’s. Pretty pricey and my first DAW ever!!! I was certainly excited. The hard drive that came with the system was a whopping 650MB. Just barely large enough for CD production. Wild. Then my brain went fast forward to 2022...as I recently purchased a raw Western Digital 18TB (YES 18TB!!!) SATA drive for $299, and it got me to thinking….. The Pro Tools HD was 650MB, 3RU, 14” deep, weighed about 25 lbs and cost $3,500. [Side note : it was beautiful BTW]. The new 18TB cost $299 and fits in the palm of my hand and cost $299 + tax…. So it got me thinking……there are 1,000,000MB in every terabyte. So that means that there are 18,000,000MB in the new SATA drive. Curiosity had me wondering how many of the 650MB drives would have fit on the new WD drive. So I did the math. Turns out I could fit 27,692 of the Digidesign drives on the new WD drive. Then I got to thinking about the price differences between 1993 and now. 27,692 X $3,500 is a whopping : $96,922,000 in 2022 dollars. YIKES!!!!!! Yup. Having that kind of drive space in 1993 would have cost almost $100 Million USD. But wait - what about inflation? Since 1993 there has been a 92.35% cumulative inflationary price change. That’s when my head started to hurt. If you really want to mess with your brain and the cost of HD space, think about THAT! Glad to be in 2022. Almost ALL gear is a bargain and significantly BETTER compared to the early 90’s. If you were there, you know that. So many great options and incredible bargains out there these days - even though biz is significantly more challenging. Wishing 2022 is a great year for all of you. Those were my New Years thoughts... GREAT persepctive, drbill! This last year, I had a drive go down (it was backed up in the cloud, so no big deal – just my time), and I decided to invest in all SSD drives. I have about 6.5 Terabytes of drive space now on my work iMac – all of it is now SSD. And it wasn't that expensive at all. That experience made me remember back to when I first started my own freelance Video Production/Editing business in 1997. I paid $2,000 to have about 18 Gigabytes of SCSI hard drive space which – besides hosting apps, etc. – got me about 90 minutes of non-linear video editing using miniDV at 720 x 480 pixels. about 1/4th of standard HD, I guess. Anyway... Perspective, for sure!
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Post by Guitar on Jan 10, 2022 16:29:27 GMT -6
Dr. Bill. I apologize in advance as my post is likely to send you spiraling into a deep depression and/or rage...
(I keed, I keed.)
Plugin prices have come way down from even 5-10 years ago. There used to be a small number of "good" plugins and they were, maybe, $300 each brand new.
Now that $300 price is a "joke" and you just wait for the sale where it's $20, $30, something like that.
Not only that but there are too many "good plugins" now it's almost like they're all good. You get to pick and choose, rather than have to seek them out from the chaff.
And the technology has advanced as well, which trickles down into any brand that's paying attention.
Hey, you started this, so I'll finish it, LOL.
Conversion / Interfacing has changed drastically as well. Most conversion is good/great and it's a lot cheaper than it used to be, per channel. Once again, you get to pick and choose.
I guess that's the bottom line. There's this whole long "menu" of gear and software, for very low prices, that we all shop from. And it's all good/great. There's been an entire industry built up around Pro Sumer Consumerism of music equipment that anyone of any level can benefit from. Is Audioscape Pro or Sumer? Who cares? Why not both? Just one example.
Please focus on the big picture here, not the usual "nit picky extra 5%" game we play on forums. To be very blunt that 5% is usually the human being, not the gear. Look at 10 years ago, it's a world that's different.
The fortunate result is that anyone who cares to do so can make great sounding music on a low budget. Music that would never have been shown the light of day some decades ago.
The unfortunate result is that 60,000 of these songs are being uploaded to music playback services every single day, so nobody stands out from the crowd, or it's harder to do.
And once again, your "profession" is now considered a "hobby" to many people, and your expected income goes in line with that. I've seriously played shows where the promoter said something to me like, "Oh, I was expecting a typical low effort no talent group. If I had known you all were serious and experienced I would have promoted the show."
Music participation is at an all time high, and the value of music perhaps a little bit lower as a result.
Unless you're Dr Bill, of course, the man who has figured it out!
But Dr. Monkey is here with an expensive, but less expensive than years ago lifestyle, that is very rewarding emotionally, but almost worthless in any other way. But to have the setup that I have now, was unthinkable to a 1990's version of myself. Or in my case, the year 2000 version of myself. So it's all "GOOD." I've owned gear that I never would have dreamed possible, as a budding songwriter.
One of my 2022 insights is this. Take your ego out of it. The Ego is a selfish pattern of thinking that really has no place in life, or music. If you "love" music (I do) and you "love" playing (same,) then just enjoy it. Don't worry about how "cool" you are, how "famous" you are, or how "rich" you are. These will fall in time like leaves from a deciduous tree. Any undue focus on these "ego" pursuits will only reduce your experience, not elevate it. In a round about way, a pure intention is a more sure way to "success" than a sort of selfish one.
Sadly there is a rather large community of people who celebrate the ego, the narcissist, the "winners," and the people chasing their tails. It's a sort of cultural disease. It will chew you up and spit you out. But there's a big world outside of all that at the same time, for anyone who cares to turn off the noise and focus on the nature of what lasts and what's real.
Anyway thanks for coming to my TED talk, and happy 2022. Nice idea for a discussion.
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Post by hadaja on Jan 10, 2022 16:56:39 GMT -6
I remember buying my first PT system with the Digi 001 interface - wow what a learning curve that was. I think it was still B&W. Man that thing was noisy when recording. The what a different world it was whne the Digi 02R came out. I thought the noise floor on that was awesome. Things opened up with PT ver 7. i was in heaven. I was hesitant to make the jump to Digi 003R when it came out but those preamps where even better then the previous ones and PT 8 was rock solid for me. Now I use Loigc Pro with Focusrite Clarrett TB interface and I cant believe how bad those Digi 002 and Digi 003s were. The clarity and quietness of this current system is what I thought the others should have been. Yep loving Tech advances. Whenever anyone starts talking doom and gloom I am always trying to stay positive and look for the opportunities that I might be missing by not discerning the season correctly. So although 2021 was a troubling time for some people I personally found it very good year and am looking for ward to 2022 where somehow I will need to find the $$ and materials to rebuild our house.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2022 17:04:24 GMT -6
I dunno, been a pretty shit year so far but I didn't expect a miracle flip from 2021 in 10 days.
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Post by yewtreemagic on Jan 10, 2022 18:27:46 GMT -6
Nowadays I can do multitrack recordings to something that looks like a Texas Instruments calculator for not much more money and it all gets backed up in the cloud. That dates you almost more than anything else, and yes, I had a TI calculator one too!
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Post by drbill on Jan 10, 2022 18:37:46 GMT -6
Dr. Bill. I apologize in advance as my post is likely to send you spiraling into a deep depression and/or rage... (I keed, I keed.) Plugin prices have come way down from even 5-10 years ago. There used to be a small number of "good" plugins and they were, maybe, $300 each brand new. Now that $300 price is a "joke" and you just wait for the sale where it's $20, $30, something like that. Not only that but there are too many "good plugins" now it's almost like they're all good. You get to pick and choose, rather than have to seek them out from the chaff. And the technology has advanced as well, which trickles down into any brand that's paying attention. Hey, you started this, so I'll finish it, LOL. Conversion / Interfacing has changed drastically as well. Most conversion is good/great and it's a lot cheaper than it used to be, per channel. Once again, you get to pick and choose. I guess that's the bottom line. There's this whole long "menu" of gear and software, for very low prices, that we all shop from. And it's all good/great. There's been an entire industry built up around Pro Sumer Consumerism of music equipment that anyone of any level can benefit from. Is Audioscape Pro or Sumer? Who cares? Why not both? Just one example. Please focus on the big picture here, not the usual "nit picky extra 5%" game we play on forums. To be very blunt that 5% is usually the human being, not the gear. Look at 10 years ago, it's a world that's different. The fortunate result is that anyone who cares to do so can make great sounding music on a low budget. Music that would never have been shown the light of day some decades ago. The unfortunate result is that 60,000 of these songs are being uploaded to music playback services every single day, so nobody stands out from the crowd, or it's harder to do. And once again, your "profession" is now considered a "hobby" to many people, and your expected income goes in line with that. I've seriously played shows where the promoter said something to me like, "Oh, I was expecting a typical low effort no talent group. If I had known you all were serious and experienced I would have promoted the show." Music participation is at an all time high, and the value of music perhaps a little bit lower as a result. Unless you're Dr Bill, of course, the man who has figured it out! But Dr. Monkey is here with an expensive, but less expensive than years ago lifestyle, that is very rewarding emotionally, but almost worthless in any other way. But to have the setup that I have now, was unthinkable to a 1990's version of myself. Or in my case, the year 2000 version of myself. So it's all "GOOD." I've owned gear that I never would have dreamed possible, as a budding songwriter. One of my 2022 insights is this. Take your ego out of it. The Ego is a selfish pattern of thinking that really has no place in life, or music. If you "love" music (I do) and you "love" playing (same,) then just enjoy it. Don't worry about how "cool" you are, how "famous" you are, or how "rich" you are. These will fall in time like leaves from a deciduous tree. Any undue focus on these "ego" pursuits will only reduce your experience, not elevate it. In a round about way, a pure intention is a more sure way to "success" than a sort of selfish one. Sadly there is a rather large community of people who celebrate the ego, the narcissist, the "winners," and the people chasing their tails. It's a sort of cultural disease. It will chew you up and spit you out. But there's a big world outside of all that at the same time, for anyone who cares to turn off the noise and focus on the nature of what lasts and what's real. Anyway thanks for coming to my TED talk, and happy 2022. Nice idea for a discussion. Did you even read all the way thru my initial post? Why would I be in depression or a rage? . I think we're making the same point. Things are quicker, faster, better, and cheaper in 2022 than they were in 1993. So much so that it's STAGGERING. I think anyone that was living and working in that era, would agree. To think that the same storage I'm holding in the palm of my hand would have taken a warehouse and $100Million dollars in 1993 to achieve is mind blowing. YES! The tools are better and cheaper. I don't think we are in disagreement....
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Post by Guitar on Jan 10, 2022 19:22:02 GMT -6
drbill I quote myself, "I keed, I keed." 'Twas just a joke, my friend!!! Read your post loud and clear. The joke is based around the cartoon versions of us, You are "Mr. Hardware," and I'm "Plugin Guy." The two are mortal enemies. Instead of battling they argue online with longwinded posts. One way Plugin Guy can upset Mr. Hardware is to even mention plugins.... LOL. One way Mr. Hardware can upset Plugin Guy is to insist that hardware is better than plugins, because it just is, etc. Hope you can get my joke now, haha.
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Post by Tbone81 on Jan 10, 2022 19:22:47 GMT -6
1993 I was in high school... Couple years later I bought a new Dell system... pentium 3 and paid through the nose to upgrade to 512mb RAM and a whopping 10 gig hard drive. I was king! Whoa 10 gigs! What am I ever going to do with all this space?! I'll never fill it... First studio I worked at had a Sound Tools system. SDII files... only stereo using the Panasonic DAT's for I/O. Edits took an hour to render. Slow Tools. Man you’re taking me back…my first studio gig was editing tracks between Sound Designer II and Pro Tools, off an audiomedia iii card with those same Panasonic DATs for I/O!
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Post by drbill on Jan 10, 2022 20:59:52 GMT -6
drbill I quote myself, "I keed, I keed." 'Twas just a joke, my friend!!! Read your post loud and clear. The joke is based around the cartoon versions of us, You are "Mr. Hardware," and I'm "Plugin Guy." The two are mortal enemies. Instead of battling they argue online with longwinded posts. One way Plugin Guy can upset Mr. Hardware is to even mention plugins.... LOL. One way Mr. Hardware can upset Plugin Guy is to insist that hardware is better than plugins, because it just is, etc. Hope you can get my joke now, haha. Haha!! I'm seeing your vision now and appreciate your creativity and humor. But who is going to animate this series?? And will it be PG13 or Mature? Before we start - I want to be Mr Hybrid OK? Fair enough? Plugins are good, and you're right - way better and way cheaper than in the mid 90's. And even though you're right, let's not joke about it - we all know Hardware is better. Hahahaaaaaaaaa!!! j/k But at the same time, we also know that there is not enough hardware in the world, so plugins are awesome too!! signed, Mr. Hybrid. Appreciate you friend!!! <<thumbsup>> PS - there are times that I FREAKING LOVE plugins. The Echo Farm Deluxe Memory Man comes to mind. When they came back out with the plugin for AAS, I was ecstatic, and I sold all but one of my hardware units except for one!! Which I keep in case they abandon the plugin again.
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Post by bgrotto on Jan 10, 2022 21:11:21 GMT -6
Lawd remember how much Q10 cost when it first came out? Same price as a decent hardware channel. Haha.
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Post by jmoose on Jan 10, 2022 21:14:43 GMT -6
1993 I was in high school... <snip> Edits took an hour to render. Slow Tools. Young punks..... Yeah, but in 1993, we charged $50-65 an HOUR for it to render. SCORE for the "slow tools"!! Hour long bounces & other mind numbing busy work like striping reels with SMPTE. Hurry up and wait! Good times. No question. Today even the most basic laptop & $200 interface does more & sounds better.
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Post by jmoose on Jan 10, 2022 21:37:11 GMT -6
Lawd remember how much Q10 cost when it first came out? Same price as a decent hardware channel. Haha. Yeah... this one's gonna be hard to top. In 2000 I bought my first UA 1176LN reissue. They had just been shown at AES and were about the same money as an old one. After a little debate on old vs new I ordered one from GC. When it arrived the GC guy goes - What is this? Its a limiter? You record through this?! Why not use waves L1?? At that time, nobody outside the world of pro studio cats knew what an 1176 was. Today? There are what? About 500 different plugin versions and even behringer makes a $250 analog knockoff... Everyone and their dog knows what an 1176 is.
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Post by bgrotto on Jan 10, 2022 21:54:47 GMT -6
Lawd remember how much Q10 cost when it first came out? Same price as a decent hardware channel. Haha. Yeah... this one's gonna be hard to top. In 2000 I bought my first UA 1176LN reissue. They had just been shown at AES and were about the same money as an old one. After a little debate on old vs new I ordered one from GC. When it arrived the GC guy goes - What is this? Its a limiter? You record through this?! Why not use waves L1?? At that time, nobody outside the world of pro studio cats knew what an 1176 was. Today? There are what? About 500 different plugin versions and even behringer makes a $250 analog knockoff... Everyone and their dog knows what an 1176 is. When I was in college in the early 2000s, the gear boom was just kicking off (little did we know how silly it would get though) and a teacher shared with us students a price list from CBS from ten-ish (maybe 20-ish) years prior that went out when they were liquidating some of their various studio or radio holdings. Man...$100 for a 451 or 414. $150 for a Pultec (!!!!). Shit woulda been better than bitcoin. 🤣
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Post by deaconblues on Jan 10, 2022 22:30:01 GMT -6
Nowadays I can do multitrack recordings to something that looks like a Texas Instruments calculator for not much more money and it all gets backed up in the cloud. I had a TI calculator one too! But did you play Drug Wars on it in chemistry?
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Post by EmRR on Jan 10, 2022 22:32:38 GMT -6
I BORROWED 5k in 94 for a Mackie 1604 with expander, and ADAT, a BRC, and AI-1. I got store employee pricing (50%) through a bandmate who orchestrated the buy, too. Nuts. I haven’t spent that much in one go since.
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Post by bgrotto on Jan 10, 2022 22:40:16 GMT -6
I BORROWED 5k in 94 for a Mackie 1604 with expander, and ADAT, a BRC, and AI-1. I got store employee pricing (50%) through a bandmate who orchestrated the buy, too. Nuts. I haven’t spent that much in one go since. What was the name of that "big" mackie that was going on for a few years? It sorta almost looked like a real console...i think it maybe even had automation? Mighta been digital? ETA: aha i remember! The X Bus!! i.ebayimg.com/images/g/n7sAAOSw~HhexUuh/s-l1600.jpg
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2022 7:23:36 GMT -6
What we have now is like alien gods came out of the sky.
An Apogee Symphony II or Lynx Aurora (N) is cheaper and cleaner than almost any real console.
For under 1000 a channel, modern analog gear is totally sicko. And not clones. New stuff without the issues of old stuff. Sure the 80s had Aphex and GML stuff but what we have now is way cleaner. Those modern ICs and filters are so good.
Then mics. God damn there is so much good affordable stuff. Those Shure and Oktavia SDCs are so good. Sure you have the KM84 but you can get more of these and goddamn. And there are good dynamic mics still kicking. Those Audix ones are cool.
Filter design improved exponentially. Just basic stuff. Resamplers, compressors, EQs. And… they’re stable. Sure clones and emulations outsell modern designs 1000 to 1 but the modern stuff is the cleanest and most effective tools there ever was. And holy crap it’s cheap for how good it is. Little Labs, Daking, Crane Song, even FMR is wow. Then you get into Color and utility and it gets nuts
Now for Software. Holy shit. From 2002, the only digital comps you would probably still use are the Weiss DS-1, Blockfish in Windows, Waves Ren Comp, and Sonnox Oxford Dynamics. Compare them to their descendants like Kotelnikov and Presswerk and oh man is the old stuff just limited, colored, and imposing dynamically. They don’t sound bad, they just aren’t approaching or surpassing most analog like the new stuff.
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