Favorite Hardware/Software you bought in 2022

This was a hardware-heavy year in the video/film business for us:

1. Technically bought this the second week in December 2021, but didn’t really start using it until January 2022: my favorite and most influential purchase of the year was my Canon C70. It made us more money this year than any single purchase ever has in any other year in my life. It’s a joy to use. The metering is great, the view assist tools are great, and most importantly the image it produces is great (provided you know what you’re doing with it). The audio section is really impressive, and I’m frankly surprised almost every time at how high quality the sound is with it. I still take a Sound Devices audio unit with me on interview gigs, but I honestly only used the C70 for audio all year.

2. I fell in love with vintage camera lenses this year. I’ve said it before, but lenses are to filmmaking what microphones are to audio recording. I bought 15 vintage manual Zeiss lenses this year, which is insane. I bought 3 vintage Canon FD lenses. And I bought one Minolta MC Rokkor vintage lens. I’m probably missing one somewhere.

Anyway, those lenses, along with the C70, seriously upped the quality of our output this year. In addition to our family films and corporate-style interviews, we landed two new commercial clients, one of which appears to be becoming a long-term client. Very happy with the growth we’ve seen, and even though everybody says “it’s not the gear,” that’s only partially true. The gear I’ve mentioned here made my life both more challenging (because I had to learn an awful lot to make good use of it) and easier (because features I didn’t have in prior cameras).

Sadly, with all those camera purchases, there was very, very little left for music gear this year.

Mark my man welcome to the grown up world of the gear that pays the bills is more important than the gear I love. We forget these are tools not toys.

Don’t know how I forgot this purchase . Beyerdynamic MC834 Mic. Eric recommended and found @
Music go round under 500$. The best money I spent this year !

Didn't buy much. Lauten LS-308 probably the most practically useful thing. Mac M1 computer updates, and associated software.

Update. The workstation was easy to build! What was harder was dealing with all the cardboard it came in. It's absolutely a two person job though. My brother and I built it. When the room is set up and wired I'll take photos.

You're totally welcome!

I love it so far. My room is a total mess, so I'm busy trying to figure out how I'm going to organize stuff.

I also have a 20U rack by OSP that I've owned since 2006 which I'm gonna keep in here too...and a little 12 U Gator Rack I usually put on top of the 20U.

I'm sitting at it now in the middle of my room...and it's a simple layout, but it's super ergonomic with the keyboard tray (which AZ Workstations will custom size for your keyboard if you email them photos and dimensions).

I looked for a desk for like three years. This already feels about right. The feet can be adjusted (turn-screw) to level things. And I might use that to get another half-inch to an inch of height (I'm 6.2" tall so my legs are a little tight unless I lower my chair).

The two 4U rack spaces are GREAT. I'm thinking of maybe having two 500 series racks and just venting them, so they don't overheat. I'm looking hard at the Wes Audio stuff because you can digitally control it.

I have an old silver wired Balanced Power Technologies PSU that's not rackable  I'm going to put on the floor with my computer...or possibly in the center underneath whatever monitor I choose. BPT went out of business years ago, but they made killer power supplies for fair prices back in the day.

Also, it matches my black cat, Gus. 

What I didn't want was a desk that was too big to move after installation. An Argosy desk is awesome for example. But they had one in my old studio space I rented out in Tempe, and it was half the size of a car.

I might not be living here in 3 to 5 years. And all this stuff has to be able to come with me. The legs just screw on and off easily so you could transport this in a mini-van or a truck as long as two people carried it safely.

PM'd you.

I’d say the pair of Soyuz SDC mics are at the top of my list. I got a set of omni caps to go with the cardioids with them and just adore everything about them.

I feel like I’m not missing anything recording acoustic instruments at home any longer. Makes life easier and makes having things sit in the mix much nicer as well.

Daking Fet II pair hardware wise.

Got a lot of software.

Vx Pro
Bb Tubes
Oxford inflator
Wavelab pro

Sure I'm forgetting something.

Indeed. Haven’t tried the tube versions of Soyuz’s offering as I don’t want to spend that much coin currently and I’m such a fanboy of their sound and quality I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to resist.

Too much to choose from, 2022 was the year of my studio refit so I bought quite a bit.

However the standout pieces have been from Gainlabs, Acme, Chandler and Bettermaker. It's always nice to discover new manufacturers who make top shelf equipment before demand inevitably raises the cost. Although I wouldn't do without any of it, I picked up pieces from Shadow Hills, Stam, SSL, IGS, Dynaudio, Lexicon, Serpent, RND etc. and there really isn't anything to complain about.

In terms of SW I returned back to UA plugins or Tokyo Dawn to fill in some gaps and moved back to Pro Tools.