A world of crazy affordable outboard that is GOOD?

Use your ears, it’s your work, so you need to be able to stand behind it.

Welcome to the party!!!  I've been hybrid, ditching my 120i/o automated LFAC for about 10-12 years now.  120 I/o on my PTHDX system, more outboard than I have I/o for.

I'm heavily invested in AudioScape, Serpent, Locomotive, Louder Than Liftoff, Miad, AML, Avalon, Grace, ZOD, Moog, CAPI, TNC and others.  Mostly smaller, boutique companies.

For me (DOH!!) LTL - and the Silver Bullet specifically - has been the missing piece that has allowed me to replace my consoles, and never look back.  (Bias fully owned and accepted). The other outboard compressors and EQ's have been great, but not as important.

Yes it is a good time to be a budget recordist, the question though has to be what is the long term difference between affordable “good” gear and traditional “great “ gear?
For me it comes down to long term reliability and serviceability.

Switches and pots wear out, budget gear tends to have board mounted pots & switches, nothing worse than finding you can’t replace that stupid scratchy pot.

Thanks for the kind words man.  Appreciated.  PS - great to see you back!!!

I spent my late teens and early 20’s working in 2 studios, the second studio was rural mid range - Trident TSM, Studer 2” and within a month I was managing aspects, lead engineer and also producer on smaller stuff. I made quite a few records with English niche but big in their day Folk artists and even a Cajun album with a guy from Louisiana that featured Bela Fleck who blew my young mind. We had a very early version of Studio Dyaxis which made me realise the digital future and the demise of tape. I was nearing my mid 20’s and needed to earn a proper wage so I had been using downtime to form the project that would become Morcheeba, employing my younger brother on guitar and during this time I produced a few tracks that caught the ears of the major record industry. I moved to London with help from a friend, employed a new singer that had never really sung lead and the week Portishead went big by U.K.standards. I wrote and recorded a song for Almo publishing that caused an a&r buzz, after meeting the labels we signed as the priority project at an indie label run by the guy that had run A&M in its heyday in the U.K. We rented an empty studio that had been an underground SSL place. We used our advance to invest in more samplers Atari computers, a Mackie 32 channel desk, some Amek 9098 pre amps, TLA valve gear, a couple of AKG C3000’s and a couple of ADATS it was 1995. There was already a hybrid revolution in UK dance music. I rebelled against the speedy side and focused on a more downtempo hip hop with songs and instruments sound. The company boss said “this is all very well but there’s no market in chill out” which was hilarious. Our publisher took it a bit more seriously after signing Massive Attack and Portishead.
By 1996 at 25 I had sold 850,000 albums having written a second one before the first one was released to avoid pressure. We had toured all over the world and produced David Byrne, been covered by George Michael and 18 months later we then bought a 24 track 2”inch machine after missing the tape sound and recorded Big Calm. The second album went on to sell 5 million without a hit single. We were changing the game.
We moved on to Warner Brothers and hit pay dirt. I invested in vintage gear and cutting edge technology.
Unfortunately the money also changed things.

These days I’m still hybrid after finally accepting Pro Tools with early Prism’s and continuing to collect classic gear and boutique brilliance.
The times we live in for equipment are possibly the best ever but unfortunately to paraphrase my old boss there is no market in music period. We live in a strange age where In Britain most young bands post Covid have day jobs and nobody at record companies has the experience to develop artists.
There are not many commercial studios and only people that can afford it can have proper studios. I think it’s great that people can work remotely but I’ve never enjoyed working in different places and I miss the days of being in the same place as the talent and having a group of engineers. These days the smaller the better as far as UK companies are concerned.
I don’t like the low end equipment anymore as I became a snob after hearing the really good stuff. I’d rather work ITB.
Warm and Behringer are not my thing but the 500 series, Stam, Audioscape, Beesneez etc. and the DIY revolution are great. Young people should get on groupDIY.com and learn to solder, build and modify stuff. It’s a great resource and has the passion people need.

That’s my story. I didn’t realise at the age of 26 I’d made it at that time. I produced another 8 albums but over 20 years enjoying most of it but I worked and partied too hard though and wrecked my health. I have a great family and my kids have got to do all the things I couldn’t afford like grow up in France before moving back home. My son loves making music after attending music schools and works on a laptop with a hybrid chain producing and writing.

I have a few pieces of high end gear. Urie, Focusrite, Lexicon, and API, but most units are clones or lower level. Great River, Stam, dbx, Avid, Warm Audio, Capi, RME, etc. The one place I haven't gone as far into clones is with microphones. Neumann, AKG, Sennheiser, Royer, Sony, but I do have a few lower lines of sorts. Oktava, Warm Audio, Roswell. At this point my gear is a lot better than I am even though I have been in pro audio for over 40 years. Most of that time professionally. I just don't do it as often as I used to and hearing loss due to age and abuse has taken its toll. If I can't do good work with the gear I have it's not the gear, it's me. I am retired and primarily a hobbyist these days so I can't justify spending gobs of money on expensive analog gear. Most of what I have in that arena is stuff I have had for decades. I do have a ton of good plugins for about any situation ever needed so I have all the bases covered.

I remember back in my analog tape days that if you didn't have the hardware you couldn't do the work. My how things have changed since the 70's and 80's, and for the better. I have no love for analog tape anymore. It's a pain in the ass, expensive, and high maintenance. Yeah, it sounds good but so does digital. If you can't make digital sound good you certainly are not able to do it with tape. I don't care WHAT the gear manufactures and the peeps at the Purple site say.

Now get offa my lawn.......

I gotta be real. I used to own Brent Avrill racked 1066's and 1272's...right now I'm using a Warm Audio 273 with EQ. It's pretty darn close to the old stuff when you use the tone button. Amazing when you consider the price of the unit.


I'm also using a pair of CM49 M49 clones by Advanced Audio which are stereo matched (because I don't have 20 grand for a pair of M49v reissues, let alone vintage units).


I just don't think a listener is going to pick out my clones in a full mix. That's all I'm saying.

Great thread.

budget gear is also filled with garbage and cannot be easily repaired. Recall a year later? Have to buy a new one and hope it matches the behavior at similar settings. It won’t when the originals and the higher budget clones cannot match units because these were all clever, cobbled together products designed in the 60s.

Righteous!!!!

I had someone give an Advanced Audio mic as a means to pay down studio debt, it was the 47fet one- was a great mic. 

Along these lines- the Austrian Audio stuff CRUSHES the AKG offerings and is so much cheaper.