Analog upkeep

I bought one (two actually).  Just an unbelievable sound.  Got a steal on one because it was dropping out and was noisy.  (After much detective work and consultation with experts, it ended up just being tarnished silver contacts on the tube socket, and cleaning the impedance selector strapping!)  The U47's are a draw for the studio and have paid for themselves already, plus they keep appreciating in value.  Instead of putting profits into stocks or something, I recommend investing in tools and learning to maintain them.  (No trust funds or law degrees here... )

As an interesting note, I have gear that has delivered every day for at least 9 years with zero issues. These are my long-term hardware items so far: Everything Pueblo Audio (16 channels preamp, 8 channels 48v, 2 SideWinders, 1 custom attenuator), Bricasti M7, Lynx Aurora(n), Buzz SOC-M, Burl B32. I’ve had a pair of Miad 4040s a shorter amount of time but expect these will be extremely long-lived as there is close to zero heat produced.

On the opposite side of things, after only a month or so, my new Neve 5060 faders are “scratchy” and unusable, even after following instructions to try DeOxit, until I take it apart to try the potential fix Neve service suggested may help. To be clear, the unit overall is fine, including the rotary stereo faders and Master linear fader, as long as I don’t move the first 8 channel faders. My studio is pristine, no smoke, no drinks near the mixer, and I run an air quality meter that measures everything including temperature, humidity, CO2, chemicals, particulate matter… my air quality scores are typically 98 to 100, with CO2 rising a bit during tracking after 45 minutes of the ceiling mounted whisper vent being off and the door is closed with 3-4 people in the room.

WARNING: Mini rant,
   I have no clue what anyone is talking about here, I've had virtually no "Analog upkeep" issues other than the common to all of us mic and instrument cords that get tortured to disrepair, even my tube gear is not any sort of a maintenance problem. As everyone should, I have a lightning rod, a appropriately sized isolation transformer to decouple from service entry and surge, as well as isolated ground runs, rfi, emi filtering everywhere feasible to protect all my gear including and most importantly my ultra sensitive computers(aka not analog). The lightning that Bill mentioned would certainly have a more devastating effect on digital anything over any analog, i can replace op amps and caps for mere dollars and some time, a fried mac, controllers and converters are multiple $?k.
   Let me compare analog upkeep to the digital world.
Analog=🤷🏻‍♂️ ime
Virtual= Combative at you own risk OS and daw upgrades at the behest of your overlords, subscription and cross OS bugs and problems , retro incompatibility and whimsical discontinuation that render plugins valueless and void mix recall, no longer supported bricking of controllers that cost $$$'s, etc, etc, etc. All =ing a mind numbing amount of strife, loss of value and presto magico vanished off the face of the effing planet issues that i've had to endure (along with a homogenized sound) over the years with "virtual" everything...,
   While my analog gear just sit's there lovingly watching me, minding it's own business, waiting patiently for me to engage with it....., i'll stick with Analog thank you, the fact that i can touch it adds a little to its credibility and that of object permanence, ya know what i mean?

🤣

I appreciate that there are exceptions, and I'm glad that your investment is drawing business to the studio. That's genuinely awesome. My studio has gone through a number of 'classic' vintage mics in our collection, and they have not attracted any new business from artists, whatsoever. Occasionally, a freelancer will book the studio based on a specific piece of gear, but my experience has been that artists come here because they like the sonics and the experience of working here, and don't really care much about the equipment used (with exception for our instrument collection, but that's a WHOOOOLE other discussion!). But I really am genuinely delighted to hear that your experience differs. That's just fucking awesome.

I would push back, however, on the "just unbelievable sound" thing a bit. Having spent my formative years using all manner of classic vintage equipment, and even while still confessing to *wishing* I could have more of these wonderful tools for myself, I'd still concede that vintage gear doesn't *actually* sound unique or special to anywhere near the degree the hype (let alone the price point!!!!!!!) would have us believe. The $30k mics Tony just posted above don't sound 10x better than my Heiserman. I'd be surprised if they even sounded better at all. Most of the vintage 47s I've used have left me a bit underwhelmed, in large part because the one that lived at my studio for a number of years was a *particularly* great one and it heightened my expectations unrealistically. Or, maybe I just got used to the way one specific example sounded...who knows.

My AEA R-44 regularly beats out vintage RCA 44s. In fact, it hasn't lost a shootout yet. 

I could go on. But I think I may be sorta losing the thread here and digressing too much, so I'll just leave it at this: vintage tools are awesome, but they are radically inflated in price to unrealistic heights. There's plenty of excellent equipment being made in 2024 and as I've been saying all along, the tools don't even really matter. It's much more about the results, and the experience the client has along the way.

Ideally, you give them enough of what they want so they not only pay your day rate, but they also spring for lunch  

Careful with Lighting!
What did “The Titanic” and the “Sixth Sense” have in common?..,

“IC dead people”.

Fun thread. But being at a Recording low level..,
Quality analog isn’_that_practical.

Well maybe one or two pieces.
Eventually.
Chris
P.S. Will ketchup after work tonight.

its really annoying if gear needs to be repaired. tomorrow i will send my stam audio adg76 (rev a has really low volume) and my stam audio sa-609 to a tech. which means around 2 weeks without them. the sa-609 is brand new and came with - again - low volume in the left channel. its under warranty. the adg76 not, its about 5 years old …
and i had my aml ez1073 repaired just last summer. but other gear just keeps working without problems for over 15 years now. so its hit and miss.

I bought a Swiffer to keep my plugins dust-free.

I guess it works the opposite for me. I've wasted more money on plug-ins that either became unsupported, that I didn't use, or that got up-sold to the improved version. I feel like I'm throwing money in a hole whenever I buy software whereas I typically get my money back with hardware. The only thing I ever sold for maintenance reasons was a tape echo. The vibe was something I've never heard software replicate but fixing it every year just became too much.

Exactly what I use. A long handled and short handled one to get to remote areas and into crevices. And a little tiny electronics vacuum as well that I use if don't want to scatter the dust which arises from the brushing (near vents).



Wow that sounds fantastic. I just love that, so lush.

Thanks for the kind words of encouragement.  I appreciate you feeling stoked for me.  Regarding the vintage mics you mention above:  I think both of these come down to condition / maintenance.  An all original U47 shouldn't be particularly great compared to another all original U47 specimen if they had the same capsule type (M7 / K47) and were properly maintained.  Neumann had pretty tight tolerances and the differences would be small if both serviced and calibrated.  Same with 44's.  There's a ton of them out there with poorly tensioned ribbons or using the wrong ribbon material and they are dark and noisy.  Wes from AEA has some original RCA ribbon elements for 44's and he sent me a couple for my pair.  Properly tensioned, the noise floor is actually very low, and they see a lot of use here...  (AEA and Heiserman both make great stuff too, it's true.)

But lots of my clientele are kind of drawn to the classic equipment and approach etc.  (Most things go to the mm1200 16 track 2" before eventually hitting the DAW...)  So my situation is a bit niche, I suppose... 

As far as the OP goes, I think like several folks have mentioned, it depends WHAT analog gear your talking about.  I try to avoid anything with chips in it, but can't always...

I did a similar sum of the plugins I bought - and that was only the UA plugins I own, and I also won't print that number.  Yikes.  I bought many of those before the plugin market crashed.  Wouldn't cost nearly as much these days.  But it was also the cost of doing business.  Maybe a bit like buying toilet paper.  Glad I had them when I did.