Worst gear purchase?

[supersoul]

undisputed #1 has to be

1. J Station Guitar Preamp: the Pod is already bad, try figuring how the cheap copycat version sounds! ***shivers down the spine***

closely followed

2. Yamaha 02r: it's digital and sounds like it - the compressors are a bad joke.

3. Akai S6000: great sampler, but i never got around to use it, because EXS 24 came out that year (much more practical). Basically i flushed down the toilet about 2 grand by reselling it to a guy on ebay.

4. Vorg Orbit ECHO - Tape delay: funky looks - lame sound... though i resold it for triple the price via eBay.... one neat feature: on/off switch for the tape...

5. Ibanez Autowah Pedal: 80's type plastic stompbox with the most pathetic autowah sound i have ever heard *** really sad box

one more:

6. ADAT Bridge: became redundant when i dumped the O2r

With my other audio gear i always have been pleased (couldn't understand slamming the 9098 Amek pre... it's a solid clean pre)

[borau]

-2x Neumann KM183 - absolutely not useful for anything.

-2x AKG C414B/TLII - Great on toms, but not usefull for anything else

-TL audio 5001 4 channel "tube"pre- Needed 4 extra channels for not too much money. Should have bought some old mackie instead.
OK for toms and hi-hat.

[Jorg]

My MBox!

[gwailoh]

How about the worst bang-for-the-buck purchase?

MacIIci in, I guess, 1991? So that I could run PTII NuBus. 25mhz CPU, 8mb RAM, 120mb hard drive, 14" color monitor: $6,000. I loved it! But it wasn't cheap. Those were the days.

Meyer HD-1s. I forget what they cost, $3,000 or something like that. I still use 'em, but I don't like the audible BBE-like phase alignment voodoo. Still like my old JBLs better. Not a good value, IMO.

Kurzweil PX1000 12-bit sampled instrument module: $2,000. Had a few sounds but, not $2k worth.

IMO it's easier nowadays to find great gear at good prices. The Web has made it easier to research. There are forums like this one where you can check out people's opinions, and ask questions of real users. There are great online stores like Mercenary, Vintage King, Atlas and others where you can go for straight advice and which will let you return stuff if you don't like it. And, we're living in a kind of golden age of awesome boutique gear. Think of all the great mic pre, eq and compressor options available nowadays from such great little manufacturers. And there's eBay, where you can easily sell the boxes you find yourself not using anymore: a huuuuuge improvement over leaving gear on consignment at your local audio dealer. I started thinking about all of this when I noticed that my own list of bad purchases is all from 10 - 15 years ago!

[brucie]

For me there have been a few!

1)Yamaha AW4416 noisy as hell and then the Roland VS2480 came out with an external monitor...at which point Yamaha totally dropped the product. I brought it for £3000 (fully expanded with ADAT and 8i/o) and I am trying very hard to get £800 for it now. What a waste of cash as it is too noisy even to be used as a digi mixer!

2)J-station and the Pod....oh how bad they sound. Picked up a Tech-21 trademark...never looked back.

3)Roland VG-88...see above!

4)Okay this is going to annoy some people and start a war....but a £2000 Apple G4! For me it was a hunk of crap (around the time when we went from Os9 to OSX) as none of the synths and plugins I wanted to use run on OS9 I had to join in the Apple OS upgrade game 10.1,10.2 etc....and I gave up. With DP4.1 it runs a max of 4 tracks before the cpu goes into melt down (yes I have 1 gig of ram and external drives...and I did all the tweaks!).....needless to Say I now use Samplitude and Sonar on the PC... and have a very expensive jukebox!

5)Yamaha Su10...man what the hell was I thinking that day....spent £250...got £50 for it! Poor sucker who brought it though!

Nice thread!

Peace

Brucie

[dhughes]

Yes yes. AKG C1000s.....terrible...oh so terrible

[RooF]

What a great thread... Feels good to know i am not the only ham out there... For me It s not so much the adds or magazines but the rat ass sales people in gear shops... Ass eating mother ****ers u know who u are...

Anyways Tlaudio ivory2 stereo eq and comp. what a joke... ok not very expensive but what a shame...

Korg x5d made me hate synthesizers for the longest time ever (am getting a moog fuuck )

All the focusrite platinum crap shit its all so bad its not funny... I mean behrinshit bad...

Digi 002 good intro to PT but what crap converters (and i know of a salesman in montreal who is supposed to be experienced who still says the converters are good fuuck ) Die DIE DIE

I have finaly found some REAL pros to work with so things are much better know

AAAAHHHHHH Feels good.......

[magnet]

Worst purchase: Mackie 32-4-2 console. Sounds like crap under all circumstances. Even if just being used for monitoring.
Just traded it for a Yamaha PM2000 32 input. Can't wait to install the PM2000!

magnet

[loopy]

Heck it was 1979 and what did I know?
I had a Tascam deck without DBX noise reduction so of course the dammed thing hissed like a snake. So I look into the dbx modules and they are big bucks, for the time and my teenager budget.
I look around and find this gadget from MXR (remember them?) that claims to be better than dbx and 1/8 the price.

Yea, well it pumped like a mother!
El----sucko......
I returned it and bought the dbx unit....
That pumped as well, but only on solo piano and flute and was no where near as bad as the MXR.
To this day I can hear dbx on recordings from that era.

[Alécio Costa]

Him Kris! ( Dr.Frankencopter!)
I wrote a similar thread a few years ago. Anyway, my list is:

1)IOMEGA JAZZ DRIVES: What a loss of money!

2)ADAT XT: more time providing erros than recording proper audio

3)Behringer gear: MIC 2200, Ultracurve.

4)Yamaha NS10s: sorry, I know many love them.

5)Yamaha A4000 Sampler: great sound, but horrible GUI.

BTW.. Kris, many thanks for all your help concerning room acoustics. I just finished my control room based on several advises of yours.

[papawhitehead]

Digi 002! I thought it was great at first, until the whole Power Harness Plague took hold. I went through 4 in 2 years! Sold that bitch last year...done

[audiothings]

* ART DPS (?) $250 pre with digital outs and limiter. nightmare!
* Korg NS5R (gave it to a singer in exchange for 2 free sessions)
* Alesis Monitor Ones. maybe it was my room back then...
* Seagete 9GB UW HDD + UW card, paid over $1000 for the pair back in '97 (?), immediately after which IDE became fast enough for audio, and storage prices came crashing down...
* AKG Solidtube + C1000 ($1000 for the pair). let the c1000 go for next to nothing and the Solidtube died on me and the quote for repairs is not worth it.
* RME Quadmic - which I use currently. Not bad with high output mics, but shoulda bought an Onyx for that kind of money.

.06,
self.

[Jamstudio]

RME Quadmic - which I use currently. Not bad with high output mics, but shoulda bought an Onyx for that kind of money.

I was not amused about the Quadmic(s) to, boring and liveless

Remco

[mixer]

u.a. 2-610 and a new 1176 both just terrible..

[drundall]

Originally Posted by djwayne

As I've mentioned on the forums before, I did an A/B test between an AKG C-1000 and a 414, as I was seriously considering buying a 414, I was even excited about buying one until the A/B test. I was expecting a huge difference, matched by the difference in price $250 vrs $900, but I didn't hear it. So I passed on the 414....

I know most people on this forum hate the C-1000, but bang for the buck was there on acoustic guitars.

Was the 414 a dud ??? No, the guy who owned it, kept raving about it, and loved it...it sounded okay, but not "great", like I was expecting. Maybe it was just over-hyped, as the C-1000 is over-trashed.

If you thought the 414 sounded the same as a C1000S SOMETHING is broken. Mic, cable, pre, monitors, something.

My vote for my worst purchase. It was stolen from me and I didn't even care...

[Dog_Chao_Chao]

I also like to ofend bad gear! It helps my mood!

Nº1-Behringer Composer Pro_I Still ask myself what did "Pro" stands for in this machine. I could never compress anything there that didn´t came out as a piece of shit.

Nº2- Behringer Monitors - Had them for 3 months. Altought they were pretty cheap and not the worst thing in the world, they sounded like cheap plastic. Trade them by Adam's

Nº3-Not studio gear but this last one was the worst of all. Very expensive and the shitiest I ever heard...my first synth and e-bay experience_ An Oberheim ob 12. I bought it new for 1500 $ or something plus shipping. I am ashamed of myself for that one. I stood away from ebay for 6 months after that. I can´t even sell it to someone i Know. I would feel bad about it. The worst synth ever made? The worst filters, osc, construction quality, knobs and fx. dfegad oberheim 0b 12

By the way, i own a Tl Audio eq2 ( old version) and don´t think it sucks. I use it many times. Not crappy enough for this thread I think.

[3rd world order]

Originally Posted by username

I can't believe someone hated the 414... maybe you got a dud? not liking it that much I can believe.. but I wouldn't say it was a hateable mic?

the C414 B-ULS is horrible. it's got some kind of phase problem where no matter what source and what pre you use it simply doesn't sound present and coherent. I don't know why.. i hear that Steven Paul fixes them into excellent mics tho.

[3rd world order]

Originally Posted by raccoonsatwork

3. Akai S6000: great sampler, but i never got around to use it, because EXS 24 came out that year (much more practical). Basically i flushed down the toilet about 2 grand by reselling it to a guy on ebay.

i just bought a loaded S6000 in march for $800. I LOVE IT. the whole front panel is a remote you can walk around or sleep on the couch with.. it's got USB so i can drag samples from my OSX desktop onto Ak.sys and they magically appear in the 6000. it's got lightpipe so i can take 8 outs digitally into protools. it's got a pile nice sounding outputs (18).. it's got a pile of filters.. 2 MIDI ins.. 128 voices (i've never even approached the limit yet).. 256MB (again.. i don't think i've ever used more than 64MB for one track yet).. an fx board for delays.. sample portamento actually works.. the programming interface is so simple i can use it in my sleep.. nothing is more than 2 button presses away.. and it sounds great.

the only thing it lacks is a Kurzweil k2000/2500 style synth engine.. but rack k2500s are hella cheap too.

yeah, i know, the first few years were a NIGHTMARE with the OS.. but it hums along beautifully now... and they're a great deal IMO. it's the last of a dying breed of big external rack samplers.

LOVE IT.

[3rd world order]

1) Genelec 1031As - ruined my life for 2 years. they have a HUGE soft spot around the crossover point, right where compressor smack usually is.. the top end is way too processed.. the low end always sounds the same. USELESS. then i got an annoying intermittent crackle in one of mine which the repair guys couldn't find.. months of frustration followed... they finally pissed me off to the point that i ran some 40Hz from a sequential pro one at max volume until it blew. it made a wonderful whistling sound when the amp finally let go. I cheered..

2) mackie 32/8 - can't pass signal in any form without damaging it irreparably

3) ultimate support speaker stands - too light & the ABS plastic tops are murder.. worst sounding speaker stands ever.

4) AKG C414 B-ULS - fits in perfectly with the soft crossover point of the 1031s. useless.

5) powermac 7100/66 - worst midi timing in history

6) lexicon nuverb TDM board - software NEVER worked right ever.

7) Logic Audio - way back when I tried to switch from Studiovision to Logic... I hated the environments.. i hated the 8000 different screens.. i hated the horrible manual.. i hated how much it slowed me down.. it hated my opcode studio 4. never again

8) dbx 1066 - comp/lim/gate, hard knee, soft knee.. no matter how you set it, it just sucks

9) joe meek SC2.2 - i was looking for a cheap replacement for the SC2 i sold when i needed cash. it didn't have the SC2's magic.. in fact I never got one decent sound out of it ever. HORRIBLE. the original SC2 is a thing of beauty on a drum buss BTW.

10) langevin el-op - NOT an LA-3A

11) TT patchbay - don't ask me how many connections I soldered.. used the wrong cable.. shitty connectors.. shitty bays.. dust magnet.. wasted way too much time and money just to cause myself endless headaches... arrrrrgh.

12) dbx TT patchbay - waste of $50.. plastic connectors.. bad solder joints.. how can you screw up a patchbay? dbx did.

13) drawmer 1960 - vintage dark.. you're better off sticking cotton in your ears.. it's about the same sound.

14) rev 2 Prophet-5 - took 3 days to come into tune.. think about tuning 2 floyd roses in series and you'll begin to approach the level of frustration i had. sounded GORGEOUS when it came into tune tho... best synth i've ever heard. unusable 90% of the time. oh, and the knobs only have usable settings between 4-6... who ever set the taper on em should be shot.

15) line 6 echo pro - shitty emulations of popular delays.. great if you want everything to sound like old 80s foggy digital. USELESS.

i'm not bitter.

[3rd world order]

Originally Posted by Dog_Chao_Chao

Nº1-Behringer Composer Pro_I Still ask myself what did "Pro" stands for in this machine. I could never compress anything there that didn´t came out as a piece of shit.

I worked in a studio in Montreal with a guy who LOVED these and the behringer gate. I called it the COMPOSTER and avoided it at all costs.. trying to get him to use my Drawmer DS-201 instead of the gate was a daily battle.

it confuses me to this day.

[djwayne]

Originally Posted by drundall

If you thought the 414 sounded the same as a C1000S SOMETHING is broken. Mic, cable, pre, monitors, something.

As a matter of fact, everything at the time was brand new, nothing broken. The C-1000s thru a Tubessence pre-amp, just sounded "good enough". The 414 worked fine and was also brand new, but the recording we made with it, did not have anything special about it, I just was not impressed with the overall sound, and couldn't hear anything that would cause me to spend the extra $900 to buy it. It was really disappointing because I had the money and wanted to buy it, but after hearing the A/B test, I just kept asking myself, "Why ??" I was really hoping to hear that $1,000 sound, but didn't.

The Marshall MXL V-69ME sounds great to my ears, and was a great buy for $300. So that's what I have today. The Superlux CMH8A, also sounds great to me, and was a great bargain off E-bay. These mics are not for sale, I'm keeping these.

I sold the C-1000S to a guy who wanted to use it for micing hi-hat. I've also heard that some C-1000's sound better than others, particularly the older ones, and mine was one of the first ones made. So maybe there was a production change or something, but it sounded okay to me.

[mixermarkb]

ok, so behringer makes a ton of crap...

but the old 2 channel intelligate, is still my favorite gate, and i'll take it over the DS-201 any day. Faster opening, with no clicks... sounds fine.

I dunno, I kept em when I sold my PA gear, and still patch them in when I need to fix a crappy kick.

I promise, I'm not on crack...

Mark Burris

[Dog_Chao_Chao]

I also had the 414 uls problem, and i still have. When i bough my at4047 i was surprised that a much cheaper mic had given me so much more. I also thought my 414 had a problem and took it to the mic doc, but it was just fine. It changes a lot with the pre your using though. When i purchased my sytek i found that the 414 was giving me much more and in a very pleasent way. Still, i plug in a 350$ mic like the 4047 and it gives me more clarity and air. I can´t understand.

[TedF]

Had 3 of those 'black-face' ADats when they were new.... for the time they were amazing; until the transports wore out.
I know what the other Fletcher thinks about them, but they were great for the time and it was the first true digital multitrack that was affordable.... and I did get some good sounds.

Got to agree with so many about the AKG C1000; had a couple when they were introduced and they were awful. But then, I didn't like the C414 either; it always sounded dull. I could go on with the harshness of the C3000 and the 'pudding' sound of the cheaper Neumanns. I tried lots of mics (in the interests of testing mic preamps) and have sold most of them (definitely all of the above!)

I still play with a couple of ribbons hoping to make them sound good some day, but, as a result of a 10 mic blind test at a University, the favourites turned out to be an old AKG C12 (surprise surprise) and a strange little small capsule condenser that I bought on Ebay for £11.50!
(I wish I'd kept my Telefunkens!)
Ted Fletcher

[Johnny B]

What a great thread, it's nice to see people posting their experiences with real junk.

BTW, I can't help but notice that most of the trash people have wasted large sums of money on turned out to shitty digital kit.

Nothing goes obsolete faster than digital kit.

[garymusic]

My #1 worst purchase was a Tascam DM-24 mixer. I had more trouble with that thing. Faders would never seem to behave. I spent more time with the manual than I ever did recording. I have a Yamama 01V96 and it is so much better.

-Gary

[sleepwalker]

Originally Posted by trident fan

emu e synth the keyboard. could it go 10 minutes without crashing ? no

Weird. I loved mine. Don't remember it ever crashing. Loved the filters.

[Baron]

Originally Posted by Alécio Costa

4)Yamaha NS10s: sorry, I know many love them.

Love? That might be a little strong.

I think it's is more like 'The devil you know'

Baron

[ctms777]

1) Yamaha TG500 Synth Module: the first 64-voice synth module, but 64 very mediocre voices. I couldn't eat for a few days when I bought it, because I couldn't really affort it.

2) Korg Oasys PCI: PCI card with the best sounding synths I've ever heard. But the user-interface mostly kept me from playing them. And worse I'm still forced to use Mac OS9 because of it, and yet it sounds too good to dump it.

3) AKG C3000: Somehow I still think I'm going to find a use for it. Something that could use a harsh phasey 2-3k vibe on it.

4) TC native Reverb: All presets sound like my bathroom

[Billster]

Originally Posted by ctms777

4) TC native Reverb: All presets sound like my bathroom

Doesn´t surprise me. I don´t like any of their software effects, tdm included.

A couple of years ago I bought the Spark-software, which was horrible to use and had a lot of bad sounding plugins bundled. It had some nice touches though, like the batch converter, but it was very very sloooowww (even on my 300 Mhz G3 )
Since they discontinued Spark, buying it is worth mentioning in this thread. This piece of software was definately a waste of money

Bill