Worst gear purchase?

[DrFrankencopter]

Okay, so there's quite a few threads about what gear is best...but how about a list of some of the worst gear you'll admit to having purchased. I mean the stuff that you wanted to sell just a few days after you bought it. What were you glad to see go?

Here's my list:

1. Roland SRV-3030 reverb. I bought this thing mail order because Zzounds was blowing them out at a really cheap price (maybe that should've tipped me off). I already had an R-880, SRV2000 and SRV330, so I figured I could expect something similar from the 3030. Nope, it was horrible, the most 'digital' sounding reverb I've heard, add to that the weird interface and you end up with a pretty crappy peice of gear. I used it a couple of times, never could get it to sound any good, even tried it as verb for PA in my rehearsal space, nope, still sucked.

2. MCI JH-10/16....love/hate here. When it worked, it sounded incredible! I think it (really) worked once or twice. What a maintenance nightmare, AC motors for the tape path, manual that doesn't really correspond the the transport, molex connectors and solder joints failing at the worst possible times. The deck was never really stable (flutter/wow), and had a hard time erasing. Also it couldn't hold a cal for very long. It did have lots of iron in the signal path, and could be made to sound quite fat...I'll miss that, but I won't miss the feeling of being afraid that the transport will just go apesh*t and snap my precious tape/tracks when shuttling it around.

I'll add more as I remember them....

Cheers,

Kris

[insomnio]

1. A Korg Digital mixer (don't remember the model; something K?? 8/16, I don't know).

2. Trident S100

3. Hosa cables

4. ADAT XT20 (what a lemon!)

Insomnio

[gainreduction]

Pod

[Musiclab]

TLA EQ-1 "tube" mic pre eq, which was just mediocre. I can't imagine buying that console they made.

[rolandk]

Electronic drum kit. Played like shit, sounded like shit and was the most expensive single piece of gear I owned at the time. Dumped it on ebay and lost $1K. Bah!

dfegad dfegad dfegad dfegad dfegad dfegad MXL 603S "matched" pair. HA. ...haha, hahahaha...

matched pair lol. One mic was about 30 dB louder than the other. And I was such a newbie at the time I just kept jacking up the one channel's input thinking it was just bad mic placement. *shakes head sadly* and I still have them too. i can't bring myself to actually screw someone else over so badly by selling them.

[catfish11]

digitech rp10 effects board,
i cannot believe that digital was even pursued when you listen to some of that first garbage,
though sometimes i still feel the same way

[cl516]

TLA EQ-2 "tube" mic pre eq, which was also just mediocre. I probably will not be buying the console they made.

SPL Vitalizer Jack. Yes I bought it. Yes I sold it.

[Shaman]

When I was younger I bought a lot of gear because of:

* ...being naive and believing in sales ad hypes
* ... I didn´t know true professionals
* ... no forums like this existed

Had to learn it the hard way and sold all that crap

[84K]

Worst?

No problem.

1. Mezzo Tape Back Up Software.

Never worked right. When I got a new machine, they claimed no record of my purchase (even though I registered it) and refused to upgrade me. They told me that they lost their registration list and if I didn't have serial number it was on me. F*^K them. It was $1000 software that never worked, and the never upgraded me, and basically called me a liar when I asked for a new copy (after I had already sold the computer it was in). Sorry for the rant... this should be in the moan zone.

2. Soundelux mics. Never worked on delivery. DOA. 5 times.

[GMR]

Aphex Aural exciter! enough said

[Jules]

2 Akai samplers

I just could not get into them.. or sampling in general..

I am a 'midiot' - total midi dunce

I never used em and sold em... Closest I get to sampling is SoundReplacer or Altiverb..

[EngineEars]

1. My first Ross cassette 4 track. What a piece! (I was better off using my dad's stereo cassette decks and using a Realistic mixer to do sound on sound.)

2. Apple Powerbook 520 running MOTU Performer. (A little to early for stability and portability.)

3. Yamaha ProMix 01 gave me a lot of issues. (Bad A to D's)

4. Akai MPC2000. (Cool grooves and all but I'm not a fan of hearing SMPTE bleed on tracks and the thing would lock up at any moment's notice.)

5. Neumann TLM-103. (Maybe it was my pre at the time, but no thanks!)

[C/G]

Pair of AKG C1000's. I pretty much looked in the mirror and said "sucker". Good thing the music shop took them back on trade towards a pair of Rode NT2's, which I sold soon after. I went from crappy to tinny in no time flat.

[FMNYC]

dbx 386 dual channel pre, to my ears it's as flat as a skunk crossing the highway.

just not a lot of headroom on the thing.

i knew nothing about pre's when i got it so i guess i shouldn't be too hard on myself, at first i thought i had a great pre... blah blah blah, then i got my mindprint dtc and saw the light.

cheers,

FM

FM was filmed inTechnicolor.

[Marlowe]

1) AKG 1000s or whatever it's called. I call it a shit sandwich.
2) Aphex 107 "Tubessence" - "essentially" a bad pre.
3) Alesis 3630 - ain't no good. Replaced by an RNC.... ahhh.

[Confusionator]

Behringer direct box and Behringer 1602 line mixer. In both cases I thought, "how bad could these be?" Well, I learned pretty fast that even a direct box can suck!

No more Behringer for me, regardless of cost. Yuck!

[Jose Mrochek]

Another vote for the C1000.

[The Alamo]

I guess it also depends on when you bought it and what you knew at the time:

on of my first comps were a dbx 166A and a TLA c5021. I consider both of them as lemons now, but at the time I bought them, they served me well.
Nevertheless, after being on a shelf in the machine room for a few years I'm selling them....

Also: Focusrite Voicebox - cool thingie when I bought it, until I figured out it didn't have line inputs...

(Remember) The Alamo

[u b k]

i once walked out of a music store with:

a blackface adat, 2 alesis 3630 compressors, a midiverb 3, and a mackie 1202.

no wonder i fell in love with valium.


gregoire
del ubik

[echorec]

Pod here too.

[djwayne]

Don't worry boys and girls, it's all a bunch of crap, most of you will never be in the Beatles and have those screaming teenage girls chasing after you. That is why your "in the business", right ?? Groupies ????

Gee, if I only had "Blah, Blah Blah" I could be just like my favorite rock star, be rich and famous, wild parties, limo's........groupies......money.....

What a bunch of gold diggers.

All that expensive junk you bought don't mean nothing without a well written song. I've heard some really lousy music, that was so well produced, highly polished, "Blah Blah", but it sucked.....bigtime....on the otherhand, a great song sounds good even if recorded on a cassette machine.

[84K]

The POD as a bad purchase? Really???? It is cheap. Great for people in apartments in the city to rehearse. I find that to be a useful product. What do you want for $250? A 67 Plexi, 59 Bassman, and a bottle of wine?

[echorec]

Originally Posted by 84K

The POD as a bad purchase? Really???? It is cheap. Great for people in apartments in the city to rehearse. I find that to be a useful product. What do you want for $250? A 67 Plexi, 59 Bassman, and a bottle of wine?

I know many people likes it but I felt that it had a bit of latency and that made it totally unusable for me so I sold it right after I bought it (bought it used so I got my money back).

[max cooper]

Triple Rectifier. One sound and one sound only: ARRRRGGGGGGH!!!!!

D112. Traded it for a D12 and got an extra $50!

[Aearth]

Neumann M147.........my cheap Studio Projects T3 poops on it.


Nick

[djwayne]

and another thing...I've gotten plenty of decent recordings off my C-1000 and Tubessence pre-amp, before pre amps were even popular.....and on acoustic guitar, it blew away the 421 that most of you love......I was using the Tubessence while some of you guys were using crayons to to color your coloring books.

The C-1000 thru the Tubessence, vrs the 414, in my sound tests, the differences were so minute, I didn't feel the need to spend the extra bucks for the 414. I didn't hear a thing that would cause me to go out and spend the extra bucks.

Of course you guys realize you're trashing stuff that was designed around 10+ years ago. I'd say that's a little dated. I can go back in time and trash the Kalamazoo Amps, The Kustom Amps, that I had waaaaay back when, but that's what was available at the time. Heck, even the old 6 channel Tapco mixer was an advancement at a certain point in time, and a very desired piece at that.

Comparing a new $1600 Portico to a 10 year old $250 Tubessence....I should hope there's a difference in the new design, and sound.

Yes we should also expect to get a $2,000 Neumann comparabale mic for $199...ya right....

[MadGuitrst]

ADAT - original blackface. Paid $4,000 and sold for $400 and was lucky to get that.

[djwayne]

Yep that $3,500 DA 88 was such a hot item, and I got such a great deal.....
(wasn't that new product of the year or something ??)then when the transport system broke it cost another $500 to fix it.....now it's collecting dust in my private museum of ancient gear, waiting for the day when somebody walks in with a HI-8 tape wanting a transfer. It sits quietly right next to the $1200 Panasonic sv-3700 DAT machine, next to the $900 Tascam CDRW-5000.......and you wonder why I record ITB now ???

[84K]

Originally Posted by echorec

I know many people likes it but I felt that it had a bit of latency and that made it totally unusable for me so I sold it right after I bought it (bought it used so I got my money back).

Hey, anything that you get what you got in it when you sell is a winner in my book... didn't lose anything in the deal... not a bad deal.