Gear to NOT Buy

[rumleymusic]

....Basically, you need an original U47 going into an original Neve 1073, to an original Teletronix LA2A, to Studer 2" tape and Regina Spektor singing In a $100,000 professionally treated room.

Pfft... all that stuff sucks...sell it all and get a ULN8.

[hywyn]

Originally Posted by rumleymusic

Pfft... all that stuff sucks...sell it all and get a ULN8.

Yeah!.. a Metric Halo man (or were you being ironic?).

I'm lost in this thread so I spun my own:
Rip-off gear (with alternative suggestion,...perhaps)

Is it bad taste to advertise your own threads?

[rumleymusic]

Originally Posted by hywyn

Yeah!.. a Metric Halo man (or were you being ironic?).

A little of both I guess.

[sweetmojo]

Anything made by companies whose owners/designers are obnoxious, rude a-h&#@s.

[hywyn]

Originally Posted by rumleymusic

A little of both I guess.

Thought so

[BFSound]

Originally Posted by DannyL

I find that DBX products, like just about everything else, have a place.

I see a LOT of DBX products esp. 1066, 160a, 1046 and so forth, on TV trucks. The stuff works, it's simple to set up and is adequate for many applications. It also lasts a long time.

The older products: the old 160's have a certain panache, though I don't like them, and the 165 was pretty cool for a lot of things.

That being said, I really believe that the upper end of the modern dynamics range, the 160SL and the 162SL are incredibly overpriced and the 386 mic pre was remarkably grainy. The 160SL was an awful bus compressor, but seemed to be okay on channel inserts, The 386 worked ok on a Korg that we wanted to sound like a Hammond.

Perhaps this should lead us to consider that equipment choice is personal, and before making purchases a certain amount of research is in order. Audition before buying.

But, I repeat, nothing is as useless as an AT 815 or 835 shotgun.

Danny

Yup thats what i have basically concluded on, it all comes down to personal choice, budget, doing research and testing to gear first hand. Everything has a place. I love our DBX gear

[Subversounds]

DO NOT BUY THIS:

115.000 euros for a Vinyl player.

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/aud...-587168/review


With 115.000 you can call the band you are trying to listen and let them play in your living room. Waste of money.

[hywyn]

Originally Posted by littledoodler

I used to have a set of ddrum. They feel pretty good, but I couldn't play them whenever i wanted to (i live in an aprartment) because the pads are too noisy. The cymbal pads are whacked, i thought some of the sounds were alright, but they still don't compare to the expressiveness, feel and sensitivity of real drums (not even close).

Check out the demos from this bunch:
join the group buy for The Ultimate Studio Drums Group Buy. (download) (Group Buy) ()
(no affiliation)
The gearslutz thread for the group buy is here:
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music...y-esoundz.html

[alexstobbe]

Originally Posted by rumleymusic

I don't know about Maxtor, but I am done with any typical external HD's. Recently I plugged my Acomdata drive into the wrong power adapter and destroyed it, lost all the information including some crucial recordings I did not have a full backup of (for other coincidental reasons). Imagine having to go to the client and asking them for a copy of the RAW disk you gave them, very embarrassing. I know, I'm stupid. Especially since this is THE SECOND TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED! Recovery companies really screw you and charge a fortune.

I am thinking of switching to the rack mount glyph drives with the standard AC power chord.

Do you still have the drive?
If it fried from a power surge, chances are only the circuit board on the harddrive is fried. The platters and info will be fine. If you can find another harddrive of the exact same model and as close to the same serial number as possible, buy it and swap the circuit board. Super easy to do and it's worked for me several times.

[alexstobbe]

Originally Posted by hazelmossobrien

I think you're having new member Gearslutz shock syndrome.

People hate on everything around here. Keep in mind when reading that its all relative. If you're doing live gigs DBX gear is great. If you're recording at home in you're untreated basement DBX gear is great. If you have a million dollar studio and Pultec EQ's to compare the DBX with, well, then it's trash.

Don't read too far into the gear bashing on here.

According to gearslutz:

Neumann U87ai - It sucks. I mean, dude, it's completely unusable.
Focusrite - All of it, that Rupert Neve didn't personally fart on , sucks.
BLUE - It sucks. Yea all of it. (except maybe the bottle for a room mic )
Neve Portico - It sucks. (u'll quickly learn that Neve sucks now, duh!)
Universal Audio 610 preamps - Eww, so muddy. It sucks.
Avalon - Pssh, don't they sell Avalon at Guitar Center? ...well then it sucks.
AKG C414 - It sucks almost as bad as the Neumann TLM 103, almost.
Digi converters - They suck. It's Not even worth recording with them.

etc etc etc...


Hononrable mentions :

Sennheiser - We like Sennheiser mics! but dude, we hate Neumann. Don't you know they're owned by Sennheiser? Sennheiser! *yuck*
Adam A7 - I love them, they suck, I love them, and they suck.
AKG C1000 - We all own a pair (yes, including me) strictly so we can come to GS and bitch about them.


....Basically, you need an original U47 going into an original Neve 1073, to an original Teletronix LA2A, to Studer 2" tape and Regina Spektor singing In a $100,000 professionally treated room. Only then, shortly before bankruptcy, will your gear be acceptable.

Great post! lol

[mixedupsteve]

Originally Posted by Subversounds

DO NOT BUY THIS:

115.000 euros for a Vinyl player.

Continuum Caliburn review from TechRadar UK's expert reviews of Turntables


With 115.000 you can call the band you are trying to listen and let them play in your living room. Waste of money.

Total Crap!! save a few more dollars and buy this.

[James Lehmann]

Lots of good tips here for the guy who was planning to make a recording using only the most maligned gear on Gearslutz.

So that's basically a rig consisting entirely of TLM103s, KM184s, C3000s, C1000s, Rode NT1s, NT5s, BabyBottles, all connected by Monster cable to Behringer pre-amps and Soundblaster A-D, mixed ITB in [insert hated DAW of the month] using only stock plug-ins with mastering compression from an Alesis 3630 and limiting with Waves L1, monitoring on Mackies in a perfectly symmetrical, untreated room.

Who will step up to the plate and make such a record?

[rumleymusic]

Who will step up to the plate and make such a record?

That sounds pretty close to my first setup...hmm.

[OldTimey1]

Originally Posted by Jules

Hardware samplers...

say what? MPC's rule for live performance.

[OldTimey1]

Originally Posted by James Lehmann

Lots of good tips here for the guy who was planning to make a recording using only the most maligned gear on Gearslutz.

So that's basically a rig consisting entirely of TLM103s, KM184s, C3000s, C1000s, Rode NT1s, NT5s, BabyBottles, all connected by Monster cable to Behringer pre-amps and Soundblaster A-D, mixed ITB in [insert hated DAW of the month] using only stock plug-ins with mastering compression from an Alesis 3630 and limiting with Waves L1, monitoring on Mackies in a perfectly symmetrical, untreated room.

Who will step up to the plate and make such a record?

ill gladly step up to the challenge.

all that gear>no gear at all

[audiothings]

i wouldn't diss the really cheap gear as its the only way that financially challenged people can make music. many of the greatest musicians over history have done their most creative works with low end (in every way) gear...

however, i'd say that the RME Quadmic provided me with very little value for the money i spent on it... should have got the onyx board with the four pres, much better value.

the SE Z5600 mic i had here was spitty as hell, might have been a one off... coz' its got all kinds of people singing its praises.

my behringer rack mount headphone distribution unit died very quickly... tho' the even cheaper 1x4 headphone box has been working for over a couple of years.

i think many of the rompler keyboards sound like ass on most stuff.

.02,

[mcolquitt]

I hate to have my first post go against so many of you, however my experience with M-Audio has been excellent. I bought a FW-410 in 2003 and still have it as my main home recording card. It has NEVER caused me any grief and the ASIO drivers are always stable and consistently produce low latency. (3.8 to peak of 5.8).
Not to minimize others problems with M-audio I just wanted to offer an alternate experience. Now back to your regularly scheduled "Don't buy this gear extravaganza"...

[bishopthomas]

Originally Posted by audiothings

however, i'd say that the RME Quadmic provided me with very little value for the money i spent on it... should have got the onyx board with the four pres, much better value.

That's too bad. I had a Quadmic and loved it. I could run it off a 12 volt battery for when power wasn't available. Try doing that with a Mackie console...

[dlmorley]

Originally Posted by mcolquitt

I hate to have my first post go against so many of you, however my experience with M-Audio has been excellent. I bought a FW-410 in 2003 and still have it as my main home recording card. It has NEVER caused me any grief and the ASIO drivers are always stable and consistently produce low latency. (3.8 to peak of 5.8).
Not to minimize others problems with M-audio I just wanted to offer an alternate experience. Now back to your regularly scheduled "Don't buy this gear extravaganza"...

My M-Audio Profire has been very solid since the day I got it installed.
Also, when I run M-Powered it let's e use my SSL converters (well 18ch of them)
credit where credit is due thumbsup

[Subversounds]

Originally Posted by mixedupsteve

Total Crap!! save a few more dollars and buy this.

Actually 115.000 euros are more then 150.000 dollars.

But we are both wrong, the first turntable was 115.000 British pounds... or almost 180.000 dollars for a turntable.

Both amazing deals.

[Subversounds]

Originally Posted by mcolquitt

I hate to have my first post go against so many of you, however my experience with M-Audio has been excellent. I bought a FW-410 in 2003 and still have it as my main home recording card. It has NEVER caused me any grief and the ASIO drivers are always stable and consistently produce low latency. (3.8 to peak of 5.8).
Not to minimize others problems with M-audio I just wanted to offer an alternate experience. Now back to your regularly scheduled "Don't buy this gear extravaganza"...

My M-audio ozone broke in a week. As authorized repair was in another state i had to pay shipping. Never worked in Vista. 4 years to M-audio put a driver online... not a good experience.

[keylay]

drumcore

[mixedupsteve]

I've been thinking and the truth is that I would buy anything. I bought a Lomo mic on ebay once that even said it didn't work. I got it to work but it sounds like an old telephone. I'll use it one day.

[sprawl]

Windows PC

worst thing to buy.

unless you consider reconfiguring drivers and installing system software more fun than making music...

cheers

[rumleymusic]

Windows PC

worst thing to buy.

unless you consider reconfiguring drivers and installing system software more fun than making music...

cheers

Oh blah, blah, blah. dfegadMAC.




PS I secretly want a MAC, don't tell, major firewire driver, audio dropout issues on Windows 7...

[warhead]

How come the last 4 Windows XP computers I've owned never had a single issue...?

War

[JonesH]

Originally Posted by warhead

How come the last 4 Windows XP computers I've owned never had a single issue...?

You're good?

[l.sicilian]

Originally Posted by littledoodler

Electronic drums-v-drums, ddrums, all that shit... far, far away from even coming close.

+ 1 MILLION thumbsup

[Trancetones]

Originally Posted by Paul Weber

Crate guitar comboz
Hughes & Kettner guitar "stacks"
Behringer (made in China stuff, the older German stuff still worked)
Jaz drives
ART multiFX
Roland mixers
...

Great idea to post the "gear to avoid at any cost".
After all money saved is money made...

Cheers,

Paul

Disagree on the Crate, an V1512 is a fantastic recording amp for rock.

[scoots]

dont buy or bid on any used king capitol punishment utopia or sleepdrone synths... cuz i wanna get em cheeeep...