inexpensive gear that made you happy?

[woodfoot]

• Yamaha GC2020 Compressor £50 [Great on drums]
• Allen and Heath System 8 £110
• Presonus Central Station and Remote £260

Great thread by the way

[Tom Hakala]

Art Tube MP. Best 39€ I have ever spend.

[maartenl945]

Vox Amplug AC30, $40

[manning1]

my happy list.
reaper and powertraks daw software.
AT headphones.
toneport gx sound device.
(search for my review of it on GS...low latency.
just got as a present. lovin it.)
art mp. (its how you use it/triks used.)
shack pzm's.
shack minimus 7.
old ashley compressor.

too much to list.

[inthere]

Focusrite Saffire LE, very warm sounding and I did a couple of pretty good sounding records on it. Not bad for $230.

[Astrain]

Radial X Amp Reamp

[ribteen]

not sure if it's already been mentioned.....valley people dynamite comp/gate!!!!

[edvdr76]

My DBX 163'S make me happy.

[recordhead]

Alesis XT:c Digital reverb. I've got 4 and 2 I've had for 20 years! Best reverb they ever made. Got the last 2 on ebay for $40 each. thumbsupSure I've got Lexicon to, but for quick reverb on one channel their awesome. (Maybe the're not low end since they sold for around $650 new (20+ Years ago)

Also great cheap pre-amp the old Art MPA's. I have other pre's but the MPA's haven't let me down yet.

John

[miqer]

Sp vtb1 for bass, a winner... wins over my la610 sometimes.

[mrproduzer]

Gotta be the Behringer Edison --

3D processor-- reminds me of the sonic psychoacoustic alchemy performed by my Omnisonic Imager-- makes keys stick out and around a dense mixstike!

[Mark Kaufman]

My '72 Rickenbacker 4001...bought for $150 in 1987...now worth $3000 and rising.

Also props to the Presonus Firebox. For the solo musician, less than $300 gets you in the game as it also includes Cubase LE and a lot of good plug-ins.

[swempa]

ADK S7! Great on Kick!!! Very high SPL

[Beyersound]

1. Roland SDX 330(the one with Dimension D digital emulations!) Kills on vocals and guitar! $250

2. Retro Sampling Vintage Tape Delay - Amazing tape echo plugin, sounds great on everything. Can't believe it's FREE!!!!!

3. Panoramic Microlizer - Same as the Oram MWS mic pre-Eq. Pres sound great, nicer when pushed just a little. Amazing Trident EQ section. $350

4. AT 4033 mic - great vocal mic period, have seen people complain about these, they must have have something else crappy in their chain! $160 w/shockmount

5. Roland DEP-5 Multi effects - like having a full DSP stereo SDE 3000(delay sounds the same!) with the other great reverbs and effects. Bought 2 for less than $50 each!

[nukmusic]

Originally Posted by covert

They were discontinued several years ago, and blown out at around $30 a pop.

33-3032

Very close knockoff of the Sennheiser. Good on higher toms.

got one of those. Its in my mobile bag..used for rough x tracks.

[Mertmo]

Well, most of my studio. There are plenty of things that I think were smart purchases...
But the one piece of gear that makes me HAPPY every time I use it...?

The DBX 163x. I have four of them and I will NEVER part with them. I think they ****ing ROCK!

Honorable mention for my Ashly SC-66A stereo parametric EQ. Instant rock attitude, it just kills on drums every time. Plus it looks great in the rack. ...next to my 163x's...stike
Oh, second honorable mention for my Biamp 1642 mixer. Picked it up for $40. Looks fantastic, sounds fantastic, and is chock full of Jensen transformer based preamps which sound so good it's hard to believe actually.

[EvilE]

Toontrack EZ Drummer (150)

...it's like dfh lite, lots of expansions available , easy to use, sounds good

great for song demos!! i use em to mock up tunes and give to drummers before a session to cut down on rehearsal times.

[John Suitcase]

Picked up a ShureM67 4x1 mixer for $10 on eBay, added 20db pads and direct outs, and it sounds pretty nice! Only used it on a couple drum things so far, but for $10 it's got some flavor.

And moving blankets. Seems like I always come up with another use for them, so I add to my collection! $15 at Lowe's for a pretty nice one the other day...

My GT44 tube mics were a steal at $185 a piece. Use them on EVERY session, bar none.

[vincentvangogo]

Jim Dunlop .88mm plectrum, great on bass and guitar

[Lasermonkey]

MXR dual 15 band eq (£38)
Drawmer DS201 (£16, one channel not working. 20 minutes with a soldering iron later, one perfectly good dual gate!)
Lexicon Alex (£10 "making funny noises". Swapped out all the DRAM chips. Job's a good 'un.)
Roland SRV330 (£75)
Symetrix 425 (£36)
'74 Precision (£135 in '85)
Kelsey Acoustics quad gate (£26)
Lexicon LXP-1 (£48)
Roland Sh-09 (£99)
Yamaha CS-60 (£149)
Ursa Major Stargate 323 (£165, sounds beautiful)

[@¶,*ƒƒƒ&™]

Behringer ADA8000. Infinitely useful. A must-have for a small studio at $199.

[skiltrip]

Tapco Mix.260FX for $189.

I use it for a master volume control to my monitors mostly, but patch my synths into it. And if I need 4 extra preamps with direct outs I got 'em. I'd say the preamps sound no worse than my Presonus TubePre. Take that for what it's worth, but for less than $200 you get a lot with this beast. Sounds real clean and EQ is nice too.

[1954U1]

crown pzm 6-d.
Paid the equivalent of 200$ 10 years ago.
Incredible sound when attached on the "body" [more specifically, on soundboard's wood on the left, 30 cm from the intersection of the 2 series of strings] of an upright piano.