I was one of many people who grabbed one of those MC-303's
for $399 when they first came out, must have been 1997. It's actually not bad for what it is and I don't think I'm the only one who sampled all the drum sounds before selling it. I remember there was a ton of them in the Recycler (classifieds) shortly after they came out.

They are usable for close micing applications, sometimes they are actually really good. Mostly I use them for mellow instruments when I want to brighten them, like nylon stringed guitar and such. But for OH´s or distant micing there are better alternatives.

Stand alone MTR's. Mine only had 4 inputs . Waste of money, I would have highly preferred a Firepod, and it was the same price too!

Digidesign Samplecell II PCI card. Support literally was discontinued within 3 months with no real option from Digi to replace it. :/

By far the worst piece of junk I've had is a TC Electronic Konnekt live. At the end of the day I'm the kind of guy that will find some use for any given piece of gear, but oh boy! with the Konnekt I wasted like 500 bucks on a metal box now sitting in my desk. Drivers are ridiculously bad, and support is even worse.

geez, i dunno. as the old saying goes, "it keeps cold things cold...it keeps hot things hot. i mean, how do it know?"

george

[QUOTE=84K;360405]Worst?

No problem.

1. Mezzo Tape Back Up Software.

AMEN! I could not agree more. Crap product. Crap support.

1. Aphex aural exciter with big bottom ( no big bottom, just bright and noise )
died after some months

2. Aphex 4 channel gate ( not the best gate, OK to trigger drums ) died after two months. Never get the Aphex cheap line !!!!

3. Hosa cables ( crap of all cables ) never lose time and money like that in my life

4. Tascam DA302 dat recorder sounds OK when it`s work, but most of the time error,error,error,error, tape get stucked frustration,frustration... i take the unit to service, and the same problem start all over again two weeks after. I was happy when i sold the **** to some one ho need some parts from it.

5. AKG C1000, a friend of my give it to me for free, after some minutes with the mike i understand why( bright and harsh ) i give it further to some one else.Get the Røde M3 ( cheaper and better ! )

Hm. I have one hooked up to my RME 9652 and it works great.
Decent sound for a relativerly inexpensive box, too.
ADAT I fitted worked perfectly fist time and every time since.
What went wrong with yours?

Sony STR-K685 this amplifier is so transparent that all of my DVD's ( Originals & Leg ) sound so lossy, like mp3. I have had many of my relatives bring their own favorite sound & song to test & listen, all of them agreed that this amplifier makes all their stuff sound so lossy.

My purchase of the AKAI MPD26. It wasn't really that bad, I just found that I didn't want a 2nd midi controller to my home studio. I like keeping things simple in an all-in-one keyboard.

Plus, the drum pads aren't as sensitive as they claim. Even at the highest pressure sensitivity, you still had to pound on them.

May sell it in the future, but I dont know.

I sooooooooooooo feel your pain, brother!


-Lexicon Core 2 PCI system - actually the converters (dbx with some sort of tape emulation/soft limit) were GOOD for the time, but it was a nightmare to setup, prone to freezing up, expensive, and NEVER updated as Windows went up...
Indeed, them bastards drop products and don't do new drivers or answer support emails - and I hear they've done it again and again.
Tsk tsk tsk

-AKG C1000 - shrill, rough, unpleasant.

-Digitech DSP 256 - worst late 80s/ealry 90s digital reverb/multieffect (an Alesis Quadraverb would crap all over it while running rings and doing cartwheels), prone to clipping, to "internal numeric overflow" (wtf??), hissy, awful modulation FX - but it did have a nice little fancy numeric keypad/remote control (wired, not IR)

-Focusrite VoiceMasterPro Platinum - lots of lights, lots of treble, lots of marketing bull. One happy seller when I got rid of it.

-Genelec 1030 - so nice sounding, so hifi sounding, so very useless to mix onto (and way to small & power lacking to "fill a room", really just close up nearfield), so audible box size and cabinet resonance frequency.


On the "almost worst...but not really" purchase, I'd add:

-the Aphex 105 gates (love the way they sound and work when they work, but I had to buy 3 units - one had a faulty wall wart PSU that killed it, one had creaky pots and intermittent signal on channel 1, but I kept the PSU as a backup for finally working unit nr3..oof)

-the Focusrite Mixmaster Platinum (had it, have it, use it, even have 2 units, 1 for live 1 for studio use...it's an AMAZING sounding unit that of course they stopped making - but the optional digital A2D card, that actually also sounded good waaay beyond its price, overheated, crapped out and died - and they NEVER answered emails, and the now available A2D card for the other Platinum series units is not the same...doesn't fit size/connector wise, and hasn't got the AES/EBU output and switchable 16/24 bit capability that mine had, much more similar to the Blue series card!)

anything sold with the tagline "tubessence". also, Joe Meek VC1. i bought it after the weight of the new models went from 13 pounds to 6. hey, where's my transformer? heh

ADATS! GO TO HELL!

GIVE ME BACK THE HOURS I SPENT WAITING FOR THE THIRD MACHINE TO LOCK UP!!

1. Hosa cables (NEVER buy this brand is my sage advice to all)
2. Primacoustic Voxguard (crap mic connection, poorly made)
3. M-Audio Ozonic (inconsistent performance, noisy as hell)
4. Joe Meek VC1 (simply a POS!)

I regret getting a 2009 Macbook Pro for mobile recording since the cheaper firewire chip in it (not Texas Instruments) is not compatible with some Firewire interfaces. Bought an RME Fireface UC (USB 2.0) in order to record on it without crashes. In this case I should have gone with a PC laptop that had a TI Firewire chip, Windows 7, and record with Samplitude. Would have been less expensive and more stable with firewire interfaces.

Band in a Box

Worst purchase was probably my first computer for music (or so I thought it would be) back in '96. I was completely green and didn't know what I was getting into, but the Ensoniq Soundscape VIVO soundcard couldn't generate a MIDI IN signal - all I wanted to do to start was transcribe some stuff into Finale or Home Studio (the precursor to SONAR). After countless hours on the phone with tech support ("You want to hook your synthesizer to a COMPUTER?!?!?"), I gave up and it became in internet machine. I went back to standalone recorders, etc until about 2005.

I blame much of my own ignorance at the time, but that soundcard was trash.

From 1974 to probably about 4 years ago, I was a big Tascam/Teac fan. I had a lot of their tape decks and equipment personally, and probably installed 10x the inventory in radio stations. But recently I'm really despising them.

I sent in two machines, on two separate occasions, and they were both returned damaged, or missing parts. I know "stuff" happens, but repeated calls and letters to Montebello have gone unanswered. When someone dodges calls and letters, I question their integrity.

beta 58a

dfegadJBL LSR 4326P, worst sounding monitors out there!

I wasted $75 on this POS. The dfegadRolanddfegadD-110dfegaddfegaddfegad
Ah, much better...Yeah, I'm mad at myself for wasting my time/money on this non-working junk. The manual is crap, I could only get a "gong" sound from it, and the damn thing wanted some hard to find memory card just to do some basic functions. The card was going to set me back $80, and when I tried to sell it back, the merchant refused! I left it at their doorstep and walked away.......

A TRS Patchbay!

I replaced it with a TT

Anything I've ever purchased that says Behringer on it.

Even though I know better, every once in a while I've picked something up and thought...well, for that price how bad can it be? I've regretted each one, and eventually learned my lesson.

i love how often Behringer shows up in this thread... guess they have their market though.... for me

1. pro-tools
2. waves

Biggest heap of voodoo encrusted bag of cow dung ever. Class actions should have abounded. Utter garbage.

I know that feeling. Even after getting a gate and a crossover from Behringer I still did'nt learn anything. So I also got a power amp and a headphone amp somewhere in the basement from Behringer.

Yamaha TG77 (with a bad display), Korg 03wr (with no sounds) and a noise machine called Yamaha 01v for my live-rig is also on my list

MW

Blackface La-4's. Don't know what they are good for anymore, but I still have them.
I'm waiting for them to catch up to the 1176's! ha!

It's interesting how some common names show up.

What I also find interesting is how some of the good companies of the 70s and 80s, are now some of the worse to deal with. It almost seems like the larger they are, the worse their service.

In the case of my problem with Tascam/Teac, I left telephone messages to the service manager, no calls returned. Wrote to him, and the company manager at Montebello, no reply. Letter to President of Tascam in Japan, and they didn't even dignify a reply. Even a certified letter to them this past month, no reply.

I can remember in the 70s, they were tops in making sure the product was serviced right, and even called several weeks after it was returned to check to make sure everything was good. Now, I feel completely screwed over by them.

One has to wonder what happened? What changed? Why did they go to the dark side? As a friend of mine would say, "They have no soul, no honor, and I wish them them best with their father down below." heh

akai s20,

and dont get me wrong I love my akais! I have the s950, s2000, s1100 and used to have an s3000XL.

but I hated the s20!