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Spending thousands on gear do you need to?

Is it better to spend thousands on gear hard/soft to sound professional. (like Paul Oakenfold,Tiesto,John Digweed,and Bruno magli just to name a few)

or is it more wise to just use the euquipment you have to its full potential to sound professional but have your own sound-and be yourself -uniuqe.


Newtrancer

Software is the way to start imo. Pros have made stuff using software exclusively. Mylo made his album using Reason and Logic (the programs...coincidently he does have a philosophy degree) and was a hit.

Gradually buy new gear as you need them. If you start out buying loads of gear you dont know how to use, aint gonna get you anywhere.

Oakenfold, Tiesto etc.. they sound pro, because they are proffesionals, its not because they have the fancy gear, but they know how to use the gear they have. Which is in this case, alot of fancy stuff.

I think that if you are going to spend on anything, invest in a good audio interface and good monitors at the very least. I just upgraded from a $250 audio interface to a $1,500 audio interface and the improvement in sound quality is outstanding.

quote:

Originally posted by Subtle Gradually buy new gear as you need them. If you start out buying loads of gear you dont know how to use, aint gonna get you anywhere. Oakenfold, Tiesto etc.. they sound pro, because they are proffesionals, its not because they have the fancy gear, but they know how to use the gear they have. Which is in this case, alot of fancy stuff.

Agreed. I started with a select few things - Reason, Ableton, Motif ES. Too much more and it was way too much to learn at once. So, start with a few things, learn how to use them to their potential, and upgrade when you feel you've gotten a majority out of each product. With just a few things you can go a long way!

All more gear does is give you more options i.e. access to a range of sounds, more routing options etc.

So long as you have good quality basics then you are good to go.

Good setup - like large enough desk, good chair to sit on etc
Studio monitors
Good PC
decent sound card

Then after working on some tunes go into a pro studio who do they style of music you like and work on a tune alongside a good engineer and LEARN from them.

quote:

Spending thousands on gear do you need to?

Yes, you need to.

Re: Spending thousands on gear do you need to?

quote:

Originally posted by newtrancer Is it better to spend thousands on gear hard/soft to sound professional.

Sounding professional has nothing to do with what gear you have and how expensive it is.

Even if you had a million dollar studio it by no means will give you a proper professional sound if you don't know what the hell to do with it.

It also really doesn't matter what software you use for producing, it matters how you use it and to what extent/potential.

If you can afford a 300,000$ studio with 4,000$ guitars and synthesizers and custom sonic/sound acoustics and consoles then go buy it. But don't cry when you realize you've just paid for something you have no idea how to setup or use.

I say start up small, start with something like FL Studio or Cubase and use that for the time being and after a couple years when you have some skill and knowledge and you can acquire a somewhat professional sound then spend money slowly on some hardware.

There are some AMAZING FREE vst's and synthesizer software out there for no cost at all that in my opinion perform better than the ones you'd have to pay 400$ for.

quote:

Originally posted by Eric J I think that if you are going to spend on anything, invest in a good audio interface and good monitors at the very least. I just upgraded from a $250 audio interface to a $1,500 audio interface and the improvement in sound quality is outstanding.

how does having a better sound card improve your sound quality ? I mean i'm assuming you are talking about the actual mixing process which would be done internally thus in 1 and 0s . Are you talking about the small advantage of having a cleaner signal going to the monitors ?

i think these things are extremely negligeble and should only matter to a seasoned professional working in a very commercial setting. There is a difference between what is right for someone starting to make EDm and someone making a an actual living doing production.

quote:

Originally posted by RichieV how does having a better sound card improve your sound quality ? I mean i'm assuming you are talking about the actual mixing process which would be done internally thus in 1 and 0s . Are you talking about the small advantage of having a cleaner signal going to the monitors ? i think these things are extremely negligeble and should only matter to a seasoned professional working in a very commercial setting. There is a difference between what is right for someone starting to make EDm and someone making a an actual living doing production.

All I was saying was that everything sounds better through a $1,500 audio interface vs. a $250 interface. Maybe I misspoke when I said it improves your sound "quality". I was just saying that things sound better through the more expensive interface. That is most likely due to better AD/DA converters for my hardware gear and higher quality circuitry for things coming out of my computer (VST's, etc.). Hearing your productions through a good set of monitors is better than through consumer grade speakers. Hearing your productions through a quality interface is better than an internal computer soundcard.

You're right that it shouldn't matter to a beginner, but once you decide to invest in this, then I think your first purchases should be those two things.

That's all I was saying and it's just my opinion, many other prople may disagree, but that's been my experience so far.

you do agree that your sound card will not colour the actual mix process because that process is entired digital. Wether it happens on an inboard soundcard or the most expensive sound card available.

The recording of external synths , well sure , i agree with you there but i get the impression the person asking this question doesn't have any .

yes it colours the mix, not internally, but as soon as the digital audio is converted to an analog signal it is...

The diefferance using a high quality conversion with good monitors is a night and day when comes to the recording/mixing stage. I remember my m-audio interface with alesis M1's. It sure beat the consumer grade stuff, but when I upgraded to rme soundcard and Apogee Converters along with Dynaudio Bm6a's monitors and some high quality cables ( plus room was treated).. It was night and day to me. You could hear small eq adjustments that before just were not audiable, reverb tails sounded better. The dieferance was very big, But you need the whole package. Having a lower grade converters will sound fine when used with expensive monitoring, but if you get the whole combo - monitors, converters, cables, acoustic treatment, that's when the benefit comes, and has the biggest impact in your productions. This is something one has to experiance for them self to understand. I record a lot of external synths, and quality conversion was very important to me. If you are working on soft synth only and don't record any external sources having a quality DAc is a nice bonus as well. I prefare hardware synths to vsti's but ohh man, I am not gonna lie... Some of the soft synths, when I play them thrue my setup put some of the hardware synths to shame..

the word that sticks out to me is


" need "

you don't need it.
You don't need a fancy soundcard to make professional sounding EDM

quote:

Originally posted by RichieV the word that sticks out to me is " need " you don't need it. You don't need a fancy soundcard to make professional sounding EDM

Yeah, You don't need it, but it's much nicer experiance on better quality hardware... You can make quality tunes on your Sound blaster or the build in soundcard. You will get some ocassional problems here and there, you might run into some limitations, but there are certainly workarounds for stuff like that..

quote:

Originally posted by RichieV you do agree that your sound card will not colour the actual mix process because that process is entired digital. Wether it happens on an inboard soundcard or the most expensive sound card available. The recording of external synths , well sure , i agree with you there but i get the impression the person asking this question doesn't have any .

I will agree that is true. It's all 1's and 0's at the end of the day. It is also true that a major reason I bought my audio interface was because of the need for multiple IN/OUT's, which a beginner will not need.

a lot of these guys started out when making music pc only was not a very viable option. And once you're accustomed to a certain way of working, you like to stick with it usually. Quality of the music is not dependent on whether it's made on hard or soft.

quote:

Originally posted by Eric J I think that if you are going to spend on anything, invest in a good audio interface and good monitors at the very least. I just upgraded from a $250 audio interface to a $1,500 audio interface and the improvement in sound quality is outstanding.

if that is true, that you actually heard a considerable difference, your old interface was seriously faulty...

quote:

Originally posted by Low Profile if that is true, that you actually heard a considerable difference, your old interface was seriously faulty...

I disagree. There is a reason why certain brands/types of cards are very expensive.

I started with onboard and it just had too many limitations. There were sometiems i coudlan't hear certain instruments and vocals that i could hear clearly on a creative soundcard.

The creative soundblaster showed me the missed instruments and vocals i coudlan't hear on the onboard sound.
I got better sound quality with the creative soundblaster and even bought creative speakers 5.1 surrond.

When i made music and played it on the home stereo or car CD player i heard noises i never noticed before on the pc before.

I worked out that you needed monitors to hear these freqnecies that dida't show up on the creative speakers.
The speakers to me where hideing these freqnecies and if i hadan't of noticed the mistake's?

So i bought a better soundcard and some monitors and loaded the same tuens up and the freqnecies that didn't show up on the creative speakers showwed up like a sore thumb on the monitors.

Having better equipment allows you to hear how your mix really sounds and it wont be lieing to you like your old eqipment does.
You will be able to ajust the mix so it sounds better and tighter for a label to listen too.

A better sound card will be able to handle a lot more synths without the dreaded underruns .

I'm able to make music and betetr quality music due to my upgraded system, i woudlan't go back to onboard soudn again.
If your a newbie starting out and your serious about music? then invest in some betetr equipment.
If it's just for fun then bounce your wav's to hard drive etc.

all you need is a half decent soundcard, a reasonably powerful pc and soft synths. It's the knowledge of how to use the kit that will give u a professional sound but even then a professional sound can be shit if it has no groove to it so you gotta learn your music and learn how to engineer.

I pretty much agree with you guys that its not about spending thousands or hundreds on gear! Its more or so spending more time learning your gear ,knowing your synths inside and out and teaching and trying new tricks on your synth and not to for get music theory
thats important too .Knowing your synth is one thing but you have to have some theory to go with and branch off into your own style ,theory should not be considered rules or guidelines,or blueprints ...they are merely giving you all the musical options at your arsenal ,so your stuff grooves along and has that professional sound.

For me Tiesto,Oakenfold ,Rank1 and even some no name artist's and bands online I merely use for inspiration ,i dont want to copy them or have there sound ,ultimately i just want to have my own professional sound like some of these bands.

also a side note ,music is a progression in learning ,for example
someone who sounds professional now maybe 5 ten years ago obviously sounded like a begignner ,so in time we all progress musically in different ways.

I also dont think you can call artists or bands better than one another

(for example ,take rock for a minute

you have the beatles,the stones,jimmy hendrix,and Zepplin

now youd say they were all profesional ,you would not say one was better than the other because they each have there own style.)

i mean we all have our own style and we all progress in different ways,so eventually we will all be professional.

quote:

Originally posted by DJDIRTY quote: Originally posted by DJDIRTY The diefferance using a high quality conversion with good monitors is a night and day when comes to the recording/mixing stage. I remember my m-audio interface with alesis M1's. It sure beat the consumer grade stuff, but when I upgraded to rme soundcard and Apogee Converters along with Dynaudio Bm6a's monitors and some high quality cables ( plus room was treated).. It was night and day to me. You could hear small eq adjustments that before just were not audiable, reverb tails sounded better. The dieferance was very big, But you need the whole package. Having a lower grade converters will sound fine when used with expensive monitoring, but if you get the whole combo - monitors, converters, cables, acoustic treatment, that's when the benefit comes, and has the biggest impact in your productions. This is something one has to experiance for them self to understand. I record a lot of external synths, and quality conversion was very important to me. If you are working on soft synth only and don't record any external sources having a quality DAc is a nice bonus as well. I prefare hardware synths to vsti's but ohh man, I am not gonna lie... Some of the soft synths, when I play them thrue my setup put some of the hardware synths to shame..

DONT FORGET TO USE THE KNOBS WHEN PROGRAMMING THEm.

I see a lot more people with mediocre setups signed to major labels than I do gear whores. I'm sure most here can agree on that.

Food for thought.

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