How much to invest in your set up.

[legend4ry]

So, speaking on here a lot and seeing threads, people seem to be in this weird seat of not wanting to spend money on software they can get for free which is a completely different topic. What I want to discuss is how much to invest in your gear and computer?


It just so happens that I am in the market for a new PC, mine isn't exactly slow or dated but with myself streaming more and more I want to take the next step and buy top end rather than solid mid-end.

Heres my basket, basing off one of scan.co.uk's pre built systems designed for audio production. I need new monitors (mine blew so have been headphone bound a bit) and I need a new soundcard (saffire 6 is so shitty..)



Fractal Design Define R4 - Case Dimension 232 x 523 x 464 (WxHxD mm) [Fractal Design Define R4 Black Pearl ]
£71.76

Asus Z97-PRO Wi-Fi ac
£149.96

Intel Core i7 4790K, Haswell Refresh, Quad Core with Hyperthreading, 4GHz, 4.4GHz Turbo, 8MB Cache [Overclocked - CPU professionally overclocked up to 4.4GHz.]
£259.88

8GB Corsair LP 1600MHz
£70.56

750W EVGA SuperNOVA G2 - Full Modular
£88.50

Thermalright Macho
£35.98

4GB MSI GTX 970 Twin Frozr - Active gaming card that runs passively when under 50 degrees (not intrusive in desktop / sequencer use). Ideal for users who require more performance with the minimum of increased noise levels.
£289.16

240GB+ Solid State Drives [250GB Samsung 840 EVO - 540MB/s Read, 520MB/s Write, 97K IOPS]
£95.81

MOTU UltraLite Mk3 Hybrid Firewire & USB Audio Interface
£399.00

Universal Audio UAD-2 Solo Core
£229.00

2 X Adam A5X - 5" Active Studio Monitor
£516.00


Total : £2410.75 (inc VAT)







So lets take my upgrade out of the situation and lets say I am a new producer who is taking the first step into making it a full time hobby by future proofing themselves by buying a top end PC and keeping in mind we're going for a definitive computer music set up to last upwards of 5+ years.

Lets factor in a midi keyboard & headphones.

Akai MPK49 USB-Midi Controller Keyboard
£275.00

AKG K702 Open Back Headphones
£215.00


Total : £2900.75 (inc VAT)

Lets round that up to 3,000 including cables, maybe a keyboard stand and some budget monitor stands.


My question for you, Production - a place with people from various backgrounds and earnings and lets remember this is all from one place and not having deals and specials in mind.

Do you think 3,000whateveryourmoneyis is a worthwhile investment to your hobby? Yes/No, why?

[_Agu_]

Macbook Pro - 1100€

Reason 7 - Can't remember probably around 300€

and Few REs - 100€

AKG 240 MKIIs - 125€

I don't count in my monitors because I so rarely use them due to really shitty room acoustics. That's pretty much it.

Do you think 3,000whateveryourmoneyis is a worthwhile investment to your hobby? Yes/No, why?

I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be. I mean let's say 3000€ (I live in Finland) / 52 (weeks in a year) = 57,69€ in a week, That's like smoking a pack per day and buying 24 pack of beer every friday. or getting into club, buying 3-5 drinks and getting a cab home. Playing ice hockey in a team can cost over 1000€ in a ONE year. For fuck's sake people use 3000€ to inject silicon into their boobs, or buy newest UltraMegaHDFUCKINGLASERSHARPTHINASTOILETPAPERSamsung70"WidescreenTV and then sell it away for 1/3 of the original price because they realize that it doesn't fit the look of they living room and they don't do shit with it anyways.

[_Agu_]

^So my final opinion is that it's worth it.

[nowaysj]

Really depends on you. That seems to be on the high side, but you've got everything there.

I built a quiet pc for a grand, emu 1616m I think around 300, krk r 5's for 300, mpk 300, pad kontrol like 125 I think. Have been on that setup for 5 years now. Have over time added other things. Some condensors, tube pre, 2 channel orban eq, rnc compressor, maschine - which I don't use (still on xp), sp404. Plus some older gear... And then daw and software.

I think a good base is a good place to start, can add on stuff as you go. I'm at about 2k US to start.

Fuck this hobby term. That is a concept forced onto music making and or art making by the marketplace, and like just about everything out of the marketplace it is shit. If your making music, your making music, that is that, if you are a professional, you are making it for the market, and are not really purely an artist. Professionals denigrate "hobbyists" but it is really misplaced.

2 or 3 k in our respective currencies to make art? Sure why not. I wear no gold, no diamonds, I eat simple foods, I do simple things.

[test_recordings]

Not counting my laptop, I've spent just under 400 quid for some sick stuff. All second hand except the DAC though. Still need good monitoring headphones

[legend4ry]

I think so far i've spent around 2 grand with some freebie hardware from friends and such but that is over the span of around 6-8 years.

In one wack you're deffo getting a lot of stuff at once. I just bought Komplete 10 and the new keyboard so I know I won't need new synths or samples for a longggg time.

Once i've bought this I probably will just buy a load of UAD stuff (so hyped to be getting one) and be fine for years, if not forever!

[fragments]

There is some great 90's gear out there for peanuts. Grab it before it becomes "vintage" and all the people who remember it fondly have enough extra money to spend too much on it.

Go buy some electribes, an old mixer and some guitar pedals.

[Ema_geodiV]

Macbook Pro - 1100€

AKG 240 MKIIs - 125€

Random question, is the AKG 240 MKII better than most studio headphones with the same price range? Plus is the Macbook pro really necessary coz I need one for college (audio engineering)

[legend4ry]

Macbook Pro - 1100€

AKG 240 MKIIs - 125€

Random question, is the AKG 240 MKII better than most studio headphones with the same price range? Plus is the Macbook pro really necessary coz I need one for college (audio engineering)

Are you going to be using Logic?

If no - buy a windows laptop.

If yes - buy a mac.

That is literally the ONLY difference (apart from apogee soundcards).

[_Agu_]

Macbook Pro - 1100€

AKG 240 MKIIs - 125€

Random question, is the AKG 240 MKII better than most studio headphones with the same price range? Plus is the Macbook pro really necessary coz I need one for college (audio engineering)

Are you going to be using Logic?

If no - buy a windows laptop.

If yes - buy a mac.

That is literally the ONLY difference (apart from apogee soundcards).

^You get much more processing power by spending same amount of money to windows laptop. Macbook is just more reliable (at least it's widely believed to be so, and to me it doesn't seem to be any bullshit), and that's why djs who play from a laptop prefer it. I just got sick of daw crashing when pushing your cpu to it's limits and my old laptop was crap anyway.

And about the headphones, I haven't tried many other studio cans, but these have really flat frequency response + they don't squeeze your ears into pancakes after keeping them in your head for few hours. I think you get a pretty good idea of dynamics going on (my old cheap sennheisers felt like they have an inbuilt brick wall limiter on them). Also some other studio headphones in the same price range don't have removable cable, and the cables are pretty much the only thing on the most headphones that can occasionally break.

[hubb]

I have an absolutely terrible pentium pc running a pirated logic from 2001 + budget sound king ( ) monitors and it's more than enough for me... but having said that I'm very serious with music. I find most producers to be gear fetischist, so i'm just posting this to represent the whole spectrum..
you can listen here if you want..
Soundcloud

[hubb]

Fuck this hobby term. That is a concept forced onto music making and or art making by the marketplace, and like just about everything out of the marketplace it is shit.
If your making music, your making music, that is that, if you are a professional, you are making it for the market, and are not really purely an artist. Professionals denigrate "hobbyists" but it is really misplaced.

[legend4ry]

I have an absolutely terrible pentium pc running a pirated logic from 2001 + budget sound king ( ) monitors and it's more than enough for me... but having said that I'm very serious with music. I find most producers to be gear fetischist, so i'm just posting this to represent the whole spectrum..
you can listen here if you want..
Soundcloud

Nah thats exactly who I wanted to hear opinions of!

The old Magix logic? I miss that .

[hubb]

do you mean emagic?

if so yes .... its programmed so it can only use one gig of ram which is annoying, but then again it helps forming the work flow because I need to plan ahead a bit.

[Trichome]

I make music on my mums 7 year old Dell Inspiron with Sony in ear headphones which are the polar opposite of flat

[hubb]

seriously?

[Trichome]

yep, was homeless for a few months and had to sell all my production stuff to eat.

you can make tunes on anything, infact id argue limiting yourself helps create better tunes.

getting a laptop for christmas tho so I don't have to bounce everything to audio hahaha

[nowaysj]

But honestly hubb... I really wish you'd improve your monitoring.

And holy shit did I have a lot of typos up there. I should not be allowed to post from phone.

[hubb]

I think my monitors are decent enough just that they're a knock off brand and probably not something that is sold globally and therefore impossible to recommend - is all.

But yeah I think room treatment is worth thinking about if I had the p.


_----__-

Regarding UAD stuff - it's nice and all but it's different from having a genuine unit dedicated to something, both in sound and in the way you feel about using it.
I've only worked with it a couple of times, but it feels cheaper and the people I know who got a lot of UAD has switched back to hardware effects, synths and pedals and desks again.

[Turnipish_Thoughts]

Alesis M1 Monitors. - Got for my birthday

Oxygen 25 midi keyboard - Got for Xmas

H1 condenser Mic - Got for a different birthday

Reaper - Still using the unrestricted trial

Vsts - Literally all Freeware or CM Magazine giveaways.

Samples - CM or sample packs from or linked on BPB, DSF, DOA e.t.c.

PC - Not built or used with the primary intention of making tunes on.

So you could say I have spent between £0 and £50 (for the 10 or so issues of CM I've bought over time, I only get the issues that have decent giveaways I'm interested in) on my set up.

Can I make decent tunes? I'm workin on it But I don't think it has very much at al to do with how much money I've put into it. IMO it's entirely down to how much effort you put in, regardless of what you've got to work with

Point is. You don't have to spend ANYTHING on making tunes, provided you've got a basic pc/mac, enough patience and enough interest in it to warrant friends/family getting you shit for you birthday/xmas e.t.c.

Aside from that though in a wider sense. I think there's enough decent free shit out there to not have top spend money on gear. I don't really think you really need any outboard gear. It's doable without, it's cheaper to just... not buy it, and your output will arguably be the same regardless. I think gear lust is much more to do with a self identity thing than actual musical enhancement. It's more about being surrounded by a complicated looking "control grid" and thinkin "yeah, I'm a musician". But who am I to say...

In terms of how much a reasonable amount is, that's as subjective as your economic situation and investment in the cause. If you make a decent wage and have enough to splash on shit, beyond the bare essentials, it's entirely an indulgence that's down for the individual to decide.