A lot of unnecessary expense on your studio can be avoided if you realize
two basic facts:

1) You need equipment of basic professional quality, not exotic
playthings.

2) If you have equipment of basic professional quality, the standard
of your recordings is totally up to you.

This article is written from years of experience, and during that time it
has been seen again and again that many home recording enthusiasts live under
the delusion that what they need to bring professional quality to their
recordings is that elusive “next” piece of equipment or software.
And once purchased, perhaps at considerable expense, there will be another
new ‘next’ item that is essential to get professional results.

It’s amazing how so many people can be so wrong, but thankfully they
keep the manufacturers in business and keep prices down for the rest of
us. As I said, all you really need to achieve professional recordings,
is equipment of basic professional quality. Experienced and skilled engineers
don’t need anything more. They do love exotic and expensive audio toys,
but they don’t need them. And neither do you.

One of the other ways people waste money is by continually upgrading their
recording system. The problem with that is that you are always trying to
hit a moving target.  Just like computers, there will always be another upgrade
available and every time you change one piece of equipment for another,
you have to learn it, familiarize yourself with it, and then become an expert
in using it. By the time you have done that, yet another upgrade will be the
big story in the recording magazines.

Even well known artists and bands can fall prey to ‘upgrade-itis’.
They struggle for years, putting their music together on whatever equipment
they can get hold of. They finally land a deal with a label, and the first thing
the band does is spend their advance money on a state-of-the-art recording facility.
But unfortunately the magic is lost and they never have another hit. Often it’s
because they didn’t show enough respect for the equipment that actually did
bring them success!

So, the point to this is that you should buy wisely, and aim to keep every
item you buy for a long time. Some equipment will last for decades with
minimal care and attention.

A prime example of this is the microphone. If you buy a decent microphone today,
you should EXPECT it to be still working perfectly in twenty years. What you should
do then, is buy a microphone with a really good sound quality that you like.
If you buy a microphone just to get you by until you can afford a better one,
in twenty years time it will just be a reminder of your unwise decision.

However, some equipment and software does have to be upgraded. One prime
example is your computer and the software it runs. Sooner or later you always
have to upgrade that, don’t you?

We’ll get into that next time. Meanwhile, keep on making music!