The arms race of recording equipment

More and more and more and more

In terms of equipment, recording studios can easily slide into a sort of arms race. Maybe you have better gear than the next studio but then that other studio down the way has several up on you. This can happen with key elements of the signal chain like microphones or preamps, or it can happen at a more micro level with things like quality of cabling. Home recordists are not immune from this arms race with gear either. Do you have enough equipment? You are not trying to be a pro studio but that microphone or preamp would really up your game. And so would the next one. And the other one. This pursuit is no small matter because once you enter the waters of coveted and high grade recording gear, each purchase tends to come at a minimum of a few thousand dollars. A lot of the equipment is hand wired and some companies manufacture their own parts. You are cast into the maze that is the psychology of consumerism. This is serious business so arm up with recording gear. 

To be transparent, I obsess about recording equipment. I have researched and experimented with microphones, compressors, equalizers, reverbs, delays, preamps, converters, mixing consoles, etc. on a near daily basis for many years. I’ve spent more hours than I want to admit reading reviews and forum opinions, talking with other engineers and producers, and watching videos comparing this or that piece of equipment. I am always looking for the next piece of hardware that might offer some tone, character, or dimension not currently represented in the toolbox. Inevitably as someone in the recording business, a part of my motivation is to keep up with the Joneses. That’s the elephant in the room so I want to name it. That hustle feels secondary to the pursuit of tone, however. I hear a recorded sound as something akin to a room in a house. How big is the room? What color are the walls? How high are the ceilings? What are the materials used? What are the floors? What is the feel of the space? The temperature? Is there natural light? 

On the whole, I prefer hardware to software both because of the character or coloration it can add and because I enjoy interacting with actual physical stuff more than mousing through software. That said, I spend an enormous amount of time working in music software, primarily Pro Tools and Ableton Live. Software is the medium for recording and editing, although I do plenty of processing and creative sound manipulation in software as well. Arguing the virtues of software over hardware is a hot topic in the recording industry today and not one that I am particularly interested in. Many famous industry mixers have ditched their hardware in favor of software, although when this is mentioned it is rarely addressed that these same mixers are often working with material recorded in high end studios that have the finest hardware available. A few dominant software companies have poured a lot of dough into promoting that their wares sound “just like the hardware.” Old school meets new school to duke it out in the marketplace. You get it. Regardless, I turn to hardware for tone, efficiency of workflow, and the creative benefits of a more tactile experience.

A gear focus can distract us from something more essential when we’re recording though. The song or source sound is most essential, of course, but so too are the feel and attributes of the space you are trying to create. Last year, I acquired a pair of vintage Neve mic preamps that arrived unexpectedly through a friend of a friend. If you are not familiar with vintage Neve, know that it is some of the most coveted recording gear. It sounds big in the low end and smooth up top, has a certain warm and fuzzy quality to it, and sounds familiar as it has powered many iconic recordings throughout history. The vintage Neve reputation and its increasing rarity have catapulted its cost. Many modern hardware and software companies attempt to make emulations of Neve sound. I can use minimal microphones on a drum kit or piano through these preamps and the result sounds fantastic. But within all of this goodness a fundamental truth remains. When I record through the vintage Neve preamps, if what I’m recording falls flat, their fidelity ain’t gonna save me. 

Many top producers and engineers will talk about how “the gear doesn’t matter.” I’ve always found this to be annoying because many of these same professionals own or have access to all of the best gear. “It really doesn’t matter… but go ahead and run that $10,000 microphone through the vintage six figure console, $20,000 worth of compression, and several hundred dollars worth of cabling. And be sure to track it in the sweet spot of a multi-hundred thousand dollar room.” As a younger person scrapping to get into the game, I found this seeming hypocrisy infuriating. I still find it misleading. But the point is correct in that the gear won’t save you. It won’t make a haphazard performance or song fly. Or will it? 

As I mentioned in a previous post (Context in Sound Recordings), identifying the purpose of a recording is an essential starting point to the process. In this case, what I mean by the word ‘purpose’ is what sonic character you want to convey. This may follow your choice of target audience or market. If you are trying to sell sheen, the way you record and the decisions you make in the process will be different than if you are trying to sell vibe (whatever that means). Many one hit wonders might not have gained access to hitsville if their sound did not sparkle in that certain way. Maybe the song and performances were mediocre, but the mix and the overall sound of the recording fit the bill, and that in turn propped the recording up. In this way, the gear may be almost essential if your target is “making it.” Similarly, if you want a recording to sound historically accurate, this will shape decision making around equipment and technique. For example, if you want the character of your recording to invoke vintage funk or soul. Or 90’s grunge. Admittedly, I have poor aim when it comes to trying to make something sound exactly like something else and for me this dimension of the gear race is less motivating. 

The idea of purpose in recording raises some interesting meta questions as well. One that arises for me is whether or not we can honestly assess the success of a recording or mix relative only to how it serves the song and performances. If you listen to something in a vacuum (i.e. without comparing it to other releases), your ears will acclimate to its sonics, the tones and balances. Maybe this moment stands the best chance of allowing an honest review of the recording relative to its source. But as soon as you compare your recording to the next, one becomes the standard against which you evaluate the other. This is made worse by comparing unmastered recordings to mastered ones, which is to say that if your song is in the mix stage and you go and compare it to a random song on a streaming platform, most likely the streaming song will become the standard by which you judge your recording. As record makers we get preoccupied with this type of fidelity comparison but at the core I find the idea of sound following intention more compelling. Does the captured sound honor the lyric and/or the character of the performances? 

So then circling back to the equipment question, do we need specific studio gear for the song or material? Or do we need that gear to make something sound competitive? Do we need a room full of high end gear to make records? Yes. No. What draws me to recording equipment is when it has a tone or offers a color or texture that I find inspiring. I try to align with that motivation rather than any other as I open the next review or cue another video comparison. Still, recording is ultimately a multi-dimensional process. There is an intimate and often mysterious connection between the source sound and the tone of the recording that captures it.