Sounds like the title of a dystopian future novel, right? Well, it is, if we are talking about everyone’s life being a story they write as they go. This is something I have felt strongly about for some time, and I wanted to put this out there, for anyone that would care to read. The world we live in today is riddled with elitism (ie; the advocacy of the elite or high end/top quality/best as a dominating element in our society and social realms). More specifically to what I want to address is the way musicians, sound professionals, and people in the music and audio circles look down on others not using the most name checked or high profile gear. For drummers, the easy namechecks are DW, Zildjian, Remo, etc. For sound people, it’s EAW, Turbosound, QSC, Allen & Heath, etc. And there is nothing wrong with any of that gear. What is wrong is that if you don’t use that gear, you are often looked at as being less than, and that is the ugly truth. I try not to use absolutes as there are certainly exceptions, but for the most part, you are immediately considered sub-standard.
For the purposes of this post, I am going to focus more on the sound people. When you are new in the game and get inspired to start doing sound at any capacity, the first thing we all tend to do is start drooling over all of the coveted top tier gear and start imagining what we could do if we won the lottery. Nothing wrong with that, but for the majority of us that don’t actually win the lottery (or even play it) we end up right back here at startsville (the start if you really need me to spell it out). In our quest to become the best sound people ever, most of us ask advice from sound professionals we meet or admire. You hear alot of “whatever you do, make sure in invest in quality equipment.” On it’s own, it’s not bad advice, but most of us are working hard to just get by, we don’t have the funding to buy all quality gear at the start.
I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I personally have always had to work my butt off for everything I have ever had. Not saying there were not occasional niceties or a surprise gift here or there, but by and large, most everything was hard fought. I have never really had much money to my name. I have generally had to work with budget and low quality everything for most of my life. I learned how to make the most of my money and the things I could afford and it taught me a great number of invaluable lessons. Worse for me is sound was second to my primary money-pit, being a drummer. Even worse is that I loved the more progressive stuff and liked bigger kits, so my sound budget was always the last consideration. But that’s just me.
So here we are, new motivated sound engineer in the making, ready to get some gear and become a great sound person. So you pulled money aside from a few months of paychecks, sold some stuff you weren’t really using, got birthday money, mowed lawns, and on and on and on. So look at your sound gear fund and you have $600. Wait, that’s just me. I am going to assume you are better at life than me and had some cooler stuff just sitting around the house to sell. So you have $2,000 as a starting budget. If you asked the sound elites, they would tell you to keep saving and get something decent. I don’t know if that is right or wrong for you, but in my eyes, they just told you to keep dreaming until you can afford to be a sound person. We live in such a time that audio technology has really come a long ways and there are many cheap options out there that would rival or handily beat anything that alot of your favorite old recordings had when they were made. Not to mention that life is not guaranteed. If you want to do something, do it. Right now.
So okay, you are going to start your sound adventure today! Awesome! So what do you need? Obviously, some kind of mixer. At your budget, analog is your best bet, and probably the easiest way to learn as you work. You will need something big enough to use for bands, so at least a “12 channel” board (which usually means 8 mono channels and 2 stereo channels). You could go Allen & Heath for about $950, but then you have no budget for any speakers after cables and a few industry standard mics. You could go Yamaha which is pretty much the industry standard in anything they make. You can get the Yamaha MG16XU for about $630. Solid board. Or, you can get the knock off of that Yamaha board on Amazon called the Y-16 for $290. Plenty of other options, these are just a few.
So then you need a few main speakers. Mid level speakers could easily suck up your entire budget. Just for 2 powered 12″ or 15″. I would say for the purposes of starting and really just going forward, powered speakers are the way to go. Passive gear is generally cheaper, but then you have to buy power amps and extra cabling that makes it more expensive in the long run and if the power amp(s) fail, your whole system is useless. At least if one powered speaker fails, you still have the others. That said, after main speakers, you still should look at 2 monitors at minimum, and at least one subwoofer. That just isn’t possible buying big name brand. To me even if your gear doesn’t have the big name, if you have working gear, you can do the gig.
Some great options at lower price points are Rockville (which I still personally use) and the long time budget friendly company, Peavey. With Rockville, you could get two powered 15s with stands, 2 powered 12s, and a 15″ powered sub for about $1350. Pyle makes knock of SM57 mics (PDMIC78) that work well for just about anything (vocals, drums, guitar amps) and sells them for $22 on amazon, and I can attest that they sound pretty close to the real thing. Behringer makes a 2 pack of mini pencil condenser mics (C-2) that sound great for overheads, pianos, acoustic guitars, and even choirs for $60. One of the best sounding bass drums mics I have heard is the Behringer BA 19A that sells for $80 and gives the $250 Shure Beta 91A a run for it’s money!
For around $2,000, you could build a versatile PA that could get you working immediately and sounds good in capable hands. Even as a starting system, that PA would get you out and earning and growing your business and career. I can say that because it’s exactly how I launched my own career. I am still not rich by any stretch, but my business is growing, my clients love the sound they get from me and keep referring me to new clients, and all the while, I am not using anything from the elite approved gear list, but somehow, I am thriving and making positive moves every day as opposed to waiting for an empty future to one day let me start working on my dream. If you want something, don’t let anyone hold you back. Even if it’s little moves at a time. Your time is right now, and it doesn’t have to cost a fortune! Don’t just dream about the future. Start living it today!