For me it’s driving while under the influence. If you couldn’t tell, I like me some ganja. However I have long since held the belief that it is utterly insane to drive while under the influence of most substances, with maybe nicotine and caffeine being the exception. All too often I see other stoners smoking and driving, which I simply can’t fathom. I’ve only operated a vehicle once under the influence and it was just to move a U-Haul around the block to a different parking spot, which was such a scary experience while high that I refuse to even consider getting behind the wheel again while high.
So many bedroom audio producers are all about having the latest and greatest gear, and then don’t make shit beyond a tech demo or two. There’s nothing wrong with that I suppose. It just seems a bit odd to me to collect a pile of expensive, useful tools, and then not even use them.
Or not even know how to use them. I remember one guy in particular. He had a $10000 Moog One, and used it to make a piece of music where he held an A minor chord for 20 minutes. There was almost no modulation or movement at all. Just the same chord for twenty minutes. I like outre music, but come on!
There’s also a lot of snake oil in the hobbyist/personal hi-fi audio world. I’m a professional audio tech for live events. A lot of people don’t understand how audio works, and why audio gear is built a specific way. So they’re susceptible to bad faith sales tactics, which are oftentimes inventing problems that never existed before the product was being marketed. Or claiming to use manufacturing materials/processes that won’t make a difference on a physics level, but will make a difference in cost to the end user.
Hi-fi audio is a world of diminishing returns. A $1000 system will sound great compared to a $500 system. A $5000 system will sound a little better than a $1000 system. But a $10,000 system will only sound marginally better than the $5000 system, and many people won’t even be able to tell the difference between the two. Or to rephrase, they’ll be able to tell a difference between the two, but won’t be able to tell which one is the “better” system. They’ll simply hear the difference in speaker frequency responses.
Also, that classic rock song you’re critiquing on your $30,000 living room sound system was performed and mixed by people who couldn’t hear fucking anything. Their hearing was shot years before the song was recorded, by decades of crowd noise and stage monitors.
Also, their music sounds the way it does because the band got really drunk one night, spilled beer on the amp and it caught fire, and after that it had a really cool sound.
This one upsets me a lil because I occasionally record the music I write, and recording off a Scarlett Solo is not the easiest experience, especially when I’m only using the that came with it (aside from like my own amps and instrument specific gear).
I wouldn’t know what to do with a lot of the expensive gear, but I could do something with it and get some genuine use out of it for my music. But at the same time I don’t wanna fall into the same trap, so I only buy gear that I need when I need it, and that’s usually stuff for my instruments themselves.
I hear you. A buddy gave me a $1000 headphone amp he’d replaced with a newer version. It’s the most expensive piece of gear I own and hilariously out of place in my set up. I still use it, though.
Hey that sounds pretty nice! Thats the nice thing about sharing hobbies with friends
I just wish he’d gotten tired of his Moog Grandmother. Haha!
I’ve recently started putting together a home studio and made the mistake of asking online what I should consider before painting my monitors. Nearly half of the people who responded said, “Don’t do it, it’ll ruin the resale value.” Like dude, I’m not here to be on a god damned gear treadmill. I’m here to make music. Gear is just a necessary evil to me and if I never have to buy monitors again I would be so happy. So, If I can get some extra joy out of them and make them mine, I’m gonna.
Hear hear. I’ve been using the same cheapo Mackie CR4 monitors for nearly a decade now. It’s not like a $1000 pair is going to sound much better in my room without a bunch of baffling or whatever.
With some people it feels like their more gear collectors than producers. Though I gotta admit there where times where I bought a piece of equipment that was kinda outside the scope of what I needed because I thought it was nice to have.
We all get the GAS sometimes.