some good points there ... (though i dont know how you, mr byre, can be so disingenuous to say there are more studios than ever, when ive seen you on more than one thread berating the closure of yet another studio - studio culture is coming to an end along with a lot of the so called 'music business' in general, i for one wont shed any tears about that)

GEAR LUST - how many times is there some sad discussion on these boards along the lines "oh dear im really sad, i dont make any music anymore i just buy expensive equipment i wish i still had my atari/analogue synth/cassette multitracker" ? ... well if the whole market was demystified and people could see the important things are ideas, ability and environment NOT GEAR then it might save some of us from such embarrassing ennui ..

CHOICE - just because a tesco is a big smelly dehumanised place doesnt mean they dont have masses more choice than any little corner shop and generally at a better price (the point about bread is daft, when i go to my corner shop their bread is always stale 'happy shopper' stuff at 4 times the price of tesco, and the milk is always sour) - the choice in musical gear is enormous nowadays, i cant see it getting less either at any price point.

DESIGN - though my original statement was a bit dogmatic - there is really only one way to make any particular circuit because electronics only works one way, but i know there are a lot of subtleties in power supply design and pcb construction. take a fuzz box for instance all of them are based on forcing a signal through a diode. i dont see how behringer can be slated for copying such a design, when you have people on ebay selling their so called 'boutique' designs for 50 quid using the "same circuit that jimmy hendrix used" with 50 pence worth of components in it !!! - if you admit theres only one way to make a crap pre amp how many ways do you think there is to make a good one ?

i am massively in favour of cheap gear (hand in hand with the good stuff) because as far as i can see the only real problems nowadays all come down to a collective lack of imagination. maybe something to do with tv or whatever, but at least the more people who get the chance to have a go, the more people who shouldnt really have this stuff, the more chance statistically that we will get something really new ... i think there is much more interesting music about now than ever and maybe some of this IS down to cheap gear opening up the playing field

monitors for a fiver a mic for a tenner ? .. yes please

grainger

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