The rules are simple:
1. A piece of gear that's sneakily crucial to performance in the studio
2. Something that's debatable as a "must-have."

I'll go first...

1. Roc-n-soc drum throne. -- I don't think I would have improved on drums nearly as much or made recordings as well without this crucial piece of gear, which is pretty expensive too.

2. Headphone extension cable -- This is kinda debatable for me in a home studio because I don't really need it, but at the same time I should probably be using it more... +I've seen studios that use headphone jacks inside the booths, etc. so... Maybe there's even wireless headphones now that can be used in studios? I dunno...

If we're talking underdog, unsexy, utilitarian items:

- Masking tape, sharpies, notebooks and pens that are easy to write with

- Cold bottles of mineral water. I don't usually care about this beverage but there's something about sustained concentration and carbonated drinks. I can't drink beer in the middle of the day too.

+1 on a good drum throne. I bought a similar roc-n-soc a couple years ago. At age 50. After a couple decades playing drums while sitting on cheap shitty thrones. Sigh.

Is "a serious amount of well thought out and tested room treatment" considered studio gear and/or underrated?

Guitar amp attenuators.

VU meters.

Class D power amps.

Ergonomic vertical mouse.

A fucking serious chair.

I don’t really know how they rate around here but the Sennheiser HD650 headphone$ were recommended to me when I started putting a home studio together and now I feel like I couldn’t get by without them. Or at least another nice pair of headphones

Especially in lieu of…

MoreSpaceEcho wrote: Sat Feb 25, 2023 10:16 pm
Is "a serious amount of well thought out and tested room treatment" considered studio gear and/or underrated?

MoreSpaceEcho wrote: Sat Feb 25, 2023 10:16 pm Is "a serious amount of well thought out and tested room treatment" considered studio gear and/or underrated?

Goddamn. I can critique the psychology because it was absolutely me for WAY too long, but motherfuckers want to rack up thousands on shiny toys but can't take a minute to figure out what they're hearing in their room. I guess the temptation of buying a thing that is certified "good" in a piece of equipment over measuring a lot of wiggles and then toiling over insulation, fabric and wooden frames only to reshoot the room and pray that you've moved the needle is understandable. What I didn't know is that the progress is satisfying and it makes working on mixes less confusing.

Or in short, room treatment costs hundreds but it's the only thing (short of monitors ) that changes how everything sounds.

losthighway wrote: Sun Feb 26, 2023 10:04 am toiling over insulation, fabric and wooden frames

It's a lot of work. If you're made of money you can just call up GIK and have them ship over a ton of shit and tell you what to do with it. For normal people DIYing.....it's a lot of work.

And then add up all the time spent learning about acoustics and then testing and tweaking the room. It comes out to somewhere between forever and eternity.

I totally get why anyone would rather just get a new compressor and then rave about how it takes their mixes to the next level brah, so warm and punchy.

And to be fair, lots of people are working in rented apartments, or a spare bedroom in a house, practice space, whatever, they're maybe not in a situation where they can really do any big time treatment.

But when you really hear what it sounds like in a seriously treated room, damn. "Less confusing" is an unsexy but good way to put it. When I was getting my current room together and listening for the first time, it felt like all of a sudden everything just made so much more sense. I was listening to favorites I've known forever, and it felt like...ok, now I'm finally hearing this the way it actually is. Not how the speakers and room felt like interpreting it.

JoeMeek C2

Stupid little isolation box that I built that fits my Fender Champ and 2 mics.

RyanZ wrote: Tue Feb 28, 2023 12:19 am Stupid little isolation box that I built that fits my Fender Champ and 2 mics.

This reminds me of something that I saw recently in a very small recording setup where the dude had basically built an isolation chamber with mics around a 1x12 cab. Speaker cable comes out of it so you can plug whatever amp into it and its ready to go. It comes with all the limitations that you can imagine, BUT it worked to isolate the guitar from the drums in a very small room.

Mickey242 wrote: Mon Feb 27, 2023 8:32 pmJoeMeek C2

I just bought two of these! They are sleepers for sure.