Don't worry so much about your gear

I just read a lightly heartbreaking post from someone who spent £3,000 on a mic preamp and can’t hear much difference between it and the built-in preamps in his interface:

The bottom line is all the recordings sound the same, there is no discernible difference.

The moral of the story is, I could've been £3000 better off and still achieved the same audio quality in my recordings.

First: I understand, so much, where this person was coming from when they bought the fancy preamp. We all want to make better recordings. And there is so much hype out there — in advertising, on the forums, in YouTube videos — telling us that if we just get whatever $3,000 piece of gear, all of our recordings will be better. Indeed, they will be “pro”!

(With the implicit subtext of course being that, until we get whatever expensive piece of gear, really any expensive piece of gear, our recordings will be amateurish. Oof. No wonder we waste money on gear!)

So, just as a reality check: that’s bullshit. I just really want to make sure you know that! We live in an amazing timeline. Consumer-grade gear is excellent-sounding now. I can’t tell you how many records I’ve mixed or mastered that were made with some flavor of Focusrite Scarlett. They sound great. And you can get an entry-level Scarlett for $140!

Heck, even the venerable Universal Audio — a brand previously reserved for medium-to-high-end applications — has a $129 single-channel interface with switchable preamp topologies for vintage and clean sound, like two preamps in one. For $129! What a time to be alive.

Some of my favorite recordings of all time — and certainly some of yours too — were made with minimal and/or inexpensive gear. The gear isn’t the point. You can make great recordings with cheap gear. Focus on the performances and the energy and the arrangement. Those elements are what everyone reacts to, and what most home recordists neglect. A subpar part recorded through a $3,000 preamp is still a subpar part; a great part recorded through a $129 interface wins every time.

It’s always about the ideas — jamie