The fifty quid challenge

[Arpangel]

That’s my rule from now on, I buy nothing, unless it’s fifty quid or under.
This is good all round, in every way, it saves money, it makes me do things with things I don’t want to do anything with, which is good for getting out of ruts and potentially making new noises.
Cheap pedals are good for this, I’ve got good local charity shops that have given me bargains too, it doesn’t even matter if it doesn’t work properly, as long as it makes some sort of a sound.
I’m slowly selling off all my expensive stuff, and only keeping one or two pieces, my fave set-up is two Korg Monotron Delays into a Behringer MicroMix, it’s great having little set-ups like this, dotted around.
It is surprising what you can pick up for next to nothing, and it’s great if you do manage to make something out of them.

[OneWorld]

Got a perfectly good Lenovo tablet t’other day for £50 which I am hoping to press into service as a daw/vst controller. Battery lasts for ages so am even thinking of installing reaper and having it as an ‘always on’ daw.

[BillB]

That’s my rule from now on, I buy nothing, unless it’s fifty quid or under.

I expect this will be quoted in future forum posts….

I sort of applaud the principle, and I have bought lots of cheap stuff that I think of as great and useful bargains (E.g. a Korg NTS-1 with some chorus/reverb plugins is awesome value). Plus cheap stuff is easier to justify to Mrs B.

But when I think of ALL the cheap stuff I have bought (E.g. pedals) I could instead have saved and purchased some impressive kit, such as a Line 6 Stomp or similar, and have a lot less clutter…

Still, I hope it works out for you as strategy, Tony

[Aled Hughes]

That’s my rule from now on, I buy nothing, unless it’s fifty quid or under.

I expect this will be quoted in future forum posts….

I sort of applaud the principle, and I have bought lots of cheap stuff that I think of as great and useful bargains (E.g. a Korg NTS-1 with some chorus/reverb plugins is awesome value). Plus cheap stuff is easier to justify to Mrs B.

But when I think of ALL the cheap stuff I have bought (E.g. pedals) I could instead have saved and purchased some impressive kit, such as a Line 6 Stomp or similar, and have a lot less clutter…

Still, I hope it works out for you as strategy, Tony

Quite. I probably easily have a £1000 pound’s worth of £50 kit sitting around doing nothing, whereas a single £1000 item would take up less space and would be in daily use… and the £1000 item could perhaps be sold on for £700, while the collection of cheap stuff is worth next to nothing… depends what you need I guess, as I also have cheap stuff that sees a lot of use.

[The Elf]

That’s my rule from now on, I buy nothing, unless it’s fifty quid or under.

I wouldn't be so draconian, but my studio is full of cheap gadgets at which others would turn up their noses - if they knew. There's a band out there that have no idea that I created their 'amazing' guitar sounds with a 10 quid amp...

[zenguitar]

That’s my rule from now on, I buy nothing, unless it’s fifty quid or under.

Looking forward to seeing the replacement for your TVR

Andy

[Hugh Robjohns]

Looking forward to seeing the replacement for your TVR

Pass the screen wipes, will you? I appear to have sprayed a mouthful of tea all across my keyboard and screen...

[Folderol]

Looking forward to seeing the replacement for your TVR

Pass the screen wipes, will you? I appear to have sprayed a mouthful of tea all across my keyboard and screen...

Roller Skates are about £30 these days

[tacitus]

Hmm, nice thought, but ...

I think I prefer to assess what I need and pay what it takes. In the last few years I've got back into traditional hifi. Whereas I'd had the same Thorens turntable for over 40 years, I also had a load of 78s it won't play and started looking round for one the would that. It sparked off a spree on bargain (relatively speaking) turntables.

So now I have 6 of the blighters, and mostly it's because if I'd added a Technics first, instead of last, I'd have spent half the amount in total and have two 'tables that between them would play everything - indeed, the Technics would have sufficed on its own.

So I'm keeping in mind that getting as near as you can first time round is not a bad aim. The cost might delay or totally scupper your plans, but I was just about born long enough ago to go for delayed gratification. Now I'm nearing 70, I may have to modify that policy slightly in two ways:

1. By not buying into projects I'm too old to start and enjoy properly now,
2. By getting what I need to complete projects and be able to do stuff instead of losing another decade saving.

The interplay of those ought to keep me on my toes until I'm too gaga to care. Meanwhile, I must admit I enjoy playing the two sides of an LP on different turntables with a selection of cartridges. Even if it is all about the music (cough, cough).

And as we've mentioned cars, what I've saved on cars by running them as long as possible (until I don't make gigs) would handsomely pay for what I've spent on recording, PA and hifi kit. Ever.

[muzines]

As this forum appears to have become Tony's stream-of-consciousness day-to-day thought journal , I'll guess that give it a week, and we'll have the contrary version: "You know, now I've decided I'm not going to buy anything unless it's top quality, high end stuff, the budget cheap stuff is just a false-economy..."

You never know what the week will bring. Maybe he'll get that H9000 after all...

[OneWorld]

As this forum appears to have become Tony's stream-of-consciousness day-to-day thought journal , I'll guess that give it a week, and we'll have the contrary version: "You know, now I've decided I'm not going to buy anything unless it's top quality, high end stuff, the budget cheap stuff is just a false-economy..."

You never know what the week will bring. Maybe he'll get that H9000 after all...

[MOF]

Lots of good plugins are under £50 but they do require expensive hardware to run them, I’m not sure if they meet the criteria of the challenge.

[Arpangel]

That’s my rule from now on, I buy nothing, unless it’s fifty quid or under.

Looking forward to seeing the replacement for your TVR

Andy

To 99% of the car buying public, £50 is too much for my car.
If it goes it’ll be replaced by nothing.

As this forum appears to have become Tony's stream-of-consciousness day-to-day thought journal

You are absolutely right, I need to take a break, even I’m getting tired of it.
And I'm aware it’s not good for this type of forum.

You never know what the week will bring. Maybe he'll get that H9000 after all...

H9000? If that thing was such an amazing item, I’d have one, it isn’t, and I don’t, it's a swan song that came too late to the party, others caught up, overtook it, and for a 20th of the price.

Also, the overriding thing about expensive gear, is that it has to justify itself, you keep thinking you’ve got to use it, all of the gear I own, the most expensive things were my iMac, and Moog Grandmother, I’d loose out if I sold any of it, we all do, even high end industry standard stuff, when you sell it you’re very lucky these days if you get 70% of the new price back, if that.
I look at bang for the buck, and the amount of enjoyment something gives me, that’s the bottom line.

[tea for two]

First year of lockdown : my £50 macbook pro from 2010 which I purchased 2019 December with rickety usb ports knackered speakers, £20 Korg NanoKey2 from cex, £30 Superlux Evo Hd681 semi open headphones from auction site : got me thru.

I picked up a 1920s Banjolele £15 + postage last month.
Tanglewood semi acoustic £40 + postage few months earlier.
Harmonium £50 including delivery. Lee Oskar Harmonica £10 from charity store.
My dual keybed Casio organ from 1987 £55 + postage.

Just few weeks earlier I purchased £50 ipad pro 2018 11inch with heavily cracked screen to run logic pro on subscription.
£48 Zoom U-44 audio interface recommended by JP to run with logic pro on ipad.

My budget is £75-£100 on musical instruments gear, my Focusrite Forte £70 well rated by Hugh in SoS review.
Ideally £15-£50.
My Shure 440 closed back headphones £15, Zingyou condenser £15, Sm58 £44.

Also of course those donkey poo speakers Eris3.5 £60 on which I been mixing my beats edm pieces which on massive PMC and Genelec monitors in SoS GearFest sounded bloomin marvelous.

[MOF]

Also, the overriding thing about expensive gear, is that it has to justify itself, you keep thinking you’ve got to use it, all of the gear I own, the most expensive things were my iMac, and Moog Grandmother, I’d loose out if I sold any of it, we all do, even high end industry standard stuff, when you sell it you’re very lucky these days if you get 70% of the new price back, if that.
I look at bang for the buck, and the amount of enjoyment something gives me, that’s the bottom line.

I’m not sure this challenge is truly doable since we’re talking about second hand gear which someone else has spent a good deal more on and taken that 70% plus hit on.

[Bob Bickerton]

Also, the overriding thing about expensive gear, is that it has to justify itself, you keep thinking you’ve got to use it, all of the gear I own, the most expensive things were my iMac, and Moog Grandmother, I’d loose out if I sold any of it, we all do, even high end industry standard stuff, when you sell it you’re very lucky these days if you get 70% of the new price back, if that.
I look at bang for the buck, and the amount of enjoyment something gives me, that’s the bottom line.

There speaks someone who owns Sennheiser MKH 40 microphones (currently the price of an entry level iMac). Whenever I've sold high spec'd microphones such as Neumann and Sennheiser I generally get back what I paid for them and often more.

Of course computers will not recover their cost - that's why they have such a high rate of depreciation. Moog Grandmother - keep it long enough and it'll probably start to appreciate in value.

My view on gear is that it needs to deliver what I want, be inspirational, to be fit for purpose, functional and critically, not to get in the way of my creativity.

I have probably 100 or so items in the studio valued at under 50 quid and they meet the above self-imposed standards without question......... they're called cables.

Come to think of it, I also have a coffee cup mat and paper in my printer that also meet the threshold........

Bob

[OneWorld]

Refreshing to see a thread where contributors boast about how little they have spent instead of how much money they've spent as you apparently get with 'influencers'

[Hugh Robjohns]

I'm not sure I could find anything in my studio or location recording rig that cost under £50.

Maybe individual mic cables... but when there are ten 15m cables on a reel, or 25m stereo cables? ... er, no!

Mic stands? No. Mic mounts? No. Mics? Obviously not.

Individual pop screen? Yes! (But not the Rycote ones... )

[Drew Stephenson]

Ha! In the 'less than £50' category I have instruments, microphones, effects pedals, VSTis and other plugins, tools, meters, and all manner of accessories.

[OneWorld]

I've got stacks of SOS magazines. OK they don't make or effect a sound but have certainly had an effect or inspired music making

[RichardT]

I think this a road to misery. If you need something good, and you can afford it, go for it.

[tacitus]

Neville Shute said that a good engineer is someone who can make for ten bob what anyone could make for a quid (it was a while back …). That line of thought drives many of us and with ingenuity it’s possible to do the same in our line, especially if you’re brainer and more creative than I am.

But there comes a point when you have to use an appropriate tool and the job simply cannot be done otherwise. I used to be in the family business and this ate away at all of us as we tried to use cheaper machinery to make our products. Eventually, we ended up buying the full-price kit which ensured we met customer expectations but made a lot less money …

As an exercise in distilling exactly what you want from what you buy, the £50 challenge is brilliant. As a long term policy I suspect it leads to replacing last year’s £49 bargain with this year’s £49 bargain ad infinitum.

And don’t forget this thread is largely posts from forum members who are at least in the second half of their equipment-buying days; much later in my case. So we probably have all of the stuff we need and most of what we want. Now, where did that under £50 Zimmer frame thread get to?

[Hugh Robjohns]

My father was one of those engineers who really could build things for half the cost of a commercial product, and they all worked perfectly. But they usually looked rubbish and were often ergonomically unattractive, shall we say.

As a teenage musician, then student, I bought a lot of second hand gear and bargain basement stuff, and built lots of my own stuff including a mixer, amplifiers, preamps, compressors, equalisers, and much more — and I learned a huge amount from it.

But when I started working for the Beeb I quickly learned how much easier and better-sounding recording was when using real professional equipment. I could concentrate on the more subtle aspects of sound and production without having to worry if the damn thing was going to keep working, or joining six disparate short cables together when I really needed one decently long one!

So as time passed and my bank balance became healthier I invested in decent gear and I've never regretted it.

I never worry that a mic stand might droop mid-session because I have decent stands which are used correctly and they just don't. I don't have to listen to prototype mixes on a dozen different sound systems to judge if the balance works because the decent speakers in my decent room tell me all I need to know straight away.

I try and buy equipment that meets my needs at the most attractive price, obviously, but if it's a case of getting something compromised for £750 or something that does exactly what I need for £1000, I buy the more expensive one because I know the cheap one will frustrate me too much and I'll end up wishing I'd bought the better designed one anyway.

[James Perrett]

My thoughts are similar to Hugh's. I used to cobble together my own gear but, once I started gigging, my home made stuff simply wasn't up to the job. However, I did make one or two lucky under £50 purchases along the way - like the Garrard 401 in an auction (which I still use) or the Laney valve PA which one guitarist friend described as an "AC30 on steroids".

[Drew Stephenson]

I think if it's a choice between a £750 compromise or a £1000 hit most of our regular contributors here were would recognise the value of saving up a bit more to get the right tool.
But, as tacitus mentions, a lot of us regulars fall into a very similar demographic. There's probably a lot of readers who are more in a world that's making a choice between a £100 compromise now or waiting a long, long time for the £1000 option.
And that's a very different kettle of fish.