Why I don't have G.A.S.

Audio engineers often suffer from a mental affliction known as Gear Acquisition Syndrome, or G.A.S. for short. This is where engineers keep trying to add more and more toys to their arsenal. While I see nothing wrong with buying the toys if you can afford it, my biggest complaint is when an engineer still doesn't really know what they are doing, yet they throw money at the problem thinking that more gear is gonna make their mixes better.

For financial reasons, I was forced to take a minimalist approach to audio recording when I first started. My first mult-tracker…..

A BOSS BR-532. I still have it, and it works like the day I got it 10 years ago. I still call it into use when I want to control an external midi device, or run a click track into a headphone amp, or something similar. For scratch demo's, I'll still reach for it.

I learned to make some pretty awful recordings on it, but over time my recordings got better. I learned to make the most out of it, and eventually found myself recording some pretty decent demos on it.

My point is that my monetary restrictions helped me avoid Gear Acquisition Syndrome. Sure, I'd have loved to have been able to afford the latest Focusrite Pre's and the most sought after mics in the industry. But I didn't have access to these things when I was learning, so I used what I had to build my chops. What I had were consumer grade digital multi-track hard disc recorders that recorded in CD quality, and if I was gonna get better mixes out of them I had to learn how to properly use and place mics and develop my ears.

The old adage that "It's not the gear, it's the engineer" really holds true in my case. In the recording game, you have a ton of engineers touting that they have this new Preamp or that new plug in, but you won't find me doing that. Odds are I don't have them, but odds are that the quality of my mixes competes with most in the game right now.

Why don't you judge for yourself.



There's a reason I still don't publish my current gear list on my web site, skylinesoundco.info, and that is because I'd rather the client allow my product to speak for itself without them worrying about what gear I may or may not have. Do I create a quality product? That is the only question I'd want anyone searching for a recording studio to ask me.

If the shoe were on the other foot, and I were for some reason searching for a recording studio, I'd look at their gear list just for audio geek reasons. But then when it was time to consider whether or not the quality of the product was what I was looking for, their gear would have no impact on my decision. Period. The reason for this is that I know what gear can and cannot do, and I know what an engineer can and cannot do.

It's like the saying that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing". If you told someone who didn't know better that you have to use a Shure SM57 on a snare drum, and there's no other way to get a good snare drum sound, odds are that they'd believe you. Then, anytime an engineer would try to use a different mic on the snare drum this person would panic. The person, who is not an audio engineer, would be afraid that the engineer didn't know what the hell they were talking about. This could cause a lack of trust in the engineer, and eventually could cause the client to be unhappy with a perfectly good product just because they can't get over the mental stigma that the engineer didn't do what the client believed they should've done.

On the other hand, if you have a client who knows nothing, and you tell them nothing, they'll have no preconceived notions about what gear works best for what purposes, and will be more apt to let the engineer do their job. Also, if you take a client who is also an audio engineer, their knowledge of the task of an engineer might indicate that they need to let the engineer do what they are gonna do and not interfere.

I tend to think that most people with Gear Acquisition Syndrome are those who don't know what they are talking about, and are apt to throw money at poorly trained ears to fix the problem in a hurry.

My biggest concern with G.A.S. is that I know for a fact it has caused scrutiny of my ability to perform my job as an audio engineer. People were judging me based on a gear list that looked at the time to be minuscule to some standards, while altogether ignoring my end product. Hence, I took the gear list completely off my web site, and I won't publish it. Instead, I try to sell myself as a pro engineer who knows what he is doing, and that seems to be working. People are still shocked that I don't have a room full of tube mic pre's and other outboard gear, especially when they hear the results of my engineering efforts.

This is in no way to make myself seem like I'm hot shit. There's always room for improvement, and I know that. The minute that I stop remembering that, I've got bigger problems to deal with. But I'm also willing to recognize that my product is good. My product is good because my engineering skills are good, not because of the gear I've bought.

I know this probably won't change anyone's minds, but I would like to think that we'll eventually get to a point where people will stop looking for a gear list when they look into a recording studio, unless there really is a specific need for a certain piece of gear. Until then, I'm going to be the change I want to see in the recording industry and try to take the emphasis off of the gear I use and put it on my engineering skills.