I get the calls all the time, "Buster I'm building a studio... what should I buy."
Well truth be told my buddies in the manufacturing industry might not like what I suggest, because I am going to steer you away from normal choices. Ill give you the same advice I give them and that is to get nose out of the Musicians Friend catalog. Once that is done we can then find a great solution that will work for your unique purposes and get you the biggest bang for the buck.
New Shiny Gear!!
Ok, the allure of unpacking a piece of new gear from its bubble wrap may be exciting but if you really want to get the biggest bang for your buck you are going to have to piss off those big-box retailers like Guitar Mart, and start scouring Ebay and Craigslist.
There are some great pieces of gear that have tons of life that won't break the bank.
The end use must be kept in mind. For instance if you are going to run a commercial multi-tracking facility then you will want something completely different than if you are simply composing your own songs.
Consider your requirements honestly and see if a used 002 may work for you . People are unloading them all the time as they upgrade. It has practically the same features as the new rigs with much less cost. Save the money and use it to buy a better microphone, which is really what you need anyway.
If you are considering laying out the bones for a big HD system first consider if you could get by with a 003 expanded. You could buy a nice firewire interface for under a grand to expand your real time tracking capability to a full 18 tracks at a time. And the real bonus, you will be thousands ahead in budget. With a beefy enough computer you can run all the same plugins as the HTDM system but, you will be able to afford more of them.
The Plugin Game
Ok, if you are going to take a project from recording to mixdown in your studio then you are going to need some quality plugins - bottom line. Plugins give you the pallet to create polished and produced sounding mixes. So spend your money wisely. This is also an area where you can pick up some used gems as well. Many of the best plugs are for sale used on Ebay for fractions of their retail price. Purchasing is simply a matter of transferring the iLok asset from the seller to you. It does involve a transfer fee but for the savings on the plugin it is well worth the effort.
The Other Stuff
For all the other gear - you know the boring stuff like mics, stands and headphones - look for used gear as well. But when it comes to critical chain items such as microphones, buy names.
I see way too many people make the amateur mistake of buying no-name gear which is touted to be the same as say a Neumann [ it looks like one after all]. This is a rookie mistake.
You picked Protools because it is what the pros use right? Why shouldn't you make your critical chain (mics, pres compressors) purchase decisions based on the same information. Spend wisely and you will have a piece of gear that serves you well for decades. Spend foolishly and you will waste money by having to upgrade to what you should have purchased the first time.
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