I love electronic gadgets! I have always had pocket pc phones, gps units, and I love my iPhone. My wife, however, always buys these kitchen gadgets. The irony in that is that I’m the one that cooks (and she cleans- it’s a good system).

Too often, the magic slicing and dicing gadget that costs as much as eating dinner out, is a disappointment to me. I’m no master chef. I’m not above being lazy sometimes. The honest truth is though, that most of the time, a good trusty knife does just as good and usually a much better job than the newest gadget. So what if the gadget is quicker if you are not happy with the results? Also, gadgets tend to be a pain to clean up!

So, you’re wondering what this has to do with your Sunday audio set up, aren’t you? Well, read on…

How often do you visit a big-box music retailer? Or, maybe you lust over pray about owning gear you see on their home page online. “The AudioGX3100, version II now auto-mixes for you, so you can mix without having to touch anything!” I don’t buy it; figuratively or literally.

One thing that really used to bug me when I would ask a salesman or production crew member for “x” (let’s say an SM57), is when their response would be, “Oh, we have ‘y’ which sounds just like it. In fact, I like it a little bit better!” Not once did it even come close.

When I was touring, for the most part I saw the same gear night after night- 57’s, 58’s, Allen & Heath consoles in clubs and Yamaha consoles in bigger venues, or if I were lucky, a Midas. The racks all had 31-band EQ’s, a few compressors and maybe a couple of gates, and I saw the same FX units over and over and over.

It had been a while since I had to shop for this stuff, so when I recently decided to help a client put together a portable system, I was overwhelmed at the array of products out there! How then, do you know what will actually do what it says, or where to best spend your money?

One rule of thumb is that if it promises to do much more than the price tag would seem to support, then you should probably pass. Some other things to consider are that you are not going to make up for poor musicianship. Compressors, mics, plugins, etc. are only going to do so much, and unless you have the budget to get top of the line, then save your money and focus on using the gear you already have.

Before getting a feedback suppressor, learn how to recognize frequencies and EQ accordingly. If your mix sounds dull, challenge yourself to improve it rather than sending it through some aural exciter. Both of those pieces of gear will alter your frequencies and phase which is not really desirable.

For a reference, check out ProSoundNews. You can read each issue online for free, and I love the tour profile stories. See what gear is being taken out on tours, and you’ll start to see the same numbers coming up over and over. Now, sure, you can’t upgrade to $50,000 console tomorrow and I get that. But can you upgrade those mics left over from the choir in ‘82? Do you really need to use that FX processor from the company that got bought out 10 years ago?

Strip your mix down to the basics and get it to a place you’re happy with before you add all the extra comps, gates, eq and fx. Then you can make subtle adjustments to enhance your mix and the praise team, rather than trying to compensate for a problem somewhere up the chain. You’ll also avoid introducing new problems!