If you haven't been bitten by the DIY bug, you probably have it coming. It is one thing that I suggest anybody in audio, whether it be pro audio or musician, get involved in. It is a great way to save money while still getting a solid quality product.
Making DIY electronics does take practice to learn and develop skills such as reading schematics and operating a soldering iron. Once you get these things down though, it becomes easy and something enjoyable to do.
Take something like microphone cables. If you go into your local music store to buy a microphone cable it can easily cost $25 for a 20 foot cable. Considering you'll need several of these cables even for the smallest project studio and you're putting out a lot of cash on something that isn't so fun to buy.
If you go the DIY route, however, you can save yourself quite a bit of money in the long run. You can buy a 500 foot spool of microphone cable for as low as $100. The connectors you buy cost $1-$1.50 a piece. Some people see the $100 price tag for the spool of cable and are thrown off from pursuing this DIY route. When you compare that to the 4 cables you can buy from the store and the possible 20 cables you can make yourself, it just doesn't make sense to ever buy another cable if you have the skills to make one yourself.
Now, microphone cables aren't all that exciting. What really gets exciting is to build pro audio gear. You can find kits and schematics for all sorts of audio gear out there too. I have made guitar pedals and preamps myself and have had a lot of success on those projects. The possibilities are almost limitless for what you can build yourself though. You can build everything from theremins and analog synths to tube amplifiers for guitars.
So, if you are looking to build up your project studio or want some effects pedals for your guitar rig, I strongly suggest you look into the DIY options available to you. Take the time to learn the skills necessary and you can save yourself a lot of money on high end gear.
I think going DIY is both exciting and rewarding. I like to work with my hands so getting a project going is a great way to spend an evening and even save some money. The most rewarding part is knowing something you built yourself actually serves some useful purpose.
ReplyDeleteI also think building other components for a home studio can be a great alternative to spending money on commercial products. I built a diffusion panel that I love and took me only one day and about $20 to construct. It also looks really nice hanging up on the wall.
How are you liking your Neve clone? I remember being in class with you when you built that and was totally impressed. I remember the power supply came per-assembled is that an option you can select when you ordered from the company or did you have someone else assemble the power supply to meet the requirements of the class? Also, I’m curious to know how it compares to some of the other high-end preamps you’ve had the experience of working with? Would you recommend the pre that you built versus a consumer product of the same price? Why or why not?
ReplyDeleteI agree about having pride in something you built being useful. I think about that every time I use my preamp that I built.
ReplyDeleteAs for the power supply, they only offer an assembled power supply. I'm assuming that this is due to the large voltages and such. Even assembled, I think the power supply by itself came out to $80 or so. When you package the kit and chassis with that they offer a discount on everything, so you save even more.
I think the N72 preamp holds it's own against any high end preamp I've had the pleasure of working with. I haven't personally used the preamp that it is modeled after, the 1272, but based on others reviews am confident to say that it is nearly identical to the original.
For the price that you are spending on this kit and the quality that it is, there really is no beating it. Considering that a refurbished original Neve 1272 is around a grand for one channel and you can build one channel of the N72 for $350, it's so worth it. The preamps you can go into a store and buy at this price are not even comparable to the sound quality of this thing. I definitely recommend them. The company is Seventh Circle Audio and they have 7 different preamp modules available at the moment as well as a portable DI version and a new compressor that I have yet to check out.