My Philosophy for Deciding Whether to Buy Something or Not

This … I feel, is an important one. Primarily because Audio Engineers and Producers and the like are notorious for making unwise purchases, whether they be hardware or plugins. I, too, have suffered the same affliction and have come up with strategies to deal with these tendencies that have worked well for me, and if you resonate with what I suggest in this article, I hope you’ll find it helpful too.

As someone who has made a living from audio, it’s important to get this balance right. You need to make purchases to continue doing great work, but at the same time, if you purchase too much, then you don’t get to keep any of the money you make! Or if you’re getting started in the industry and not yet making money, then you’ll feel like you’re spending tons of cash but not getting much benefit out of it, which is equally as bad.

So where do you draw the line? What is a ‘good purchase.’ Well, enter my philosophy .. read on!

For me, it comes to evaluating ‘needs’ verses ‘wants’ based on the functionality that the purchase will provide.

What do I mean by this? Well, I suppose a great example for me would be the DBX 160 Compressor. I’ve wanted one of these since 2011, and since then I have periodically googled it just to look at pictures of it … however, it is a purchase that would not provide functionality to my setup that is currently lacking, and that is the reason why I must be content with looking at images of the thing rather than buying one to have and to hold.

This is an example of where the distinction between ‘functionality’ and ‘quality’ comes into play. A Distressor Compressor will no doubt provide greater quality to my signal chains if I were to purchase one, however, in terms of raw functionality, it doesn’t offer anything. I already have the ability to control dynamic range both during recording and during mixing, and the Distressor’s saturation functionality I can find elsewhere too. Hence, it is an unwise purchase for my career.

Let’s take another example, and let’s focus on you for this one!

There might be a plugin that you’re interested in acquiring. Plugins are a great temptation because they typically price in the hundreds, as opposed to the thousands, so they’re easy to justify as one-offs. However, my advice, especially if you’re not just starting out and you already have a bit of a collection going, is to evaluate in terms of functionality, and not in terms of quality: Does this super fancy plugin you’re considering actually do something different to others that you already have? Does it offer functionality that you do not otherwise have access to?

Obviously there are grey areas with this, for example a plugin might have a particular sound that you deem unique. It might be a compressor like many others, but is the sound in itself a type of functionality? Maybe .. that’s the tricky grey area that you, dear reader, will have to maturely navigate!

I’m somewhat loathe to talk about my purchases, as I prefer to keep articles brand-agnostic where possible, but it might benefit us to mention some specific examples. So here are some examples of purchases that I’ve made in the last few years that are purely functionality-based in the decision making process.

Oeksound Soothe

Soothe is a ‘dynamic resonant suppressor’ – I had to look that up because I wasn’t sure how to categorise it myself! I evaluated this plugin in terms of the functionality, and it seemed to me that I didn’t have the ability to do the same sort of highly intelligent ducking of frequencies anywhere else in my gear list. I made the decision that it was a good purchase because it was adding functionality to my kit.

Oeksound Bloom

Let’s keep on with the same brand …

Bloom is a new plugin from the same company, and this one is in a similar vain, but seems to add some compression and saturation on the go. I played around with it during the trial period, and I really liked it, however it wasn’t bringing new functionality to the toolbox. Soothe already does the soothing thing and I felt the overall sound I could more or less achieve elsewhere. Hence, I had to sadly watch the trial period come and go.

 

Electrovoice RE50 microphone

The RE50 is a dynamic omnidirectional microphone. That combination of attributions is quite interesting and seemingly rare, although these are attributes that are commonly found in handheld interview microphones for television. I think it’s a highly underrated microphone for music and sound design, and the omnidirectional polar patterns allows you to place the microphone very close to the sound source, as omnidirectional polar patterns don’t exhibit the proximity effect. This might sound trivial, but it makes a big difference when recording foley, whispered vocals and quiet ambiences, so much so that I deemed this as functionality that wasn’t offered in my other microphones. Hence the purchase.

JBL LSR310 Studio Subwoofer

Subwoofers reproduce waves below 50 Hz with a sizeable amount of power. My other speakers didn’t offer this functionality and it was something I needed. Purchased.

Waves Clarity Vx Pro

This was an unwise purchase that I regret. Not because it is not fantastic, it is a fantastic denoising tool and it does a pretty incredible job, and I have used it professionally multiple times now, however I did already have other denoising plugins offering the same functionality, so in hindsight, it was not a wise purchase. I was suckered into the temptation and a colleague told me that ‘I needed to buy it yesterday,’ God bless him…

I could keep going on, of course, but the point that I’m trying to make is that by following a loose grey-area-ridden guideline like this, you can give yourself a compass in order to navigate these decisions. Like I said at the outset, audio peoples are notorious for making purchases that are financially unwise and impulsive. This philosophy of mine is something that I’ve followed for a long time, and despite that last example that I mentioned, it has allowed me to conduct a profitable sole-trader business in the industry during my years as a sole-trader and I hope at the least it gives you something to think about when navigating these tempestuous waters.