Adventures In Audio

The computer is the only tool you need to make music..?

With all the attention given to that spawn of Satan, the personal computer (Windows or Mac!), it's easy to think that all you need to make music is a computer.

Starting off with a library of loops, and monitoring on the speakers that probably came bundled with your PC when you bought it from the showroom, you can make your own mash-up that is bound to propel you instantly to the top of the sales, radio-play or download charts. Yes?

But maybe that isn't so. And I have a startling piece of evidence that says that hardware is a long way from being dead. In fact, it has never been more alive. That evidence is ...

The new 2006 Spring/Summer Studiospares catalog!

Yes, this latest edition consists of 250 pages packed with hardware. No computers, and not even a page and a half of software. So on a simple page count, hardware wins by a margin of over 150 to 1.

Want more convincing that hardware is the life and soul of music making? OK, let's pick a page – pages 100 and 101 seem to open up nice and flat on the desktop (the polished wooden variety of course!).

Here's what you can buy from just this two-page spread...

  • M Audio Mobile Pre USB audio interface
  • Focusrite Octopre 8-channel mic pre
  • ART HeadAMP headphone amplifier
  • ART Deejay Pre II RIAA preamplifier
  • QED Disc Preamplifier RIAA preamp
  • B-Tech BT26 RIAA/microphone preamplifier
  • Alice Phonopak 2 RIAA preamplifier
  • MTR Gain Brain gain module
  • Denon TU-260L radio tuner
  • Marantz ST4000 radio tuner
  • QSC PLX power amplifier series
  • Inter-M L power amplifier series
  • Yamaha P2500S/P3500S/P5000S/P7000S power amplifiers
  • Alesis RA150/300/500 power amplifiers
  • Stageline STA power amplifier series

Just two pages and all these products – thirty in total counting all the individual models. Multiply this up and the entire catalog has over 3500 hardware products.

As we can see – hardware is very far from dead. In fact considering how much this catalog has grown over the years, it is only getting started.

And I haven't even considered the Canford Audio catalog yet (maybe they should have remembered to send me one!).

Questions for you...

What's your favorite catalog?

Do you think that hardware is dead?

P.S. Page 16 is particularly good - it features my book 'How to Become a Record Producer'!

Thursday July 7, 2005

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David Mellor

David Mellor

David Mellor is CEO and Course Director of Audio Masterclass. David has designed courses in audio education and training since 1986 and is the publisher and principal writer of Adventures In Audio.

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