If you spend time in a music production or audio engineering Facebook group maybe even on those stalwart audio forums from yester year you’ll quickly run across gearheads.
What is a gearhead?
Webster’s dictionary defines a gearhead as someone who confidently asserts the necessity for certain pieces of audio equipment to be a legitimate audio engineer or music producer. They will often focus their time on arguing with people on forums about the superiority of certain pieces of audio equipment (which they may never have actually used themselves) in lieu of getting into the studio and actually using the gear they own.
When a mixing and mastering client asks me “What’s the best microphone for vocals?” my response is “The microphone you own”. That might seem dismissive or naïve but what I’m really saying is, stop worrying about the equipment for now, focus on your vocal chops (speaking to myself here), your writing and recording with what you have.
These are generally the skills that people need to work. Especially when the music industry has been so democratised when it comes to the equipment available to record music.
A great song, with a killer performance and production recorded well with cheap equipment is better than no song OR a mediocre song recorded with mythical equipment that such and such an artist used.
The take away: Focus on writing, recording and producing great songs. Upgrade your equipment when you’ve squeezed all you can out of it in the pursuit of improving your craft as a songwriter, music producer or audio engineer. Then you’ll know if you NEED a certain piece of gear.
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