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Underground > Radio & Music >

What do you play, and how much did it cost you?

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

16:36 / 24.01.02

I've played saxophone for a little over ten years (although I stopped playing on a regular basis a couple years ago when I had my wisdom teeth removed. I really should start again...), and have played guitar for about three. I would have prefered to start with a guitar, just because it's so much easier to learn theory if you can see it all in front of you. On a saxphone, you can't really see what you're doing. Also, on a guitar, you can see on the fretboard any and all notes that are possible to play (if you don't count harmonics). 17x6. It's all right there. Not so on a saxophone. You'd think otherwise, as it was built with only an octave and a half in mind, but I've had teachers who could reach four octaves with ease.

So far I've spent something like $3500 dollars on music equipment. More, if you count repairs. That's a lot when you consider that my first job was only four years ago. That's more than I've spent on my education.

Ah, hell, it was worth it. I've got great stuff, and I've had the pleasure of playing with some really great orchestras, so I suppose it's worth all the time and money.

10:12 / 25.01.02

Drums-wise, I play a Premier XPK, the version they released around the mid-nineties. It's shit hot: it seems to have learned its sound over the years, and thanks to a healthy wodge of PTFE tape it rarely loses tension (I refuse to refer to tensioning drums as "tuning." I mean, come on: you hit it, it makes a sound, you hit it hard, it makes a better sound. What more do you need?). Premier soon realised that the kit was so good at a budget price that no-one was buying the Genista, and they've now taken it off the market altoghter. It's got a turquiose finish, but it's geting pretty scuffed these days. Jazz sizes (10" and 14" toms, 20" bass drum - I've also got a 10" soprano snare that works well in hip hop, and can be used to a timbale type sound). It roars.

While I don't really care about fine tuning the kit sound, I'm obsessive about cymbals. I hated my Sabians when I first got them (best I could get for the price), but I've warmed to themover the years. They do a hand hammered range which are gorgeous, however, so I'm slowly upgrading as and when I can afford. Cymbals rule: there's so much you can do with them.

Other than that, I've got a rag-tag bunch of percussives (finger and hand drums of various sizes, a sickle drum, rainstick, various shakers). My pride and joy is my Ghanaian djembe. It's incredibly light, and impossibly loud. The bass tones shake buildings - it realy hs to be hard to be believed (I just talked myself into bringing it to the Barbejam). I have a lot of good memories attached to this drum, and it seems to have a lot of energy resonating in it. It also seems to "teach" me more about it's nature each time I pick it up. Irreplaceable.

13:28 / 25.01.02

Fender Squier Telecaster (came with an amp, now deceased): $175.
Pawnshop classical guitar: $10 and some wood glue.

Fostex 4track: $500

Yamaha amp: gift (parents)
Spanish guitar: gift (girlfriend went to spain)
Irish block flute: salvage.
Accordion: $80 off ebay.
Theremin: $82 + a couple months of labor, on and off, and a few electronic supplies from Radio Shack.

Computer: won in a sweepstakes. The old one cost $1,500 or so.
Sound card: $60 (i need a better one). Came bundled with the basic version of Acid. Best bundle I've ever gotten.

Ghanian "talking" drum: inherited.
Mexican, uh, percussion thing (like a bamboo tube with two tongs cut longitudinally along the middle, so it's like a two-note marimba): gift.
Bass guitar: semi-permanent loan. I think the controls need to be re-soldered.

Shure radio mike (a U-something? fucking nice): salvaged by friend, given as gift.

There's also a homemade sitar, but it doesn't really work. Jars of rice for shakers. Coffee cans. A ukelele banjo that needs about $200 to play again.

Oh, and about $150 in effects pedals and another $50 or so in cables and cassette tape.

Sound good?
I love all of it. Haven't really played guitar in a month, which feels weird, but my accordion has improved some.

13:37 / 25.01.02

Expressionless, um, the whole tuning thing refers to the tones of each drum relative to each other. If you don't want to do it you don't have to, but I'd think the concept was pretty obvious.

I played a randomly assembled Gretch birch kit with odd symbals and strung-up sheet metal, a japanese strat copy and a fender bass until it was all stolen by two fucking should be dead junkies out of my friend/bandmate's basement in 2000. He lost a gorgeous old Gibson SG that had wonderful tone - also all pedals, some other assorted instruments, all CDs, etc. Cunts. Only now shopping for new kit.

The Return Of Rothkoid

14:19 / 25.01.02

I wish I could afford new kit. Maybe after the move...

Anyway. With me, I have a zither (£20), a Yamaha ES-135-style guitar (solid, not Epiphone-level fucking plyboard) that cost me about $800 AUD - the Barbejammers will see it tomorrow. And an EBow, of which I am proud. At home in Oz, I have a Fender amp that needs selling, and a couple of hundred worth of effects pedals. Only a couple are decent quality (ie: Boss) - the rest are second-hand salvage dealies. I first started playing on an Ibanez (rawk POWAH!) with a dodgy little Peavey practice amp, but now yearn for better things. Though my playing's not improved much since then. I still can't read music, and am convinced that one day I'll be able to. Oh, and am toying with the idea of learning the violin or the piano. Or buying a banjo. Either way...

If anyone knows someone in the UK who wants to flog a MusicMan amp on the cheap, then tell me. 'Cos they're highly coveted by me. Especially the 212s...

[ 25-01-2002: Message edited by: The Return Of Rothkoid ]

14:28 / 25.01.02

i used to play bass guitar. had a lovely gibson les paul thunderbird, as old as me. weighed nearly as much as me, too. cost bugger-all, as i swopped it with my stupid brother for the cheap guitar i was playing. sold it for £350 when times were hard.

The Planet of Sound

14:39 / 25.01.02

A Yahama QY22 sequencer which cost me £600 a few years ago, and a PC (badly).

Rollo Kim, on location

14:41 / 25.01.02

A shite Aria guitar that won't stay in tune, and a beginners bass, put these and / or singing through about 500 quids worth of FX to make it sound like a whale in space. About six different delays etc. Ebow's are cool, and drum-sticks on guitars. Took me ten years to collect all this stuff together. Powerbook G3 with a bootlegged Logic Audio. Got my eye on a vintage Vox Phatom 12 and some midi drum pads 4 the mac. 2 X little Samson mixers. Ukaleilie or however you spell it. Making gorgeous drones using vocodered cymbals, sampled guitar and voices.

Matthew Fluxington

14:46 / 25.01.02

[ 25-01-2002: Message edited by: Flux = Makes Wack Irrelevant ]

Matthew Fluxington

14:48 / 25.01.02

I'm terrible with precise model names, and prices... nothing I own cost me more than $500.

I've got a:

AKAI sampler, bought used, it's a 1999 model

Korg sampler, circa 2000

Korg rhythm synth, bought used, circa 1998

lame Yahama keyboard, circa 1998

lame Casio keyboard, circa 1997

one cheap Japanese electric guitar, needs to get new strings. used mainly for effects because I can't really play guitar at all. acquired for free.

several effects pedals, mainly Danelectro:

reverb
slap echo
tremolo
phaser
distortion
wah wah
chorus
delay
compressor

I really want to get the new Danelectro reverse delay pedal...

three different microphones

2 bongos, acquired for free

tambourine, acquired for free

2 drum sticks, acquired for free

broken harp, acquired for free (used for effects)

harmonica

Sony digital 8 track

loads and loads of cables

Once I get my money situation sorted, and I have a good bit of disposable income, I want to get some new keyboards, because I hate the two I have right now. I'd like to get a moog or a farfisa... it's pretty far out of my price range, but I would loooooove to get a Fender Rhodes...

14:50 / 25.01.02

all those effects pedals! wow! consider me very jealous, mr. flux...
i have a sky-blue squier strat. i can't remember how much it cost me (probably because it's the most expencive thing i've ever bought and i pushed the price out of my fragile little mind). all i do know is that i got the guitar a lot cheaper than my boyfriend-at-the-time did, and he affirmed that it was because i am a girl; and girls are treated either very well or very badly in music shops. i agree with him on this one. the men in shop crowded round me as i test played guitars. it was very odd.
a chum gave me a lead and the amp is from another.
i can now play guitar standing up.

15:35 / 25.01.02

I used to half-heartedly play the flute...only instrument I ever personally owned, apart from recorders. It was a Buffet and Crampon one (did I get the name right?) it cost about £200-£250, but that was when I was ten, and *I* didn't pay. Looked into selling it a while back, when I needed money to help pay for my doggy, and they only offered me £80. God, I wish I had chosen another instrument, I hated the flute, but that's getting off topic, innit...

16:18 / 25.01.02

:: all prices in pounds ::

i have..

a fender strat.. sunburst.. got it second hand for 150..

a marshall 601 60w combo.. got it in a closing down sale .. about 60% off.. came down to a little over 200 in the end

and my crowning glory.. the guitar i lusted after for YEARS!!.. my gibson les paul standard..

850, if memory serves.. i used to have life savings you know..

18:09 / 25.01.02

quote:Originally posted by videodrome:
Expressionless, um, the whole tuning thing refers to the tones of each drum relative to each other. If you don't want to do it you don't have to, but I'd think the concept was pretty obvious.

The concept is indeed obvious. I think you mistook my contempt for scholarly muso drummers for not knowing my ass from my elbows.

Even worse than those drummers who make their toms sound all pretty together are the ones who tune them to musical notes. I mean, for fuck's sake! Life is far too short to waste it on shit that no-one but an equally anally retentive drum wanker will notice.

Do I really need to put a wink emoticon in here?

04:55 / 26.01.02

Up until very recently I never owned any musical equipment (except for this bass that my older brother gave me [Squire P-bass]), but this Christmas my older brother got me a Hondo white flying V guitar, on which the tone and volume knobs don't work -- I don't really care, cuz I get a really dirty sound out of it that way -- and my father got me a Danelctro baritone guitar, which I've been using to write slowish stoner metal cuz it's got a really low sound being a baritone and all.

06:56 / 26.01.02

I play flute for a start, own my own, and play to a pretty fine standard. That is, the last time I picked it up. Ought to do so again. At a guess, that's around £400 for a bottomline but nice Yamaha one.

I've played piano from 6, first classical, and moved onto jazz in my teens, which I guess is all I play nowadays, though having watched the Man who Wasn't There I'm inclined to dig out some Beethoven Sonatas, so loathed by me at 14. Pianos are expensive. That's why parents are useful.

There's also a battered Yamaha acoustic, £60 down, which is fun for noodling on and learning, though I'm DEFINITELY no guitarist.

And then there's my "studio", inverted commas because it hardly counts, with mixer (soundtracs), sequencer (yamaha), sampler (akai), keys (yamaha), zoom fx box, and various other things to come. Which has cost me over a grand so far - I totted it up one day to frighten myself.

And I don't care how much it all costs. Music's always with me; money spent on it is never wasted in my view. I still play the flute I got when I was 10, it's still fine for my needs, though of course, like any gear-whore, I'd love a slightly better one - silver rather than silver-plated.

But that's another story. I really don't think how much you spends matters, as long as you found it worthwhile. So lets not talk money. Just talk what you got.

13:05 / 26.01.02

quote:Originally posted by expressionless:

The concept is indeed obvious. I think you mistook my contempt for scholarly muso drummers for not knowing my ass from my elbows.

Whew. Nope, no emoticon needed. I'm with you. If anyone reads Modern Drummer I don't want to hear about it. Just rock, OK?

14:56 / 26.01.02

Gibson Epiphone folk acoustic, got it as a birthday present 10 years ago. It still sounds good.
(mind has gone blank on electric guitar maker, but it's well past it's prime)
I've a bass with great pick-ups and hardware etc. but some idiot cut the body into a lima bean shape and painted the whole thing blue. NO idea who made it. Needs a new body and then it'll be ace.

Zoom.

A

10:15 / 28.01.02

I've got a light purple Danelectro guitar, which is practically weightless and cost about $500 Australian, and a pathetic little "Rocktek" practice amp, which i got from my parents, along with my first guitar, which was a cheap strat copy, for my 17th birthday.

I've also got a lot of cheap keyboards and toy instruments, which i plan on using in a band sometime soon.

I play bass in my band, but i don't own a bass, so i use my drummer's cheap, crappy Magnum (i think) bass to practice with, and a small bass amp another friend left at my house a couple of years ago. Neither of those are good enough to play with live (although the bass amp is good enough to play guitar through), so i tend to borrow another friends gear. Fortunately, he plays in two bands, so my band doesn't have to play with the same band every time.

I hope that hasn't made you as confused as it's made me.

11:51 / 29.01.02

I have an old Classic Western guitar that I received for Christmas five years ago (so it cost me nothing). I've practiced playing on and off ever since I got it, but I still haven't passed the bleeding fingertips stage. My fingers were designed for tickling the ivories, not digging into metal wires.

10:45 / 01.02.02

Used to play:
Korg Electribe Synth
Roland MC-303
8 channel behringer mixer
PC running rebirth.
I had just about got my live set together and sounding pretty cool when...
some fucking prick nicked it all except the PC and I hope they fucking rot to death and then more after.

Since then I've managed to get my hands on an Electribe sampler and Reason for the PC so things are on the up again. Its still going to be a while before I've put together a live set again... Ah well, c'est la vie.

Goodness Gracious Meme

11:12 / 01.02.02

Shortfatdyke: my heart bleeds in sympathy, used to have and play (albeit not very well) a beaut six-string bass, given to me by a friend as long-term loan... who sold it out from under me to go travelling. bah.

currently: a violin- german, name always fucking escapes me, which cost me about £300 but is only the latest of several which i guess have cost me about £8-900 total, not replacement strings, repair, black and whites (which i only bought for bloody orchestral things, so i'm claming them as an expense.

had a beautiful bass recorder (about £200) but again sold for rent money...

11:17 / 01.02.02

I'm not going to say how much any of this lot cost, but since my parents paid for it when I was at school I think that should be OK (within the letter of the law if not the spirit, and anyway I think I agree with Paleface here).

I have a bundle of recorders (treble, descant, sopranino), penny whistles, fifes and so on.

Big horrible grey bass, make is 'Axe', sounds like water going down a drain... & I can't play it properly anyway, my hands are too small.

B-flat clarinet - Buffet Crampon R13 - this is the standard orchestral clarinet, and the model is the one that most school players get when they start being good (though I did have a nasty ebonite one until I hit grade 7). It's ebony with silver mounts. I use rico royal reeds at grade 3 - they're a bit softer than vandoren ones, and I find they give a softer tone which is still clear (though again, high notes can be a bit of a strain). Have also played alto sax and bass clarinet when required, and once I played a serpent - that was VERY ODD.

Cello - has no label, but the guys who looked at it for the insurance say they reckon it is German and dates from about 1800. It sounds really good, but looks as if someone has put their foot through it - it has been *very* heavily restored - and often develops new cracks and buzzes, which is a right old pain. Has nice flaming on the back though. It's about 7/8 of the size of yer normal cello, which is handy for me. The bow I got new - it's German, the make is Paesold, I use too much rosin so the hair gets a bit clogged.

All at the disposal of future Barbelith jamming sessions...

14:24 / 01.02.02

Actually, Plums, we only need a piano and we have a trio...

06:15 / 02.02.02

I have a fender jazz bass tucked away in the back of the closet. Got it about six years ago from a friend who got it from [think its best if I leave this part out]. Anyway, I promised him a painting for it but never came through. I guess that means I stole it from him. I bought a peevy amp but sold that a couple of years ago when I was strapped for rent. Los Bullies International have been on haitus ever since.

[ 02-02-2002: Message edited by: biomagnetic k9 ]

10:39 / 02.02.02

German-made western style acoustic (£100, paid for by 'rents) w/ PA-hating pick-up and a Kustom 40W practise amp (£150 approx., paid for by rents).

Want to get a V-amp (£130) and Telecaster replicer (£109).

Also want to get my iMac plugged into the net and start making things on that. Any one tell me how to record my guitar into it, and what sort of programes to get (want stuff that makes keyboard noises, synthy noises and a drum machine type thing. I'd prefer to buy this stuff, but I simply can't afford it right now, or find a place on the island to sell it to me)

16:30 / 02.02.02

Guitar into iMac requires a preamp and possibly a USB audio interace. The V-Amp would be ideal - take the amplified output of that into the Mac interface audio in.

Software you might like to try includes Reason (vast virtual studio, but no guitar-rec facilities, it's self contained), Cubase/Logic/Sonar (the big 3 of audio/midi sequencers), Fruityloops (simple loop based sequencer and synth), Orion Pro (similar), all manner of VST plugins (instruments and effects that literally "plug in" to any sequencer that can handle them). Plus assorted audio editors, plus god knows what else. Oh - Acid. Loop sequencer. You stick audio files in. It plays them. It will play files of different tempos and get them to fit together without pitch change though, which is rather nifty, and helps you sketch stuff out.

Audio warez are a bad thing. Don't go there. Try lots and lots and lots of free demos, which there are loads, and then purchase based on that. But warez are bad. And often more crippled than they'd like to be.

What you're describing (record guitar well and make lots of useful noises) isn't necessarily as simple as that. And I'm really bad at explaining this kinda stuff to people. Ask Flame On, he'll be more use.