hello anyone home stop it stop wasting your money buying that equipment is not going to make you
sing like michael jackson greetings earthlings and welcome back to podcastage this is not a review
this is not a tutorial this is a discussion of consumer behavior with audio gear because
i have made a lot of mistakes with audio gear and i've seen a lot of people make
a lot of mistakes with audio gear so i wanted to share five tips with you to hopefully keep
you from wasting a bunch of money tip number one avoid following the trend
i know how tempting it can be to just follow the trends because then you don't have to think about
anything if you see a bunch of people using the blue yeti or the shure sm7b that probably means
it's not a terrible device so you're probably safer buying it but i don't think you should
go down that road instead what you should be doing is making a list of your requirements
and then seeking audio equipment that meet those requirements for example if you're looking for a
microphone that does really well with background noise rejection you might want to go for the rode
pro caster over the shure sm7b but if you're looking for a microphone that does really good
with plosive rejection you would probably want to go with the sm7b over the rode pro caster
another more extreme example is if you're looking to distance mic yourself or boom mic yourself
probably don't want to go with something like the shure sm7b unless your name is sound speeds
and you should probably start looking at small diaphragm condensers or shotgun microphones
and unfortunately for you that does mean that you should be doing a little bit more research and
research takes time which leads us to tip number two and tip number two is avoid impulse purchases
if you don't know what impulse purchases are it's pretty much buying something as soon as you
determine that you want it without giving it much thought and i think you should be avoiding this
at all costs because impulse purchases rarely meet your expectations and frequently will
lead to buyer's remorse so instead of jumping from the i want it to i'm going to buy it phase
i would recommend bookmarking that product page on your browser waiting a couple of weeks then
after that wait period if you still want and if you still need that product then i would consider
purchasing it because you have avoided making that really quick purchasing decision and during that
wait time you can do a lot more research into the product watching a bunch of reviews and reading a
bunch of write-ups to make sure that it is the right choice for you tip number three avoid
buying the dream i don't mean that you shouldn't have dreams that is not what i'm saying what i do
mean is a lot of us buy the idea of the equipment as opposed to the equipment itself what i mean by
that is we may learn that michael jackson used the sm-7 on thriller we may want to buy the sm-7 or
the sm7b thinking michael jackson used that so if i buy it i'll sound like michael jackson without
including in the equation that we don't have michael jackson's voice or quincy jones producing
us we need to stay grounded in reality and buy equipment based on the equipment as opposed to
the dream of what the equipment will help us reach because equipment is just a tool it will not alter
our talent or skills or abilities now i know there are instances where the gear and equipment will
have minor impacts on your ability like the size or the shape of a guitar neck but that's not going
to have a massive impact on your ability the point i'm trying to make is the biggest contributing
factor to the final product being great is going to be your skill and ability not the equipment
tip number four avoid going into debt i know how tempting it is to want to buy all the gear in the
world when you see zero percent financing for 18 months but i really believe that you should avoid
going into debt to buy non-essential items such as audio equipment and yes i understand
there can be an argument made for a zero percent loan when inflation is seven eight ten percent
because as you pay it off in a year a year and a half you're paying that loan off with dollars that
are less valuable than dollars today i understand that but i still think you should avoid it because
there is one factor that we cannot determine we cannot tell the future or if you can tell the
future get in touch i would love some investment tips i'm sure that's all above board but really we
can't tell the future people can lose their jobs financial situations can change so i think it's
bad practice to get into debt to buy something that is non-essential like audio equipment
instead i think the best course of action would be to continue to use the equipment that you have
save up the money that's required and then buy the equipment that you want to upgrade to
that means you will not have any issues in the future when you lose your job you lose your
income stream and you have a debt payment coming up and tip number five do not pay scalper prices
this seems to be increasing in frequency and as the supply chain gets funkier and funkier
i imagine we will see more and more of it but my advice is do not pay scalper prices under any
circumstance if it can be avoided if an item is sold out at the official retailers and then you go
on to second-hand markets like reverb or ebay and you see that the microphone is listed at two times
three times or more i would say just be patient because unless the item has been discontinued
audio manufacturers they want your money they will put it back in stock and you will be able
to get it so just be patient and then you should be able to get the item at the msrp
or manufacturer suggested retail price which is a lot better than a scalper's price there's
also a really great bonus to being patient and not paying the scalpers premium if nobody patronizes
the scalpers they will not sell their inventory meaning they will not earn any money and that will
hopefully disincentivize people in the future from adopting that flipping behavior where they buy a
bunch of product turn around mark it up two times and sell it on the second hand market that's all
that i've got for you today i know this was a lot different than usual but this is something that's
been bouncing around in my head for a while i don't just want to review gear because i think
that can lead to over consumption i also want to advocate for fiscal responsibility like not going
into debt not doing impulse purchasing pretty much everything that i talked about in this video so
i hope it was useful if you did find it fun interesting or helpful go to give me a
thumbs up hated it thumbs down these people are amazing i love you i will talk to you next week
thanks for watching thanks for listening i'll talk to you then bye