One piece of gear

[kclements]

Here's an interesting time waster (well, interesting to me:)

A while back there was a thread about which piece of gear do you regret buying the most. It got me thinking, what is the one piece of gear you use on nearly every track you finish. Now, you could say your ears, or your instrument, or DAW or something like that -which is all good. But I am thinking more specific - or something you purchased. List what ever comes to mind first.

For me, I would say Stylus RMX - I use it on 90% of the stuff I do - even orchestral tracks get a bit of RMX on most days.

Anyone else care to chime in?

cheers -
kc

[Cruciform]

Kore 2.

Doing what I do without access to Kore would be a nightmare. In a sense, it automates automation and thus makes complex, evolving sounds easier to produce.

I don't know what I'm going to do when all compatibility with it is finally lost. Hopefully Bitwig Studio will be able to do it by then or maybe Alchemy.

[Kolstad]

The Toontrack EZ products (EZ drummer & EZ keys). I use them all the time. Because they're so playable and light on the cpu. Often I swap them out in the final mix, but for arranging and tracking they are indespensible to me.

I love Kore 2 as well, btw!

[CHuckmott]

Addictive drums is pretty, er. addictive. All the sprectrasonics stuff gets regular use. AMplitube. Not because it's a ringing endorsement of Amplitube, although it is very good, but it's because It's what I as a guitar player own. AD and Amplitube to get back to the question are indispensable for me.

[eeoo]

Well for me the pieces that see the most use are my Audio Technica 4047 LDC and my UA 710 pre. AD sees a lot of use as well.

eo

[playagibson]

Slate : VBC ,VTM & VCC

That's more than one but they are essential.
In fact EZ Drums, Melodyne, Native passive eq ,Soundtoys Radiator, Echoboy & Decapitator, Softube Trident eq are all must haves for me.

Rich.

[andygabrys]

I am with Rich. one thing?........

Slate VCC has changed the sound of my mixes probably more than anything (except for having better listening skills and a bigger bag of tricks - having good instruments and tracks to work on helps, and sure nice preamp, UAD-2 card etc. are all good.).

Its got a major smoothing effect and it makes things sit together and gel that is extraordinary, just by putting it on the channel. Smoothing - not deadening. it doesn't just make things dark and murky.

I have gotten so used to it being on, that recently working on some collabs where we were sending sessions back and forth and it wasn't on, when we went to do the final mix on my machine and i threw it on the usual channels in Logic, it was like "Ah.....what a difference"

and I don't make any money for saying that LOL.

[kclements]

I am with Rich. one thing?........

Sure, picking one thing is hard - I guess that's the point I was interested in what you would pick as your most valuable player. Not that the rest of the team isn't important.

And, I get that it might change next month. or tomorrow. Or next mix.

But that's part of the fun.

kc

[MJFrog]

I have thousands of dollars worth of some very nice gear and am always eager to add more.
As my eye moves from one piece to the next it hits me .... The one piece that still gets a place on the desk as other more expensive items surround it.
With a laptop and a free Kontact Player anyone could have a lot of fun and make beautiful music with one.

Its my old M-Audio Keystation 61 es, takes a lickin' and still kicking and the best part is that even if you get newer and better units there is always room for another tier of keys. Got it on Ebay for about $150 some years back ........ can't remember how long ago that was.

[marcblack30]

MVP for me is definitely Stylus RMX. I use it on pretty much every song I record in some way or another, sometimes just percussion, but it is an amazing tool! High fives all around!