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Season 3 ·

S3E15 – Should You Sell Your Old Music Gear

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I have an very interesting topic to talk about this episode.. which is Should You Sell Your Old Music Production Equipment?

Many times we sell old equipment to make some money back to purchase new equipment, which helps offset the cost.

While in the short-term this is very helpful financially, in the long-run, it can actually be annoying, and takes away from your story as a producer.

Also.. if any equipment fails, you may not be able to produce music, and you’d have to wait for that equipment to either be fixed through warranty, or purchase a new product!

If you keep your old equipment, you’ll have zero down-time while your current equipment is being fixed!

There’s also a couple other reasons to not sell your music gear:

  • Old music gear is many times built better (stronger, longer lasting)
  • Old music gear sometimes has special features (which they remove on new generations!)
  • You can have zero down-time if any equipment fails!

What’s This About Your Producer Story?

Have you ever watched a producer interview where they walk through their studio and talk about the various equipment they used in the past, or music production equipment they started with?

What if you “made it big” and were interviewed!

Having your old speakers, MIDI Keyboards, and microphones would make for amazing conversation pieces about your producer story!

What do you think? Do you always sell your music production equipment?

Music Production Equipment Reference Monitor Speakers

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Transcript

S3E15 – Should You Sell Your Old Music Gear

  1. Season three, episode 15. Should you sell your old music gear?
  2. This is actually a really interesting topic because typically we think when we
  3. purchase new equipment, many times we want to sell that old equipment to make the
  4. money back and help fuel purchasing new equipment to kind of offset the cost.
  5. But there has been times in my music production career where I look back and it's
  6. like, oh, I still wish I owned that piece of equipment for a couple reasons.
  7. One to actually still use it from time to time.
  8. And two, because I do online beat making education, it's really nice to have my old
  9. equipment laying around where I can do videos, but there's actually more to it than
  10. that. And I have a list here, which I'll talk about in a moment in this episode.
  11. So before we get into this episode, I want to share members.
  12. If you go to it'sgratuitous.com, you will now be able to watch the new course, the
  13. online music distribution course.
  14. This course is going to teach you how to upload your music to Spotify, Apple Music.
  15. You can use any online music distributor to follow along in this course.
  16. I teach you about your artwork, things not to put into your artwork, how to prepare
  17. your artwork, as well as copyright issues that you might face with your artwork.
  18. I show you about mastering your music and your fade out times and what is kind of
  19. like a good volume for your master.
  20. And I also talk to you about your track list, which is the organization of your
  21. song. So in other words, what order your songs go in, which is actually kind of
  22. tricky. Again, if you remember, you can visit it'sgratuitous.com.
  23. You can check out the course. All right.
  24. If you want to join the membership, again, visit it'sgratuitous.com.
  25. You will see a way to sign up, or you can purchase the course by itself.
  26. The course is called Online Music Distribution course.
  27. Let's get into this episode about should you sell your music production gear?
  28. So I want to give you a perspective of how I started, and then I'll talk about how I
  29. upgraded equipment and then. again why I wish I didn't sell my music production
  30. equipment All right, so when I first started music production, I went over to a
  31. friend's house and he was using FL Studio.
  32. That was my first experience ever seeing a music production program.
  33. It actually took me a couple times seeing the program and then coming home and then
  34. thinking I want to download the program and try it myself.
  35. I used FL Studio for about a month and then I ended up purchasing the signature
  36. edition of FL Studio. I remember thinking to myself, what am I doing?
  37. I just purchased this music program.
  38. I don't even know how to play the piano or anything, right?
  39. I was just like a super noob. I didn't know anything about music production.
  40. So over time I kept practicing beat making just with FL Studio, the computer I had,
  41. and I had consumer Logitech speakers where they come with the two speakers and a
  42. little subwoofer. And that actually gave a really good experience because you're
  43. able to hear that low end kick.
  44. I highly recommend if you're a beatmaker, to have that subwoofer, even with your
  45. reference monitor speakers once you start upgrading, because the sub allows you to
  46. not only feel your music, but you can actually hear the low end as you're mixing
  47. too. But as you keep reading online, you know, you're gonna keep seeing, oh, you
  48. need to purchase reference monitor speakers, etc.
  49. etc. Right? You need the audio interface so that you can plug those speakers in.
  50. Oh, you need a MIDI keyboard. So I started to purchase all this music production
  51. equipment, and for the most part, I got a really, really good experience.
  52. Okay. So the reference monitor speakers were five-inch reference monitor speakers.
  53. I plugged them in and I was so disappointed that there was no bass.
  54. It's just the fact that a five-inch woofer is not to gonna give you the base from
  55. any brand, no matter how much marketing they're trying sell you on..
  56. Okay The fact is a five-inch reference monitor speaker won't give you that low end
  57. that you need as a beatmaker. So, anyways, that ultimately made me purchase a
  58. subwoofer with those five-inch reference monitor speakers.
  59. That was an awesome setup. I had five-inch reference monitor speakers and a
  60. subwoofer, and I'm still using that sub even to date.
  61. So I mainly want to focus on the reference monitor speakers when it comes to selling
  62. your old equipment in this episode because this is what's happened to me.
  63. So I ended up purchasing an eight-inch reference monitor speaker because you know
  64. you end up reading online about different speakers, and I was like, Oh, well, I'm
  65. new to this industry still, I wanted to try new equipment.
  66. So I purchased eight-inch reference monitor speakers, and then I put the five-inch
  67. speakers away because the audio interface I had at the time, I was not able to take
  68. advantage of multiple sets of speakers.
  69. And there's so many times where I'm like, I wish I didn't sell that equipment.
  70. And I want to talk about a couple of those.
  71. Okay, so first of all, over time I learned that equipment, right?
  72. My ears were used to those speakers, and that's what you hear all the time from
  73. people, right? You learn the speakers, you start to know them really well, you learn
  74. how they translate. That was a huge thing.
  75. Another thing is when I do videos for my beat making courses or on YouTube, if I
  76. ever want to do comparisons or anything like that, I always like to have my old
  77. equipment laying around so that I can quickly share and educate you guys, right?
  78. Now, here's actually a couple other reasons, maybe not to sell your equipment
  79. because these are things that happen over time that we hear over and over again,
  80. right? So many times the old equipment is built better..
  81. So think about that If you purchased your speakers like 10-15 years ago and now
  82. they're making speakers today, are they actually making them better or are they
  83. removing parts or are they trying to cheap out?
  84. Because we see this with everything, with every product, right?
  85. Things look fancier, but the old stuff is heavier, it's built better, it's stronger,
  86. right? Many of the equipment from way back in the day is still running perfectly
  87. fine today. Whereas sometimes the new equipment you can't even service it yourself,
  88. such as like cars and stuff. Another thing is that the price can actually go up over
  89. time if you buy it new again. So let's say I purchased those speakers for let's say
  90. $300. And when you are purchasing reference monitor speakers, the lower end
  91. speakers, many times you purchase them in a pair.
  92. So it might be $300 for the left and right speaker.
  93. As you start purchasing higher end reference monitor speakers, you are typically
  94. paying per speaker. So instead of $300 for the left and right speaker, it could be
  95. $300 each speaker for a total of $600.
  96. So that is just one thing to think about.
  97. If you purchase the equipment brand new, just like if you purchase a brand new car,
  98. the value obviously goes down right away because it's kind of like the new buyer's
  99. fee. If you hold on to that equipment, you know, it's always just nice to have in
  100. the background. For example, let's say the reference monitor speakers you upgraded
  101. to, let's say they fail. Let's say something happens with them, you have to send
  102. them into warranty. You have speakers to tie you over.
  103. This has actually happened to me with my audio interface.
  104. I was under warranty. I turned it on, and it was just dead.
  105. I was like weird. So I ended up showing them over video.
  106. I was under warranty. I had to ship it in.
  107. I was able to just bring out old equipment.
  108. That's a huge benefit to have.
  109. So in other words, you have no downtime.
  110. It may not be the exact same experience in a sense of this audio interface I have is
  111. a monitor controller. I'm able to switch between different speakers, whereas other
  112. audio interfaces sometimes you don't get that luxury.
  113. Or if you ever want to compare the old product with the new product, or if you
  114. simply just want to talk about it.
  115. So, anyways, that has just been my experience that I ended up selling these
  116. five-inch reference monitor speakers.
  117. And I would really like to still have them so I can use my monitor controller to
  118. switch between them. Because when you are mixing and mastering your music, it is so
  119. nice to be able to hear your music on different audio systems, and then you start to
  120. learn them over time, and then you know that your music is going to translate half
  121. decent out there. If you have the money, don't feel that you have to sell the
  122. equipment. In my case, when I purchased these you know, my speakers and stuff, I was
  123. working full-time as an electrician.
  124. So it's not like I didn't have money coming in, so I could have kept them.
  125. I just sold them because you know I kind of had the mindset of you know, I always
  126. want to make the most of my money.
  127. So, why am I holding on to these speakers if I'm not using them?
  128. So, if you want to learn FL Studio and how to make professional beats, you guys can
  129. visit me over at it'sgratuitous.com.
  130. You can now check out the new course, the online music distribution course.
  131. If you're a member, you get access to that course as well as all the courses.
  132. And check out my new beat tape, Beat Takes by Gratuitous Volume 10.
  133. I worked really hard on it, a lot of really powerful beats in there.
  134. I always tell you guys if you want to be a good producer, it's all about being well
  135. rounded. It's about learning different genres because you start learning the
  136. different secrets of. these different genres
  137. And then you can truly become your own producer learning tons of the different
  138. tricks and skills and making your own style of sound.
  139. Okay. I'll talk to you in the next episode.
  140. I hope you enjoyed and always just keep in the back of your mind that you don't
  141. always have to sell that equipment if you have the money.
  142. Yeah
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