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You would hade more high paying Gig's 0r more gigs if you had what gear??


minimoog

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A contract with a label.

A different location.

Less distractions and more time.

I think most or even everybody here has all the gear they need. Cats in England are making albums with Logic on an iMac. It's just other lifestyle crap that gets in the way.

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Quote Originally Posted by MuzikB View Post

Less distractions and more time.

I think most or even everybody here has all the gear they need. Cats in England are making albums with Logic on an iMac. It's just other lifestyle crap that gets in the way.
Yup. All you need besides the gear is more time (making music instead of starting 50 threads a month here) and some kind of image gimmick like a silly helmet (deadmau5), silly hairdo (Skrillex), etc. if you're not a cute girl.
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Quote Originally Posted by theGman

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A female singer.

 

So true! I just quit a country band led by three female vocal/instrumentalists plus myself on bass and a male drummer. Previously I was in a blues/swing band with a female vocalist and long ago a top 40 band with two females up front. All these bands consistently worked more often and for better money than other bands I've been in.
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I humbly submit that you are asking the wrong question.

Remove the word "gear" and replace with any of the following:
Skill, training, education, background, discipline, courtesy, experience and/or talent.

In my own experience, I have yet to meet a brilliant player or composer who cannot find work for lack of cool gear.
What I have encountered more than once is a brilliant player or composer who has difficulty getting gigs due to poor communication skills, bad manners or a lack of common sense.

Gear = tools for doing a job. Usually people who are good at a job manage to obtain adequate tools for performing the job.
In this day and age anyone can afford decent tools for creating music, even if at first you have to earn the money doing something other than music.
A few nights working as a waiter or bartender per week for a few months should allow anyone to afford a cheap Dell laptop, a DAW and/or an affordable keyboard.
(Yes you might have to do that waitering as a 2nd job, but I can attest from firsthand experience it is quite doable.)

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Back in the 80's, I had the mistaken idea that the more gear I bought, the more gigs I'd get. What I actually needed was more confidence, connections and talent.
Some people I knew back then were even worse. I knew a guy who worked in a local music store who bought a large Sony automated console and a 2" 24 track recorder, an impressive selection of mics, racks of processing gear and piles of synths, mostly on credit. The problem was that he put all this stuff in his dad's basement rec room with a seven foot ceiling. That, and the fact that he had no musical talent whatsoever. icon_lol.gif

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Quote Originally Posted by Ed A. View Post
Back in the 80's, I had the mistaken idea that the more gear I bought, the more gigs I'd get. What I actually needed was more confidence, connections and talent.
Very true. Add knowledge and skill.

Back in the 80's, I knew a guy who owned endless stacks of keyboards - his apartment looked like a musical instrument store. He could never get any gigs, or get hooked up with a band, or anything. The problem was, he simply didn't know how to play keyboards very well, if at all. It was as if he thought he needed to buy just ONE MORE synth and then he'd be this great keyboardist that everyone would want to work with.

When I would tell him to sell all but two of his keyboards, learn those, take a few lessons, and devote the next year to practicing, he'd look at me like I was an idiot.
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There's no question that we tend to obsess over our next gear purchase....as if that one piece (or multiple pieces) of gear will be the key to a higher level of consciousness or whatever. And then when we get it, we're happy for a little while....but then we're over it, and obsessing about that next piece of "got-to-have" gear. It's like crack or heroin.....you might get temporary satisfaction from one hit, but then it's all about getting the next fix....and then the next one....and so on.

This isn't just keyboards or recording gear; in fact, it's not even limited to musicians....it applies to every walk of life. We've all known "that guy".....the guy who always has to have the hottest, newest technology....the coolest phone....the biggest TV.....the fastest car.....whatever.

But enough of my soapbox.

In direct response to the OP, and the gear that would result in higher-paying gigs....if you're looking to maximize your income opportunities, I'd recommend that you not worry so much about instrumentation and shift your focus to PA and lights. The fact is, people would rather see a band of middling talent that looks and sounds great, as opposed to a band that emphasizes musicality and musicianship over production values.

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Quote Originally Posted by keybdwizrd View Post
Very true. Add knowledge and skill.

Back in the 80's, I knew a guy who owned endless stacks of keyboards - his apartment looked like a musical instrument store. He could never get any gigs, or get hooked up with a band, or anything. The problem was, he simply didn't know how to play keyboards very well, if at all. It was as if he thought he needed to buy just ONE MORE synth and then he'd be this great keyboardist that everyone would want to work with.

When I would tell him to sell all but two of his keyboards, learn those, take a few lessons, and devote the next year to practicing, he'd look at me like I was an idiot.
Knowledge and skill in working with electronic gear maybe (synth programming, sequencing, sampling, etc.), not so much playing keyboards with classical chops. Skrillex, Tiesto, deadmau5, etc. aren't making their millions as piano/organ virtuosos.

I have much respect for traditional keyboard skills like yours, but I'm just calling it as I see it.
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I bought a Hammond SK2 last February and I credit it with increasing my gigs. I have synths and pianos but when I took my "pocket b3" to some jam sessions it immediately raised a lot of eyebrows. My sit-in calls increased and I now play with two bands regularly that I did not play with a year ago. There is a lot of keyboards that simulate organ sounds but there is a difference in perception by fellow musos when it says "Hammond" on the front.

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