Hard-Core Gear Porn Friday!!!

I know, I know. “Chris,” you say, “how the fuck are you gonna top last week’s Zimmerfest?” Well, the truth is, I can’t. You’ll have to go through life knowing that it will never get better than that. Our friend Don over at soundarc.net turned me on to James Whit (I guess that’s his name), who can certainly hold his own against the destructive power that is Zimmerland in sheer quantity, anyways. The above photo is but one angle of his studio, which is stuffed to the gils with a pretty fucking nice collection of synths.

There is an album on his AOL Homesite page which shows off his collection, a couple hundred grand worth. (Two Synthis and a VCS3? That’s just plain ostentatious.) Here’s what I don’t get, though. I regularly sift through piles of pictures of these guys studios, and to a person, they all have thousands of dollars invested in the highest of the high end of the synth world, and they all run their gear through shitty $250 Mackie boards. That makes no sense to me at all. Metaphor? No problem. Say you go and buy a brand new Aston Martin DB7. It is hand-built for you in England, as only the English can do. You then take that DB7 to Costco and have them put the $50 set of tires on it. Seriously, guys. The mixer is where the rubber meets the road. If you’re gonna invest all that money in synths, you should pay attention to your signal chain and A/D converters at least as much.