Is It Too Expensive?

This article is an editorial and expresses the opinion and experience of the author. Please post comments in the discussion page. Thank you.

This originally appeared in my blog.

Introduction

My niece announced at our last family gathering... "I'm the lead singer in a new band". Her mother had hinted to me earlier, "Now that you have completely converted to that fancy Bose system, do you have any of your old gear you could donate?"

This got me thinking once again about this question, "Is the Bose system too expensive?" and pondering the options.

Well, I've already given away all of my old PA gear. I didn't have the heart to sell it as once having adopted the new system, I couldn't perceive a lot of value in the old stuff. (Bose 802s, powered mixer, power amps, floor wedge monitors). So I donated it all to a worthy cause.

So what do I do for my niece and her fledgling band. She is the only vocalist and the other four members of the band already have their instrument amps. There probably wouldn't be a lot of motivation for them to pool resources for what is essentially, an amp for her. I'm not quite sure how I will handle this specific situation, but back to some more general thoughts about the meaning of "expensive".

What have you paid for things that didn't work?

Over time, I have spent many times the cost of the Bose system, for things that basically didn't work. I had gotten to the point that I thought it was as good as it was going to get for what I was willing to spend. Throwing more money at the problem wasn't going to make the sound significantly better.

Expensive - Compared to What?

Pondering value, I look around at other things that I spend money on, and notice:

The new system is:

• About the cost of a Tablet PC, a tool I use to generate the funds that supports my music habit. I typically replace this kind of gear at least once a year.
• Significantly less than a decent instrument, and yet my electric instruments don't realize their promise without some kind of amplification. The new system does this better than anything else I've ever owned in this respect.
• Significantly less than the aggregate total of other guitar rigs I've owned, most of which I simply stopped using as I went through the cycle of gear acquisition in search of tone.
• About what I paid for a TC Electronic G-Force (that's a single piece of gear that goes between the guitar and and amplifier).

I draw no conclusions about this, just that in this light, it somehow just doesn't seem all that expensive.

It's probably going to take a couple of days to get all of my thoughts on this reduced to words.

Logisitics

Let me spare you any raving about the sound. That can be pretty subjective. Let's talk about things that are easier to measure.

Logistics

The logistics I'm talking about is all the planning and labour it takes to make a gig happen, before, during and after.

Unless you have a sound technician with a system and transportation for your band, there is a certain amount of planning required to get the gear to the venue, set up and ready to go. Chances are pretty good that if you move your gear in a semi, you are not in the target profile for the Bose® system.

If you are like many bands, a gig means some or all of the following:

• Tearing down your practice studio
• Loading gear into one or more vehicles
• Unloading it at the site several hours before the show
• Setting up the gear
• Sound check (usually at full volume) in an empty space
• Finding something to do for a couple of hours
• Showing up at the gig when it's time for the show
• Fine tuning the sound during the first couple songs to compensate for the warm bodies that are now in the space
• Checking with folks during the set, and between sets to find out how you sound (because you can't tell from the stage)
• When the show is over, you have teardown and transport to look forward to, and
• Unloading at the other end
• At some point you probably will setup your gear again, so you can practice

Life is ticking by while all of this is going on and no matter how well organized I have tried to be, the payback (time playing) was always overshadowed by the logistics. A four hour show might require eight to twelve hours from beginning-to-end. In the extreme this looks like: Start packing early afternoon, and not be finished unpacking until the early hours of the following morning.

What if you didn't have to do the full volume sound check and you could physically setup in 5-10 minutes? This cuts out the need for the early setup / sound check routine. For me, this means the difference between doing setup in the afternoon, and just showing up an hour before the show. That knocks three to four hours out of the routine.

What if teardown after the gig could be done in under twenty minutes (from stage to the vehicle)? At the other end of the journey, how about ten minutes to have your gear setup and ready to go for practice? This could save another hour or more.

What's the payback here? For me, about four to six hours per gig.

So if you have ever had the thought: "Is this really worth all the effort?" as you contemplated eight to twelve hours of activity with three hours of actual music in there someplace... Consider what it would be like to do the whole thing in half the time.

With a payback like this, is it too expensive?