Foam Ear Plugs (make sure they have an SNR 30+ dB rating,
or they’ll be fairly useless for this purpose)
Why? Tinnitus is awful, and lasting if you abuse your ears enough.
Which is very easy to do… and the solution is just as easy, and far preferable
in the long term!
How much? You can get packs as cheap as 40 for under £3 on
ebay, it really is just a question of shopping around, and even if you do pay a
little bit more, the difference is negligible compared with buying 6 ear plugs
from a chemist for approximately £3 that won’t work as they weren’t designed to
attenuate that much noise, whereas these ones are usually designed for people
on building sites, and are amazingly good at blocking out noise.
Recommendations? I use EAR FX, because they’re huge and I
have fairly big ears.
Your own microphone
Why?
Getting your own dynamic microphone (or a condenser will allow you to record your own
demos to a better standard if you’re not looking at gigging all that much)
means that you’ll always have a microphone available for a show, which sounds
silly given that most venues have microphones, but not all do. And some of the
ones that do have them, have awful ones. So, you really can’t go wrong carrying
around a small dynamic to every gig. I really regret it when I end up in having
to use a crap or not intended for vocals microphone nowadays, and you probably
will eventually too!
How much?
For a passable or second hand dynamic anywhere of
£50 upwards, for condensers you can usually find a low end one in your local
Pawn Shop/Cash Converters for £30 to £50.
Recommendations?
I’d
recommend buying a cheap condenser off Amazon or second hand as cheap as
possible, as you really can’t go wrong having one around- my Red5 audio RV6
never let me down and was very good for its price before I managed to destroy
it through clumsiness.
For dynamics the obvious answer is the SM58 from Shure, it’s
indestructible and tried and tested. Mine is still going after 4 years of
abuse. Alternatively, any of the big name ( e.g. Sennheiser, AKG, Audio
Tecknicha) ones are reliable enough that buying second hand is a realistic
option and you’ll still get a long life out of them.
Notebook
Why?
Ideas can’t be planned, and keeping track of them is
hard. Having a notebook on you all the time is a great idea as it means you can
just jot down ideas for lyrics, song structures or general thoughts for later
use. Self-expression is after all a many faceted beast.
How much?
Under a £5
Recommendations?
Go to your nearest corner shop, and look
near the Cards section or WHSmiths if you’re feeling rich or in need of
quality.
Smart phone or iPod
Why?
In this day and age, you probably already have one and
if you don’t you will soon. What’s so useful about them you ask? The fact they
have the capacity to store both lyrics and music on the same device, and on a
fair amount of them access both simultaneously. This has obvious implications
in terms of learning songs and using that wasted time on the bus/train/sitting
around when you’re bored.
How much?
Upwards of £40
Recommendations?
A second hand 8gb ipod nano of whichever
generation is between £40 and £55 depending on which shop you look in or site
you use, but it’s a sound investment as once you get into the habit of using
your spare time it’s very hard to go back to wasting it! Never mind all the
other fun features you get on modern devices.
A textbook on home recording
Why?
Using a phone or awful direct to USB microphone to
record your demos is a thing that most people do when they’re starting out. I
should know, and believe me: the only way from there is up. A whole world of
improvement can be made to your home recordings with very little effort and a
small amount of reading.
How much? Anywhere from £1 to £30.
Recommendations? Mixing Audio- Roey Izhaki for those with
money, and the Basics Series by Paul White for those who don’t.
-E
-E
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