If you know me, you know that I love music. I love listening, playing, and creating music. But I've recently been flipping though various music store catalogs and I've come to realize that in music, there's almost a direct correlation between how much money you spend and how good the quality of your music is (I'm talking more about audio quality, not how good the band is). To be even just a garage band every member has to spend at least a couple hundred dollars for a good instrument, another couple hundred for decent amplifiers, and even more if you include microphones, cables, stands, and even a mixer if you're that serious about it. All in all, a basic band costs something like $1000-2000. And then once you get popular and want to record an album, that's another couple thousand dollars, depending on whether you buy equipment for a home studio or go out and rent a recording studio and an engineer. And if you don't spend that much money, you end up with poor-sounding performances and amateur recordings.
This is all assuming you're forming a rock band. Electronic music, on the other hand, can either be cheaper or even more expensive to compose, record and perform. On one hand, professional-quality software such as Ableton Live, Cubase, Traktor, etc. can be $500 or more, and if you are doing the type of music that involves lots of sequencers, samplers, etc. (like, say, Daft Punk) each module by itself is probably a couple hundred. On the other, tracker (and some sequencer) programs are either completely free or almost-free, and yet they have the capabilities to sound better than professional equipment and software.
I think the reason I like chiptune is that it's cheap: a Gameboy might cost you $50 on eBay, and LSDJ plus a flash cartridge won't be more than $40 (that is, if you get the cheapest, most basic flash cart). It's also easy to grasp, as long as you have some musical training. I remember reading an article a while back where a school ordered lots of Gameboys and LSDJ cartridges to give to students to teach music composition. (wait, have I mentioned this already? Eh, whatever.) I wouldn't call it brilliant, but it's pretty damn clever and cost-effective. Gameboys are pretty tough and can take a fair beating before ceasing to work (heck, most Nintendo products can, too); there's a Gameboy on display somewhere in New York that was caught in a bomb blast (not sure what kind it was), and although the outer case was melted and deformed, it was still able to play games. And if a student succeeds in bashing a Gameboy until it doesn't work, the cost of replacing it is even less than a textbook.
Oh also, single instruments don't count in this. Sure, you can get a harmonica for cheap, but it doesn't have the versatility that a full blues band has.
The backlight's arrived, so I'll be modding my DMG (and posting pictures of the process here) in a couple days, when my dad and I have time to do it. I hate final exams.
About Me
- VCMG
- California, United States
- I'm a gamer, a musician, and a techie. I like shmups, and retro games. I dislike many new First-person Shooters and Square Enix games, but not all of them. I dislike Rap and Pop. Hip-hop is okay. Any other music is fine (although I'm not a fan of metal either).
I guess if you want to it like that yeah starting a band costs a lot. But don't bands normally start out stupidly simple? And everyone normally has their own instrument and don't necessarily need a new one.... Like you said, it depends on how much quality you want.
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