The most important factor in producing an awesome home recording is not the gear, but we love to talk about gear, so here’s perhaps the worst piece of gear buying non-advice that I’ve ever received — and how I’ve since reframed it.

One of my audio school instructors was fond of saying “a poor craftsman blames his tools.” I respect this man and I understand what he was trying to convey. He’s not wrong, but I personally took that message to an extreme and internalized it to the point of self-sabotage.

We can interpret “poor” in this scenario to mean both “broke” and “incompetent.” In the almost ten years since I first heard this phrase, I’ve centered the latter interpretation, as in:

“an incompetent craftsman will claim that they can’t produce better work because they have crappy tools, and if only they had better tools, they could produce higher quality work.” 

Then, I twisted it to mean that if I’m a competent engineer, I should be able to do anything with budget recording equipment. (Uh-oh.)

Consider Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago — one of my favorite albums of all time. Justin Vernon famously recorded the bulk of For Emma with a single SM57. Armed with this knowledge and that adage, I should be able to make commercially viable music at home with my cheap mics, right??

Yes! I believe that anyone can, as long as the music is strong. BUT, you have to be honest with yourself about your expectations. If you embrace the lo-fi element as a feature — as an intentional production decision — you’re golden. For Emma shines here.

My issue was that I couldn’t make myself adopt that perspective. I treated the lo-fi element as a challenge to overcome, then spent all of my energy attempting to polish the recordings into something that they couldn’t be (if you couldn’t already tell, I’m an obsessive perfectionist). My goal was to use my budget gear to reproduce the quality of a pro studio, which means I was setting myself up for failure and disappointment from the start.

Now, don’t get me wrong — a great mix can pull vibrant colors from budget recordings, and you can absolutely get high-quality results with an SM57 in certain applications! But an SM57 will never sound like a C12 or a 251 or a U47 or an M 49, no matter what kind of processing you put it through. They just are not built to translate sound in the same way. So if you look at that 57 and see something other than a 57, well… you’ll be learning the same lesson I did.

I thought that I should be able to make pro studio-level recordings with what I already had on hand because I did audio school and I should know enough about recording and mixing to make it work. I should be able to make my 57 and AT4040 sound like a million dollars in any application.

Unsurprisingly, I got really, really frustrated.

Because a poor craftsman blames his tools, right? And I wasn’t a poor craftsman! Certainly I could do better with what I had!!!! So I didn’t upgrade my gear, and I continued to be unsatisfied with my recordings because I wanted them to sound different. I wanted them to sound better, but I’d hit a ceiling.

Years went by, and I slowly bought some new mics for myself (R-121, BF541, a pair of KM 184s). Then I started spending more time in the studio where I currently work, and that’s when I finally, completely accepted that better gear really does sound better. It took years of trial and error and listening and frustration to get to that point. 

I made my first serious outboard gear purchase in 2022, six years after graduating from audio school. I bought my first tube mic almost exactly a year ago today. Quality gear comes with a hefty price tag, but I know what kind of outcome I want, and I know now what it costs.

Now I think of new gear as problem solving. I’m not admitting incompetence if I buy a piece of equipment to ease a pain point that I’ve isolated. If anything, I’m affirming my competence by identifying my weaknesses and evaluating how best to improve in those areas!

So yes, maybe a poor craftsman blames their tools. But if a craftsman knows their tools very well and is uninterested in continuing to work within their limitations, then upgrading those tools is actually an investment in the craft. It doesn’t mean you’re incompetent if you determine that you need higher quality gear to produce the results that you’re after. I know it sounds so obvious, but it took me a long time to understand that. 

Find your specific pain points, consider what gear will best solve your problems, and then solve your problems. 

(I know that upgrading is easier said than done because pro gear is prohibitively expensive. If you’re frustrated with your recordings but you’re not in a position to buy better gear or pay for studio time, I encourage you to keep pushing while you save up, but maybe reevaluate your goals and expectations in the meantime. I promise you can still make worthy recordings with whatever it is that you already have. Remember, the power lies in the song and its performance. That’s why For Emma has done so well — because of the way it feels.)