Skill or Gear? Challenge Mode Episode 1

Posted by on September 07th, 2022 in Music

Allright! it is finally time to use this blog for something! (I guess)
Nah this is actually a useful place to keep Information on all of the data contained in the Skill or Gear challenge.
So, after making my last

Cover of Doom Eternal’s The Ancient Gods Orchestra

I decided that I want to challenge myself to new things. I am really happy with how the cover turned out, so happy that I made my own orchestral mix template based on that cover in ableton. I will be using that template for future projects. There is a separate blogpost about that template, if you are interested, you can read more about it here.

Anyway, so I decided to challenge myself. I want to find out how much I actually know about music production, and how much my gear and plugins are saving my ass.
I collected my secondary gear and made a new setup consisting of old or broken gear that I still own, And I want to make a new, original orchestral metal song from scratch, using that gear.

What gear you ask? well I have a list for you right here!





GearCommentPrice/Cost
Schecter Damien Elite 7 FR GuitarMy first Guitar that I got at the end of 2012. low mid tier guitar, decent and affordable. (also looks cool!)600 – 900 €
M-Audio Venom KeyboardA “Virtual Synthesizer” meaning that it uses sampled waveforms and acts as a synthesizer… it’s also it’s own interface even. But I
only use the MIDI notes from it. which suck. The Velocity on this keyboard is insanely bad. the Keys are really stiff and it’s difficult
to get high velocities. I have to hit the keys and even then… welp.
200 €
Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 Audio InterfaceThis is a great audio interface that worked for me for many years and still works great! it has two inputs and a bunch of small, additional stuff. Unfortunately it fell down a couple times, and it’s headphone jack has connectivity issues. I have to wiggle it sometimes to get both headphones to work properly. 160 €
Shure SM58 MicrophoneDecent, cheap microphone used all over the world. sounds good, solid choice.109 €
Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro 250 ohm HeadphonesThese Headphones are great. you can hear everything from 20 – 20000 Hz. Every Headphone model has it’s own unique Frequency response curve. this one has a dip at 200 Hz, 1500 Hz, and a boost above 3 kHz. I will have to keep that in mind when mixing…160 €
REAPER (DAW)Reaper is fairly cheap, but still great. might not be the most
exciting or graphically pleasing to look at, but it’s a solid choice, especially for beginners.
60 €
TOTALI assume that people have one good(decent, not shit) instrument, like a guitar. so the total budget here is estimated as 709 €, excluding the guitar, and also excluding a laptop or PC. 709 – 1559 €