FEATURE USED GEAR Mark Thompson’s Top Tips
The Funky Junk boss gives his best advice on how to make sure you get the most out of your used gear purchase.
1. Looks Matter – “Very often cosmetic condition gives a good clue as to how it’s been treated. Especially if the seller still has the original boxes. Tat suggests he’s up his own ass and has been looking after the gear quite well!”
2. Be a Historian – “Find a bit of history about how it’s been used: has it been used as a doorstep or did he record for say two days a month? A lot of companies offer extended warranties, so see if those are transferable.”
3. Get Hands On – “Ask if you can try it first, and if that’s too difficult then ask for an independent technical report.”
4. Get a Guarantee – “If you can’t try before you buy – and I understand a lot of private sellers or a place like eBay won’t allow you to – be sure to get some sort of money back guarantee, even if it is only for a few days.”
5. Use a Little Common Sense – “Know what you’re buying! We’re astonished at how many people come to us with bits of gear they’ve bought secondhand and have no idea all the capacitors are shot or the pots are shagged and just say ‘I assumed that’s what they sounded like’. A lot of this stuff has been used professionally. It’s been turned on 24-hours a day. It’s been rock ’n’ rolled. It’s going to need some servicing and refurbishment. Don’t think for a moment that you’re going to go out there and buy something [that’s perfect].”
Knowing When to Steer Clear
Experience counts when it comes to buying used gear. Besides going through all the right steps once you’ve begun the negotiating process (see box above), are there some pieces of kit that you should be especially wary of? “Anything digital can be an issue
because it isn’t fixable by a normal tech as usually it has surface-mounted technology and has to go back to the manufacturer who then tends to change the board,” says Tompson. “Tere is a list of stuff that you just
cannot get spares for: Fairchilds, if the output transformers are gone you can’t get them and the value goes down
from £30,000 to £15,000 on the spot. Neumann’s, with the U47 if the VF14 tube is gone you can spend a long time looking and spend a lot of money trying to find out. On an AKG C12, the capsule - you won’t get one.” Yet it’s not just the specific model numbers that you need to be aware of. Buying secondhand smartly also means knowing what a piece of kit should sound like. Tompson: “When capacitors go in a piece of equipment it will very often continue to work although it may become intermittent, but the sound thins out – you lose the bottom end, you lose clarity and punch. Tis
The Vintage Hit List
“A lot of the vintage or classic recording equipment was made at a time when the recording artists used to ask the in-house technical staff to come up with a piece of equipment that did a particular job for them, like special reverbs (Phil Spector - Wall of Sound) - or heavy compression (Joe Meek - Telstar),” comments mjQ’s Hamish Jackson, who has brokered deals for artists and facilities such as Mark Ronson, Paul Epworth, Abbey Road, and Gary Barlow. “In the old days, kit was generally hand-built at the studios using high-
quality components with durability, a wide frequency range, and that special feature of the day – the valve or tubes as the Americans call them. Te big warm sound was an important ingredient – liken this to a valve-based jukebox playing in your local café: it may not be at its most accurate, but the listener
20 July 2014
finds it acceptable to listen to for some length of time.” “Tere was a lot of beautifully sounding pieces and model numbers made and they were built really well, for the most part, and they sounded great because of the transformers they used, the inductors, the quality of the components, and the style of the construction,” adds Vintage King’s Mike Nehra.
“1073s, any vintage Neve modules, vintage API modules, any vintage
Neumann or AKG mics whether they be tube or solid state, Urei, vintage Teletronix, Telefunken tube modules, preamps, and so-forth. Tose are really popular staples but anything that is classic, whether it be British, European, American, built in the 60s and 70s – almost all brands increase in values.”
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Electric Lady Studios in New York is home to a fully restored Neve 8078
is why I say we often see people who have bought stuff secondhand, usually processing gear, and they’re putting up with something that isn’t performing anywhere near to its optimum and they don’t realise it.”
Sound Investment
While the idea of buying ‘secondhand’ might be a great way to build up your studio while saving money compared with purchasing new gear, buying ‘vintage’ is a whole other story. Tere is some level of cultural
weight we attach to recording gear from the ‘Golden Era’ that manufacturers continue to play off. Just look at the way new kit references the revered items of the 60s and 70s, or the sheer amount of plug-ins that claim to be the most realistic end-to-end sonic recreations of those specific models. “People are increasingly conscious
of the resale potential, much like works of art (which they are!),” says Jackson. “Trends are still quite territory-specific, for example Neumann vinyl cutting lathes are going back to Germany where the mastering industry is booming and the Chinese love affair with tape machines is still very much alive and well.”
“With computer technology and the internet over the last 15 years you’ve seen a steady and exponential increase in the amount of musicians who can record affordably,” adds Nehra. “We still find a massive amount of this stuff and it does still change hands, but more people want it and that’s driving up the price. So, there’s only so many U47s, and however many Pultecs, Fairchilds, Teletronix LA2As, etc… So the demand is higher and the price has gone up. Tere’s more users and only X amount available. When we started in 1993, a vintage 1073 was $700, now it will go anywhere from $6,500-$7,500. It’s a pretty good investment.” Not everyone, however, is as optimistic about the continuing growth of the market and Tompson believes it is starting to soften and that prices might need to be re- evaluated and lowered in the near future: “Instinctively I feel the market softening a bit. I don’t know why, maybe because the stuff we do is just the froth on the cappuccino.”
www.funky-junk.com www.mjq.co.uk www.vintageking.com
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