Musical equipment you never used until ___...?

[konfyouzd]

So...

I realized that until I started getting into recording I almost never used bass overdrive / distortion because I was always playing either my guitar or bass in isolation. I don't enjoy the sound of distorted bass in isolation. In a mix, distortion or overdrive on bass does magical things for me sometimes.

I thought maybe we could share similar experiences... Can be anything, doesn't have to be confined to the realm of home recording.

 

[DirtDog]

Synthesizers. Used to hate synths and any music with synths.

Now I usually have a synth track or two on anything I record.

 

[AGCurry]

When I started, we didn't have electronic tuners. The first tuner I used (1975) was a Conn Strobo-tuner which my band bought and we all used. It had two spinning disks, superimposed; one spun at a constant speed for a given desired note, and the other spun at whatever speed the input note yielded. When the two disks were spinning at the same rate, your note was in tune. It weighed about ten pounds and needed AC power, of course. Good tuner, though.

Until then, you hoped a piano was around ... otherwise, it was tuning forks. They worked.

 

[jchrisk1]

When I started, we didn't have electronic tuners. The first tuner I used (1975) was a Conn Strobo-tuner which my band bought and we all used. It had two spinning disks, superimposed; one spun at a constant speed for a given desired note, and the other spun at whatever speed the input note yielded. When the two disks were spinning at the same rate, your note was in tune. It weighed about ten pounds and needed AC power, of course. Good tuner, though.

Until then, you hoped a piano was around ... otherwise, it was tuning forks. They worked.

We played a place one night and the owner saw my acoustic guitarist tuning up using his onboard tuner. She says to him, "oooh, what is that?", and he says it's a tuner. She says, "oh, we used to use our ears". I almost fell out of my chair laughing.

 

[David Vector]

I'd never used a ribbon mic or a modular synth (well, semi-modular) until the last year or so.

Despite having been big into synths since I was a teenager and having them all over my recordings for a long time, I'd never actually physically patched cables when constructing a sound until I got my feet wet with the Behringer D and Neutron.

 

[garp]

I was never into sampling until a fellow musician let me listen to an original piece he composed using sampled percussion. That led me to purchase a used keyboard with sampling capabilities and a used hardware sampler. They're both 15+ years old, and hence archaic when compared to the software sampling technology available today, but I still use them in my home studio from time to time.