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How have you afforded your kit?


curleysound

We spend lots of money supporting our businesses. What method best describes the way you came into the funds to buy your equipment  

57 members have voted

  1. 1. We spend lots of money supporting our businesses. What method best describes the way you came into the funds to buy your equipment

    • Bought it piece by piece, saving for the next item on the list
      37
    • Saved for a long time and bought a lot at once
      1
    • Settlement, gift, or estate, or other windfall
      0
    • business loan
      4
    • credit cards
      7
    • personal loan
      1
    • loan and savings/earnings
      5
    • Other (Please explain in comments)
      4


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I did a combination best described as "All of the above" combining savings, judicious purchases of used gear, occasional use of low interest credit card offers, a small business loan once, etc. The windfall wasn't much but allowed me to retire a loan early. I also leased some gear, stuff that I didn't think would be around for long.

Best regards,

Jim

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I bought a small kit (FP33, Senn Evolutions and a couple Trams) and borrowed a boompole/Schoeps combo from a cameraman friend.  Since then, I have continuosly upgraded (save and buy) to much more appropriate gear.  I recently added a Zaxcom stereolink and finally feel like I have everything I need...for now!

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I've done all of the above.  Nowadays I'm pretty much in the "cash it out" camp, but haven't been buying much in the way of really big ticket items.  When credit was really cheap, I used that, but it's easy to let that get out of hand.  A business loan would really only be available to someone with a visible business that had collateral--like real estate.  Relatives helped a little, at the very beginning.  I moved to the "cash it out" position after talking to some small equipment rental companies and individuals (mostly in video) about how they bought what they had--most saved and cashed the purchases out without using any long-term loans.  The upside: less debt.  The downside: your gear lust has to be controlled.  My advice: only buy what you yourself are going to use, a lot.  Like not for one or two jobs a year but almost all the time.  I know plenty of sound people who have a lot of gear they WISH they needed.

Philip Perkins

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  I had 2 booms, a Schoeps mic kit, 4 or 5 lengths  of cable, and all sorts of clamps and what not when I moved up. I borrowed some $$$  from my family and bought 2 used Nagra 4.2's and a Sela 2820 that Location Sound was selling for the 20th Century Fox Sound dept. Plenty of miles on them but well maintained and a good bargain. I also bought a 2nd Schoeps and 2 lectro radios. After that I paid cash for everything else. John Coffey let me buy my timecode Nagra in 3 payments over 4 months or something like that. That was the most expensive piece of gear that I have bought to date. About a year and a half after Jim Stubee and I bought ours together, I was simi forced to DAT for the commercial world. Jim got more use out of his. I think Philip has the best advice so far, but every body and situation is different.

CrewC

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  • 2 weeks later...

I rolled the last guy who owned my gear. ;)

No, I had about 10 grand to start out my mixing career that I got in personal loans and money I had saved. Spent it all at Trew Audio on a FP33, 416, VBb pole, two Lectros and a couple of Trams and haven't looked back since. I've been upgrading as needed. Sold the 416 and used credit to help buy a Scheops with two capsuls, bought a 442 to replace the FP33 and so on. I usually only buy things now if I know I can make money using it, it makes my life easier or if I need to flat out replace something completely. Anyone want to buy a Block 27 Lectro? Ha! ;)

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