I had a great time this weekend helping our youngest daughter, Abi with a recording project. Plenty of cheap guitars and other cheap musical gear and cheap recording equipment in action. Not only did I get to play engineer, but I even got to contribute a bass line. My oldest son, Isaac, pitched in by contributing the djembe line. Almost like old times when we had a family band called “The Screaming Gringos.”

First off, Abi laid down the acoustic guitar track on my Alvarez AJ60SC. Not an expensive guitar to begin with but purchased used from a pawn shop thank you very much. Her vocals came next which of course are definitely not cheap, but rare, priceless, and one of a kind. (Insert proud father here.) Then it was my turn laying down the bass track on my eBay purchased Yamaha rbx270 fretless bass. To be fair, this bass came with upgraded Bartolini pickups that I suspect make a world of difference from the stock ones. Furthermore, I ran it through my brand new Genz Benz Shuttle 6.0 as a preamp. Definitely not cheap and new enough on the market that it would be hard to find used. Not that I didn’t try! I did pick it up over eBay at a reduced price from a dealer who was liquidating inventory. (There is a lot of that going on with the economy and all. Its something to watch for.) Next was a tambourine track played by Abi on an LP tambourine that I actually bought brand new albeit 20-40 years ago. The next morning Isaac dragged himself out of bed in time to lay down a djembe track on an old, cast aside djembe he still keeps around our house. (Another proud father alert.)

All this was recorded on an old Yamaha AWG16 workstation that I picked up off eBay. Mics were an MXL V63M large diaphragm condensor off eBay and an EV/Blue Cardinal condensor bought off craigslist. For monitoring we had a couple pair of Sony Pro MDR-7506 headphones (Both bought new from Guitar Center) and an old Yamaha amp/preamp that were bought so long ago that I’ve forgotten the source. Finally old AR bookshelf speakers picked up from a pawn shop for $20 served as monitor speakers.

The point here is that this recording was done pretty darn inexpensively. Yet the result will soon appear on a nationally produced compilation album of acoustic/bluegrass/blues music. (I’ll let you know here when it becomes available.) You can still get a lot of satisfaction and great music out of bargain basement equipment and of course, cheap guitars.