Gear and collaborators

Your equipment. Both kinds run out, in different ways.

Guide 03 · 3 min read

A professional recording room, desk and monitors set up for a session — A room, a desk and everything you brought with you Gear

Talent does the work. Gear and collaborators are what make a song sound like nobody else made it. They are also the two card types that do not last forever.

Gear wears out, and you fix it

Instruments, recording kit, the clothes. Gear is where most of your uniqueness comes from, and every card says how many songs are left in it. A piece used on every song runs down faster than one saved for the ones that mattered.

Worn gear is not lost. When the amp you love turns up in your hand sounding tired, you can put it right there and then, for what you paid for it, and it has a full run of songs in it again.

Collaborators have a song count

Each one gives a bonus and has a set number of songs in them, then they move on for good. Famous ones stay for more songs and cost more, so the price per song is closer than it looks. A big bonus with a short stay is for a song you are trying to make special. A modest bonus with a long one is somebody you work with all the time.

Watch the genre on it

Gear often carries a genre. It is worth a lot when it matches what you are recording and nothing at all when it does not.

When they run out

A collaborator who has run out leaves your collection, which is not all bad news. The thing to avoid is a Payday where the people leave and the gear is worn at the same time, because then you are writing with plain cards.