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What is the best investment you've ever made in audio?

1) Switching to REAPER from Pro Tools as my primary DAW
2) Purchasing and maintaining Komplete Standard as a solid foundation of my software collection
 
Definitely my computer. Getting a beast of a machine with 64gb of ram has given me so much freedom to compose. When I sometimes have to use my crappy laptop, I get reminded what I had to deal with before getting the computer.
 
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I guess my best purchase ever is my audio interface.
It's an Apollo x6 (pre-owned for 6 weeks only). I got it for $1800 and the seller bought it during the promotional offer last year without redeeming the offer. So I got a free DSP satellite with it.
 
Two NVMe SSDs for samples, 1TB and 2TB. Sure, they costed €400 total but I love how quickly everything loads.

32GB RAM coming from 8GB (could've gone for more but I wanted to reuse my existing stick, thus 4x8GB)
 
Have been buying and collecting gear for decades being an old man etc....

My best investment probably was my first set of Spitfire samples. (The Symphonic series + Albion one.)
It let me do my first composing job and sound "proper" right away, and open a world of possibilities.
 
Focusrite Isa Two is my best investment. I use it for almost everything drums, bass, vocals, acoustic guitars and other instruments. I can change the impedance for mics (highly useful), record stereo, use guitar pedals as inserts ect. Just an awesome piece of kit!
 
My Disklavier. A simple U1. Bought it with my first proper gig wages in the early 90s. It's been updated since and still works beautifully. It's a riot going a bit Nancarrow on a mad weekend.
 
Are you still using those?
Albion, less and less. The full brass, wood sections and the percussion kits are still getting fired up here and there and are useful.

The Symphonic stuff? Every single day!
The woodwinds and brass especially are still my go-to.
 
I didn't know where else to put it as it was a broad topic :)
d'oh, looked at this more closely, didn't realize there wasn't a "general" music topic :)

I suspect my upcoming Nektar 88 will be on the list shortly but I hope don't jinx it!
 
Going by sheer return numbers (not really in order except for the first three):

1. the Roland Orchestral library for the S-700 series on CD-ROM.
2. EWQLSO
3. SampleModeling brass and saxes
4. Art Vista VGP 2
5. Cubase since the first version of VST
6. the Spectrasonics trio (Omni, Stylus, Trilian)
7. Valhalla Room
8. Komplete since Komplete 2
 
Going by sheer return numbers (not really in order except for the first three):

1. the Roland Orchestral library for the S-700 series on CD-ROM.
2. EWQLSO
3. SampleModeling brass and saxes
4. Art Vista VGP 2
5. Cubase since the first version of VST
6. the Spectrasonics trio (Omni, Stylus, Trilian)
7. Valhalla Room
8. Komplete since Komplete 2
I have a similar background. In my earlier days I started with sample CDR's (including Spectrasonics and EastWest early days) and and an Akai S3000XL sampler using Digital Performer and then Logic. Eventually, I moved to Komplete 2 and EastWest Composer Collection w/ EWQLSO which was a giant step forward from Peter Seidlecek's Advanced Orchestra.
The most important investments at this point are:
PC I built in 2019 running Windows 10
Cubase Pro
NI Komplete series w/ Kontakt
Spectrasonics Omnisphere & Trilian for fretless bass
Toontrack Superior 3
 
Hardware: Everything by Nord. So inspiring.

Software: Logic. Loved it since 1998.

Samples: BBCSO. Finally real orchestra under my fingers.
 
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