Best: -My Godin Grand Concert Multiac SA
-1970's Fender Super Reverb
Worst:-Guitar Center cables-Don't get me started!!
-T Racks stanalone-could never get anything I liked from it no matter how hard
I tried-very dissapointing.
I'll probably be back to make another installment.
pete

Best:

Sonar, Dimension Pro
UAD-1 card
Reason (including the the following refills: Bitword Wavefront and XSynth)
Ivory
Stylus
EZ Drummer (except the DKFK and Percussion expasions)
BFD.

Moving to the best of the physical realm:
Yamaha U1 piano
Nord Electro 73
Manley EQ and compressor
Dynaudio BM15 speakers
Grace Preamps.

Worst:

EWQL Colossus. It certainly did not deserve the "Key Buy" award that Craig Anderton gave it in a magazine review...which prompted me to buy it. A lot of wanky velocity-switched patches that are difficult to control).

Yamaha P80 digital piano, which is OK on its own but 100 is the highest velocity value it will transmit via MIDI which makes it useless as a controller.

BEST:SONAR( but not version 6, way to many bugs), vox tonelab, edirol ua5, acer 19" lcd monitor, fxpansion dr008(rock solid stability), Carvin Allan Holdsworth humbucker pickup

WORST:Microsoft Vista 64 bit, EMU 1212m

Bests:
1939 Hammond Model D with 1962 Leslie - Many years ago I had traded my brand new Korg M1 and flight case for these. I've since modified them and I can just sit there and play them for hours...sheer ecstacy!

Soundscape mixtremes - I bought my first one in 1998. Anybody still using the same sound card that they had in 1998? 16 ins/16outs, 24 bit and drivers supported by even the newest Windows?

A flat panel touch screen - saves me hours of mousing around. I can't beleive these aren't more common!

Roland JV880 w vintage keys - Only a handful of presets that I use but wow, very distinctive sound.

Korg O1/w - I'll never let this one go.

Korg Triton LE88 - This board's presets just inspired the heck out of me - the action is awesome. Strangely, the acoustic piano sounds are horrible and some notes are even out of tune. But the rest of the sounds are lovely, go figure?

Yamaha TG77 - one of the most powerful and expressive synths ever made. Yeh, you gotta be a total geek to program it but hey, that's what I am...

Yamaha p150 and p200 digital pianos - if you gotta go portable digital piano, they are close enough to the real thing. And very durable.

Yamaha PSR9000 - A wonderful GM synth with 128 note polyphony and for midi tracks, it's hard to beat. Works great with Sonar.

Sonar - of course.

Adobe Audition - for all stereo mastering and editing.

Reason - I never get tired of the posibilities. I've sampled most of my drum machines and use Reason's sample players. Love Subtractor.

Shure KSM32's, SM58's, SM57's, beta58, beta57

AKG shotgun mics (circa 1972 which I use for drum overheads)- every drummer I have come in here tries to take them from me!

JBL control5 speakers - studio workhorses. I love them because I have used them since 1992 and know them so well. And I have Yamaha NS10m's which I love/hate.

I could go on...1963 Fender Strat, JP8, TR808, TR909, TB303, trading my Simmons drums for REAL drums, Alesis HDR24...

Worsts:
Yamaha TX16W - I'm a geek but this damn sampler kicked my ass. So much potential, so f'n convoluted that it was impossible to use.

I guess I have a few others but I'll have to get back with you on that! I've been a gear junkie for sooo long.

ORIGINAL: calaverasgrandes

Community CSX57- there is no amount of EQ that will make these sound good. The physics of the horns make sure that no 2 people in the audience hear the same thing. Heck no 2 ears in the audience!

Now that is the funniest true thing I have ever read.

Best:

API A2D (Top tier preamp and conversion in one package!)
RME FF800 (Incredible reliability, qaulity, flexibility)
Martin D-35 (An acoustic "canon")
RODE K2 (Amazing mic for the money)
Samplitude 9.1.1. Professional (I love SONAR 6, but the EULA bothers me enough to take it down from "best" to merely "better", and Samplitude's editing and render capabilities are still without peer, IMHO).
Frontier Tranzport (Wireless DAW control for under $200? Say no more)
Mackie Big Knob (OMG, how did I live without it...no more mouse jockey for switching inputs and outputs!)
Adde later: AKG K701 cans (...simply astonishing.)
UAD-1 (Can't live without 1176LN, EMT 140 and Fairchild)

In ear monitors. In a way they are really good, as long as you don't have to speak to anyone else on stage, speak to anyone in the audience, or want to hear the room without connecting an additional mic for the room. If anyone knows of a cheap fix for this, please let me know. $200 up in smoke...live an learn.

Yamaha has a knack for producing some pretty great synths that are virtually impossible to program.

You got that right, tarsier. Every Yamaha product I've ever owned was exasperating to program, or to even navigate the UI. And my standards of user-friendliness are pretty low (I started out programming assembly code in octal).

Their user documentation is poorly organized and obviously written by engineers who don't get out much. They'd do well to hire away a couple tech writers from Roland.

That said, my current main instrument is a Yamaha MO8 and it still tops my list of all-time best-purchases.

For my worst, one product stands out. Adobe Audition 2.0

I have to break ranks with you on this one, though. I like AA2 and use it a lot. I have never had any problems with it. Yes, it's clearly a work in progress and Adobe is more interested in making it part of a larger suite than in making it faster and/or easier to use. But it has been reliable for me - I'll have to see what direction version 3 takes it. If it gets more bloated with useless features, bells and whistles then I may have to look elsewhere.

Best:
Sonar 6.2.1
Spectrasonics Stylus RMX with SAGE expanders
Any soundcard by Echo
Line 6 POD XT

Worst:
Yamaha DSP Factory
TC Electronics Konnekt 24D
IK Sampletank (worst copy protection implementation ever)

BEST:
SONAR, Reason 3.0 , Sound Forge 8.0, RealGuitar 2L, Spectrasonics Trilogy, Ueberschall Liquid Instruments, Rapture, ReFX Slayer 2, Wizoo Darbuka, NI Elektrik, NI FM8, Reason Pianos. AND of Course EDIROL Orchestral.
Worst:
(i did not purchase, i tried them somewhere else)
ALL Steinberg VSTi's (AVG, VGEE, Plex, D'cota, Hypersonic, etc....)
my first soundcard (Creative SB Live!)
Plugsound 1-6
i cant remember more because i instantly try to forget traumatic experiences

Ok Here's my worst ever purchase:

Terratec Aureon 7.1 Universe (they have a nickname for this company, Terrortec)

Drivers absolutly suck. The standard drivers that come with the cd and are supossed to be a Stable release, are outdated. I mean Terratec still hasn't made a stable release since the release of the cd drivers from 2004. You can get the new drivers off their site ofcourse, but guess what theyre Vista compatible (yeah right). You open up the mixer, you click and drag that master slider to adjust the volume as you want it and then BAM, the right speaker drops dead, hah. Only way to get around it now is Restart pc, pfff. Ok lets continue. The Front Module which comes with the sound card which you put in the front of your pc case is just about useless. The Inputs and Outputs have so much static I can't even hear myself talking in the mic. And not only that, but the output for the Headphones is INVERTED, so I hear my left channel on my right speaker (WTF Man!!??) Did I forget to mention that u get a fancy midi cable for your midi device, but don't get excited just yet, its 2 inches long!! If you decide to turn on that fancy Sensaura in the mixer, which is meant for games sound fx, you have to restart. You restart, you play a game, sounds nice, but then all of a sudden your stuck at 44.1 khz and you cant do a damn thing about it if you want to change it. Sonar of course won't load up in 96khz no more. Then you have to disable sensaura, restart your pc, but thats not just over yet, you still Can't change the internal clock back to 96 khz, oh no, you have to Reinstall the drivers. There's also a nice bug where if you actually use your mixer a bit too much, like 2 or 3 clicks, the Master's Mute button lights up. Avoid this one guys, I'll never buy Terratec hardware ever again.

*

ORIGINAL: Boogie

ORIGINAL: Infinite5ths

ORIGINAL: Boogie
Delta 1010. Bought it when I took the Core2 back in 1998 or 1999. Long time ago. STILL going strong!

That's odd....I thought Intel released the Core 2 series much later than 1998 or 1999.

...shows what I know.

I was referring to this core2:



Thankfully, it was discontinued in 2001.

I still got a few of those Core2's laying around here somewhere!!!!

Ebay time me thinks!

Absolute Best:

Absolute Worst:

Best Continued - Native Instruments B4 and Elektrik Piano. OMG, these things sound and feel amazing!