New feature! Introducing community gear recommendations

We're excited to launch a new feature on Equipboard that represents a step we're taking in helping musicians find awesome gear. We call it curated similar items, or community gear recommendations.

Just like you can submit the gear a pro artist uses, you can now submit gear that's related to other gear. What do we mean by related? Similar sounding, a cheaper alternative, a boutique or higher-end alternative, a mod, a limited edition version, or simply a great pairing!

Here's a quick demo where I suggest the Vox DelayLab as a suitable alternative to the Line 6 DL4:

https://gfycat.com/anxiousassuredinchworm

What's cool is that your recommendations will also show to readers looking at their favorite artists' gear. For instance, if someone was looking at what delay/looper pedal John Mayer uses, further down the page they can see options to achieve a similar result. We hope this is especially useful to help musicians find alternatives to gear that's discontinued or prohibitively expensive.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback, and seeing your gear recommendations! 🤙

I like it!

2 Questions:

1. Are these recommendations incentivized with IQ points?

2. What are the checks and balances in the system? E.g.: what's to stop someone from going through and recommending 15 different Squier Strat models as similar-sounding to every Custom Shop Strat already in the database?... that user wouldn't be wrong in doing so, but how useful that is is perhaps questionable.

Congrats on shipping another cool enhancement!

Very cool for a new feature. I'm looking forward to seeing what people recommend.

1. Not yet, but they will be soon. We're going to be rolling out an updated Gear IQ system soon. It's long overdue!

2. Mods can delete for the time being. However, this is just the initial phase of this feature. Eventually, we want voting, tagging, etc which will make recommendations more useful and will dilute any bad data.

1. Mods can delete for the time being. However, this is just the initial phase of this feature. Eventually, we want voting, tagging, etc which will make recommendations more useful and will dilute any bad data.

that's cool, both the deleting right now and the voting later

1. Not yet, but they will be soon. We're going to be rolling out an updated Gear IQ system soon. It's long overdue!

Glad to hear this!!!!

1. Mods can delete for the time being. However, this is just the initial phase of this feature. Eventually, we want voting, tagging, etc which will make recommendations more useful and will dilute any bad data.

That's what I was hoping to hear :) You can't stop users from making head-scratching recommendations, but upvoting/favoring the ones that the community agrees with most would be great.

I'm on a quest for a really characterful rack reverb, maybe spring.... so I'm asking folks on another site for recommendations and one guy is like "multi tap delay, you should get this delay unit blah blah.' So I start posting pics of my delay collection and he was still going. I mean, i have multi taps with phase control, I have 3 tape echoes, I had BBD, I don't need more delay. I need less pedestrian hardware verb.., but the transmisser and afterneath are mono, a bit lofi and over the top a lot of the time when you have delays running INTO THEM on an aux.... guitar pedals in the mix are a cute trick ONCE IN AWHILE

I digress

yeah, peeps be recommending some non-related shit out in the interwebs, its weird

1. Not yet, but they will be soon. We're going to be rolling out an updated Gear IQ system soon. It's long overdue!

2. Mods can delete for the time being. However, this is just the initial phase of this feature. Eventually, we want voting, tagging, etc which will make recommendations more useful and will dilute any bad data.

Would mods retain the ability to delete in the near future of an item gets really low votes?

yeah, peeps be recommending some non-related shit out in the interwebs, its weird

this, exactly.

Dude, Tom, off topic here but speaking of recommendations what do you think of IK's ARC system? I'm eyeballing a pair of iLouds with the dual woofers and ARC mic for my meter bridge, I was thinking genelec but these are smidge cheaper and can fit my space without having to change a lot of stuff around because they can go sidewise, yada yada

do you find that ARC software genuinely fixes your sound issues in an untreated room? How bad is the latency?

my home studio is untreated, the loud JBLs are a bit much for it beyond a check here or there, I like them to track synths and stuff, but that's all... my tannoys are my tannoys, they are a really specific sound and they're kinda bulky for a passive.... I'm retiring my NS10s

I've been trying to modernize my monitoring.... I'm so set in my ways, its time to shake things up

Dude, Tom, off topic here but speaking of recommendations what do you think of IK's ARC system? I'm eyeballing a pair of iLouds with the dual woofers and ARC mic for my meter bridge, I was thinking genelec but these are smidge cheaper and can fit my space without having to change a lot of stuff around because they can go sidewise, yada yada

do you find that ARC software genuinely fixes your sound issues in an untreated room? How bad is the latency?

my home studio is untreated, the loud JBLs are a bit much for it beyond a check here or there, I like them to track synths and stuff, but that's all... my tannoys are my tannoys, they are a really specific sound and they're kinda bulky for a passive.... I'm retiring my NS10s

I've been trying to modernize my monitoring.... I'm so set in my ways, its time to shake things up

I'm also using my JBLs in an untreated home studio. I got ARC 2.5 because I was NOT about to pay $1000+ for foam.

It does genuinely work. It acts primarily like an EQ, but I think it adjusts frequency-specific latency based on your room's acoustics. One does risk clipping from the EQ boost, however, so I'd recommend turning down the plugin's master volume.

Another cool feature is that is has speaker emulation. It takes your measurement and combines with preset curves. There actually happens to be an NS10 emulation.

at the moment I was thinking of just buying the whole system.... so its not a plugin on ym master bus or anything, the iLouds auto claibrate and you can adjust flat or bass/treb cuts or what have you, ttis all hosted itnernally, although the bummer is I'm dependent on their converters on either end of that amplifier, but I do have other monitors up, I just want something quiet and fairly flat that Ic an lsiten to real close, lie DIRECT field monitoring while I dial in my main sounds and get that balance going, then I'll probably kick to the A or B setup, tannoys or JBLs (or something, I'm still feeling weird about the JBLs at the moment they're a bit tubby like all JBLs and they have a dip I can fucking hear it).... these are a smidge cheaper than similar genelecs and they work sideways which will allow me to have stuff above them if I want whereas the genelecs are inferior in the lows and taller when upright as they're designed to be used. 600 bucks is a good size investment on an untried company so I keep chickening out

I'm not sure why you would want anything to sound like an NS10, its the way the glued paper cones in a sealed box produce transients that makes them good to mix on and you can't emulate that. Its a physical thing they do when powered the right way... the actual frequency response is grating. I pretty much stopped using mine this year LOL. In a treated control room I do like them to dial in my midrange and dynamics really well on certain instruments but I can't use them for extended periods of time or I get fatigued. I don't really use my mix cubes anymore for the same reason. I 'm convinced that even at the very low volumes I monitor at these 2 sets of workhorse, industry beloved speakers are murdering my hearing.

I'm trying to get something that's really flat in any room, sounds best quiet and is small enough to sit on my meter bridge at arm's length from my ears so i can listen even more quietly and hear everything and avoid ear fatigue for longer... save the bigger boys for finishing up a cut and maybe move some air right at the end

at the moment I was thinking of just buying the whole system.... so its not a plugin on ym master bus or anything, the iLouds auto claibrate and you can adjust flat or bass/treb cuts or what have you, ttis all hosted itnernally, although the bummer is I'm dependent on their converters on either end of that amplifier, but I do have other monitors up, I just want something quiet and fairly flat that Ic an lsiten to real close, lie DIRECT field monitoring while I dial in my main sounds and get that balance going, then I'll probably kick to the A or B setup, tannoys or JBLs (or something, I'm still feeling weird about the JBLs at the moment they're a bit tubby like all JBLs and they have a dip I can fucking hear it).... these are a smidge cheaper than similar genelecs and they work sideways which will allow me to have stuff above them if I want whereas the genelecs are inferior in the lows and taller when upright as they're designed to be used. 600 bucks is a good size investment on an untried company so I keep chickening out

I'm not sure why you would want anything to sound like an NS10, its the way the glued paper cones in a sealed box produce transients that makes them good to mix on and you can't emulate that. Its a physical thing they do when powered the right way... the actual frequency response is grating. I pretty much stopped using mine this year LOL. In a treated control room I do like them to dial in my midrange and dynamics really well on certain instruments but I can't use them for extended periods of time or I get fatigued. I don't really use my mix cubes anymore for the same reason. I 'm convinced that even at the very low volumes I monitor at these 2 sets of workhorse, industry beloved speakers are murdering my hearing.

I'm trying to get something that's really flat in any room, sounds best quiet and is small enough to sit on my meter bridge at arm's length from my ears so i can listen even more quietly and hear everything and avoid ear fatigue for longer... save the bigger boys for finishing up a cut and maybe move some air right at the end

Interesting. Very interesting. I cannot speak to the iLouds, but they are certainly compact.

Have you thought about converting your NS10s into macrophones (big microphones)? It’s fairly popular for bass drum miking.

are you kidding, i've disconnected the tweetersand sent a shielded cable out of the woofers on these many times for kick and low tom... they need a lot of gain, a lot

are you kidding, i've disconnected the tweetersand sent a shielded cable out of the woofers on these many times for kick and low tom... they need a lot of gain, a lot

Did you continually reassemble them? How does that work?

are you kidding, i've disconnected the tweetersand sent a shielded cable out of the woofers on these many times for kick and low tom... they need a lot of gain, a lot

Did you continually reassemble them? How does that work?

What are the checks and balances in the system?

Great question PK. Recommendations are in Pending review status until a mod or admin approves them. Pending ones will appear in the slider/carousel after approved ones.

We purposefully didn't want to over-engineer the checks and balances at least initially. They will likely need to get more sophisticated as more people use this feature and it takes shape.

What are the checks and balances in the system?

Great question PK. Recommendations are in Pending review status until a mod or admin approves them. Pending ones will appear in the slider/carousel after approved ones.

nice :)

We purposefully didn't want to over-engineer the checks and balances at least initially. They will likely need to get more sophisticated as more people use this feature and it takes shape.

100% understand re: not over-engineering until you see how it plays out with users. If moderators have the ability to remove anything that's unhelpful to the greater good, that's good enough for me.

Will this be incorporated into the Gear Recommender?

are you kidding, i've disconnected the tweetersand sent a shielded cable out of the woofers on these many times for kick and low tom... they need a lot of gain, a lot

Did you continually reassemble them? How does that work?

well, sometimes I want the box to act as an air chamber and sometimes I just want the cone, so when iw ant the box I actually have my tweeters fused to protect them ebcause they're easy to blow the oofer wants more wattage than the tweeter can take so in the process of amplifying the woofer well you want to protect the tweeter.... so if i pull the fuse I can use the woofer as microphone with a box around it. If you just want open, raw woofer you unscrew it and disconnect it from the crossover. This has 2 effects, one you get frequencies above the crosover point wherease the other method your passing through a passive lowpass filter and 2 you don't have any box resonance, the transducer breathes and becomes figure 8... the box method is still tehcnically figure 8 but its recording a wood box on the cold lead and not the actual room behind the drum shell or bass cab.

you can also do this during mix down with the pair and it can be hella interesting. Power one on a send with the tweeter un fused then face the other one with ltos of gain as the return.... then you do a trick where you make a highly resonant EQ peak at the thud frequency to create extra thwack on a boring, flappy kick recording.... you would also then notch your bass guitar or synth at that peak to separate them and maybe, just maybe duck the bass a hair if its really busy ;-)

EDIt: when you pull the woofer you need to be really careful with it, you can't mount it to a stand ina way that could bend the frame and its easy to damage these crappy cones, really you have to be careful as hell.... you can do this trick with like guitar and bass cab speakers too they have a sound, or you can take a wrecked speaker and grab the transducer off the frame (hopefully, some can't be disassembled easily) and use it as a contact mic on anything that's resonating. That's essentially what a plate does. its got atransducer vibrating it and one picking up, both in contact.