How Do I Spend $45,000, Updating my studio Options

[Mizzeh]

Hey,
I was just wondering what some of your opinions would be on how to spend $45,000 on new gear. I've already got a couple peices of great gear but I will be getting a new mixer and new monitors and slew of other upgrades...just wanted to know what you all would get.

Mizzeh.

[gspeed]

Firstly SSL's sound is not replicable. Second, they now do outboard aswell, thirdly I am twenty seven years old and grew up using macs. I learnt programming languages from an early age. My introduction to production (being a musician in the first place) was with Reason. I now use logic and ssl. Go figure. You say the future is digital... guess what a young man will tell you youre wrong!
The future is a marriage of hardware and software. I'm afraid neither tube nor algorithm can provide real warmth, depth, and punch. Warmth and punch comes from transistors. Guess what? SSL make the best transistors!
As a guitarist (one of many instruments I play) I also know that a couple of tubes is a joke! Guitar rig sounds like shit, so does guitar amp pro in logic... amplitube just about passable. If younger producers like me would rather listen to Carlos Santana than to an engineer waxing about something that we have all grown with since we were kids... There is a reason. Those tunes sound FAT. Same with Jimi, etc... If they still sound fat today, it is because Eddie Kramer would know how to maintain a neve or trident.
Timbaland, the neptunes etc. also love hardware. Tunes are littered with loose jangly triplets generated by hardware samplers such as the asr10. OK, maybe plenty of plugs are used(which I actually take for granted these days), maybe some valve grit, but those mixes will sound as good as Mr. Kramer's a good forty years from now. Why? THESE PRODUCERS (FROM DRE TO PERRY) KNOW THAT MONEY CAN BUY BADASS TRANSISTORS. ONCE AGAIN, software is cheap and easily obtainable. Everyone has it. Hardware is OUT OF REACH for most people's budgets. But if you can do it, do it. SSL is one thing that you may regret, but your sound never will. Besides, it probably won't loose its value either way.
P.s. You speak of raw talent. Well, it seems you are very much an engineer. I think this kind of advice is damaging for the next gen. who all know their machines better than you! Why don't you try some raw talent of your own and start moving some faders without a mouse! Then you may become a little fitter to record that young raw talent you speak so highly of. I'll say it again. When you drop a software fader you loose bit depth, resulting in a loss of quality. This means you are now no longer mixing in 16 or 24bit or whatever. What does it take to show you guys?