Re: many questions

[Michael Beck <mibeck@vassar.edu>]

>2.I need a road case for my rack gear w/ a mixer.
>did I mention that I am not a wealthy man yet?
>Musicians Friend has some Cadence that are in my
>range 200$ w/ a top angled seperate mixer rack, 8 &
>12 space same price. Any advice?
>
>3.A power conditioner for the rack. they are wide
>and varied in price and I don't know much about
>them. I am in the 2-300$ range. ouch this is adding
>up. i like the looks of the Furman PM-Pro Power
>Conditioner, 280$ from Musicians Friend.

    I don't know if anyone will agree with me on this, but I find eBay 
a *very* good resource for cheap gear if you know what you're looking 
for & how to buy. For instance, I got a generic 9 space 
*shockmounted* rack for, what, $120? Definitely a hook-up!
    But there are a lot of bad deals on eBay, too. For instance, there 
used to be some jerk who was selling 25 rack screws for $20. 
Nevermind the local hardware store, you can get 100 of the exact same 
screws at Musician's Friend for $10! The sad thing is that this guy 
apparently did a lot of business...
    Also check out the newsgroups - I got a SKB 12 space (non shock, 
but the good one with two sets of rails) for $100. Compare that to 
any retail store - my price was less than half of new!
    For stuff like racks, stands, hardware, it just makes more sense 
(to me, at least) to buy used. There are no electronics to break - 
hardware is either fine or it's not, and you can easily tell which is 
which. Nothing can come back to bite you in 6 months!
    As for power conditioners, you can get crappy ones for $30 and 
reasonably good ones for $40 on eBay & usenet. I paid at little more 
for mine (a PL-Pro, actually), but only because I wanted 20 amp 
capacity. Still around 1/3 of new, though, and it's served me very 
well.
    I encourage you to at least check out sources of used gear. 
There's no reason to pay double to some chain for some metal & 
plastic - but know your shit before you buy anything. I can help if 
you want. Good luck!

                                                  - Mike