Earlier this year I sold off a load of studio gear online that wasn’t getting used in my studio, such as an old patch bay, dbx compressor, old crappy drum microphones etc. When I go through these phases I always try to make sure that I sell studio gear I won’t regret selling later in life.

But just this week my outboard headphone amplifier started giving me trouble and gave up the ghost this morning. My initial reaction was “no problem, I’ll get my spare Behringer headphone amp out of the loft, oh wait... I sold that earlier in the year for next to nothing". I suppose I’m lucky that I haven’t got a client booked into the studio for a few days so I’ll be able to get a replacement in time for my next session. I'm even more lucky this amp didn't break during any session either.

We've been talking a lot about media backups so this got me thinking about having studio gear backups. I have 3 Apple computers with Pro Tools installed on each machine, 3 audio interfaces (Avid 16 I/O, Digi 003 and Behringer U-Phoria), 2 midi controllers, 3 sets of monitors, the list goes on.  I keep these backups as for when I’m presented with a day of technical nightmares in an attended session I know at least I can fall back on something, even if it's basic like my MacBook Air and a USB interface.

• What studio gear backups do you have?
• Have you sold any of your studio equipment backups only to regret it?