I have bought and sold off all manner of studio gear over the last decade. One item I know I will never sell is my AKC C414 microphone. This particular model isn’t an early, sought-after example, nor is it anything fancy, yet it is special to me. This C414 XLS was the first proper studio microphone I ever bought over 15 years ago when I was a Music Technology student living on a small part-time wage. This AKG cost me over £600 which at the time was roughly the amount of money my friends were spending on their first cars.

This microphone went on to be my primary microphone throughout my career up until recently when I decided to switch to the more capable Townsend Labs Sphere L22 mic modelling system.

I own three C414s. This particular one spends most of its time sitting in my mic locker collecting dust. My head says I should sell it to let someone else enjoy it, but my heart says I must keep it as I will regret letting it go. I feel a similar sense of attachment with my first ever electric guitar, a candy red Squire Stratocaster my dad kindly bought me when I started showing potential in playing the guitar. I have kept this in my collection as a reminder of my humble beginnings in music.

A couple of years back, my eldest son picked up my old red Strat and in six months taught himself to play to a very high standard. My wife and I were very proud of him for this achievement. It was also lovely to see my old guitar being used again. We asked him what his dream guitar would be. His response was a candy red Strat, like mine but it would have to be a proper Fender. He didn’t realise but we were fishing for ideas as we were planning on surprising him with either a new guitar or phone to congratulate him on his excellent school grades. We went with the guitar idea. It turned up, I put it next to my old strat and felt a real sense of pride that my first guitar played a small part in inspiring him to apply himself in learning to play. He was over the moon when he saw the guitar for the first time, as you’ll see in the little home video which captured the moment - Warning, proud dad alert.

Like my old strat, this is the reason why I will never sell my AKG. My eldest son or one of my other three kids may at some point in the future decide to get into recording. If they do, then there’s an AKG C414 in it for them to get started with.

As I said earlier, I’ve bought and sold a lot of studio gear over the years. I normally don’t regret selling off items but do I regret not holding on things I could have taken better care of.

My grandad was a pianist. He never said it but I knew one of his dreams was to be a professional musician. Sadly that never came to pass, he was a carpenter by trade. He was my biggest inspiration. He had a taste for really nice digital pianos, in particular, Technics models. Every few years he would get the latest and greatest model, which for me, being a young boy at the time, were fascinating instruments to sit at. I have many fond memories of us sitting together playing around with sounds listening to each other play tunes. When he died my nan gave me his piano. It was the first of his possesions she gave away. I was heartbroken and decided then and there to really make something good from this terrible event. I told myself to work really hard to make my dreams in music production come true. I had the spirit of my grandad and his piano as a starting point. His carpentry business name was Rodel General Builders, I adopted this name also taking it forward as my recording studio brand name.

My grandad's piano sat pride of place in my studio for the first couple of years. My clients loved playing it as it had fantastic action and feel, in my opinion, better than most Nord stage pianos. The built-in sound module sounded a bit dated as the technology was pushing ten years old, so I used this mainly as a MIDI controller, but my time with the Technics was to be short-lived.

One day the electronics completely failed and were never able to work again even after many attempts at getting it repaired by specialists. To this day I wish I still had this piano in my life but I comfort myself with the fact that it served its purpose in inspiring me to follow my dreams in becoming a professional music producer. My grandad, nor his piano are around anymore, but their spirits live on in the studio work I do, under the brand name inspired by his life's work.