studio furniture - what works for you?

[swarfrat]

I've decided that my ginormous door sized desk just isn't working for the recording workstation. It's too big, too cluttered, gets in the way of guitars and cabling. I've seen the studio furniture in the catalogs and it's crazy expensive. It looks cool, but I'm wondering what works for you - especially being a guitar driven community.

I've seen some ideas I like - two monitors for one. I'm using Ardour, and having two monitors would let me have full screen edit window and full screen mix window.  I've read, and it seems intuitive, that a standing height desk can be helpful in working with guitars.  I like the idea of having some rack stuff nearby (ie built into the desk) but I'm not sure I want all of it in the desk. Obviously the noisy iNuke amp fan could stand to be as far away as possible (maybe built into a cabinet with some quieter cooling).

But I also realize that some stuff that looks cool just doesn't work, or doesn't make a difference.  Having a place to put the monitor speakers is important. Screen space is important. I'm not so sure about anything else.  So I'm looking for ideas. I'll probably build this myself, once I get some clearer ideas about what I want.

Anyone been through it want to share what worked for them? Anything you thought was cool that really didn't matter? Wish you'd done differently?

 

[swarfrat]

A couple questions in particular:

Do angled wings do anything useful?  (something like this

How much "landing space" for the keyboard/mouse/papers is actually useful and desirable, and is there such thing as too much?  I'm beginning to wonder if a really short space is the way to go - big enough for a mouse and keyboard and not much else.

 

[rgand]

I don't have a studio but on my desk, one of the best space saving devices I have is my Logitech M570 trackball instead of a mouse. It stays stationary while you move the pointer with your thumb. It also saves your wrist (and fingers) from repetitive stress injury.

 

[swarfrat]

I love thumb trackballs but they're actually really bad for RSI. Your thumb is meant to grasp inward. It's not meant to wiggle around inside the palm space.  Since I found the biggest culprit for RSI isn't actually what you think is causing it, I don't worry so much.

Whatever you notice is causing you pain likely isn't the problem - it's sleeping on your side, putting compression on the carpal tunnel when your wrist bends to support your body weight.
https://www.athletico.com/2017/04/14/sleep-positioning-carpal-tunnel-syndrome/

Wearing braces when you sleep is 95% as effective as wearing them 24/7
An overwhelming majority of  CT sufferers are side sleepers, and a large chunk of side sleepers exhibit some degree of CT.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I don't like a lot of furniture in a cramped space, so I've been gassing for this desk as of late.  Between the very minimal amount of outboard gear I use, along with my many plugins, I can fit my pedal board underneath, my keyboard controller on the sliding shelf, and I have a clean desktop.
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ProRak61B--rab-audio-prorak-61-black

 

[stratamania]

On angled wings they can be useful if you have a swivel chair. You swivel towards what you want to work on and it is more directly in front of you than it would be with a straight desk.

An Ikea Fredde may be worth looking at. I used to have the original Ikea Jerker quite some years ago now and that could be used to good effect.

 

[swarfrat]

I guess angled wings are kind of to keep everything in swivel distance. And I suppose that might make things worse for guitar - since you're partially 'enclosed'.

Maybe I should consider a straight desk more like so:

 

[SustainerPlayer]

Attached is my current setup.

I would like to make a similar desk - but with a drawer for the keyboard. And maybe get the two PA-speakers to lie on a shelf near the floor.

Also I like all cables and stuff to be hidden.

But for the time being this works exceptionally good for me (I get a lot of music done).

 

[Rick]

Sustainer, that looks like a space station!  Mine was a Tascam 4 track cassette that sat on my desk attached to one speaker.  Sold that, wish I had it back.  It was so simple to use.

Best advice I have is get a chair with wheels and no arms, on a vinyl floor mat.  Makes it convenient to roll around.

 

[aarontunes]

Attached is my current setup.

I would like to make a similar desk - but with a drawer for the keyboard. And maybe get the two PA-speakers to lie on a shelf near the floor.

Also I like all cables and stuff to be hidden.

But for the time being this works exceptionally good for me (I get a lot of music done).

Um....killer!


How are you getting the guitars on the sides to hang inverted like that?

 

[swarfrat]

I'm not posting pictures of my setup... I've currently lost a 25 key keyboard somewhere in the jumble. Like I seriously can't find it even though I think it's in the room. (Though to be fair, sometimes my son takes things he thinks are cool.)

 

[swarfrat]

Right now I'm leaning towards standing desk, with a possible shaker platform project down the road. With my new interface, I've got enough outputs to feed it it's own mix (like maybe click and bass or something like that).

I'm in a bonus room too, and it's a bit smaller than the one pictured - I'm critically short on wall space, though I have once in a while considered hanging guitars on the dormer walls. Getting rid of my monster drum kit is pretty much a given now. I never got to where I felt like a real drummer, though I do plan to keep my snare and cymbals and overdub real snare/cymbals over kick/tom samples eventually. It'd be a lot more effective use of 1) available practice time,  and 2) space. (I like big drums). And I can't really get rid of the kid's jr kit for now. So out it goes. I just need to get enough space to get pics to sell it.

 

[SustainerPlayer]

Um....killer!

How are you getting the guitars on the sides to hang inverted like that?

Thanks.

I'm using http://www.woodieshanger.com on the slanted walls. Please see attachments.

I bought mine from Thomann: https://www.thomann.de/gb/woodies_guitar_and_bass_stands.html

They really work well. Highly recommended.

 

[swarfrat]

As cool as those guitars hanging from the ceiling are, it looks like I can't use that. My dormers can probably fit one or two each side on the vertical walls, and I could get the 7 guitar rack out of the floor of one dormer. I might can fit more since so many of mine are of the super short variety (soprano ukes, u-bass, mini-guitars for the kid).

It looks like two 20" w monitors on the desk with an angled rack on either side would be about 72", or about the width of my current desk. However my current desk is insanely deep, and I'm  planning on having only about 12" deep flat space in front of the monitors/racks. Enough for a computer keyboard, sheet of paper, or small MIDI keyboard, but not so deep that it invites you to plunk stuff down and leave it.  My mixer is a 10 space, so I'm sort of thinking a 10 space on either side, like the first one pictured. 

 

[swarfrat]

Ordered my 2nd monitor - it's not anything super high performance, resolution, or fancy. But my existing monitor is a couple years old, and I was still able to order the exact same one, instead of buying two new monitors. I really think I like the  Halo style - (it even has an Eleven rack in it!) but not sure how soon I'll get around to this one.

I'm also in a dilemma on my monitor speakers. I'm using a pair of Polk MTM's that I really bought for my stereo. They're actually at least as decent as any 'studio' monitors in my price range (aka Behringer) I have a pair of Alesis Mk 1 actives with burned out power supplies. I killed one trying to fix it. I have a crossover and power amps to run it, but the Behringer amp is noisy and I kind of like the idea of an amp I can leave running 24/7/365.  Carvin actually has a similar pair of 8" NFM's that are appealing.