YOUR BEST WORKFLOW IMPROVEMENTS (EQUIPMENT)

[Lipskimusic]

Hi Guys,

I am curious as to what have been your best workflow improvements in your home studio (equipment wise). I have tried a lot of different things in my small room and here are some of the recent improvements which made a significant difference:

- I went to a local carpenter and had him made a custom (yet simple) studio desk according to my exact specifications (my room is small but I am rather tall). The studio desk has got a keyboard drawer for a 88keys keyboard and still there is enough space for my feet. It also has a lot of holes for cables and a separate hidden space for a multi socket so I can finally hoover the entire floor in my studio I highly recommend this approach and realised that depending on where you're based and the materials being used this is not super expensive (even less expensive when you have got the tools to build it yourself).

- LG Ultra-Widescreen monitor. These bad boys work like a charm and you are flexible in terms of how you use them (e.g. looking at the entire arrangement window or splitting the screen with the app to have both the arrangement and mixing window on the same screen. Needless to say, it takes less space than two separate monitors on your desk.

- Simple MacbookPro Docking Station. Using a laptop together with the Ultra-Widescreen monitor gives you the best of both worlds. You can take your laptop e.g. to an external studio etc. and you have got everything in one place.

- Lacie 1TB SSD Thunderbolt drive. I recently bought NI Komplete Ultra and all the content is on that separate HD. The loading time via TB is almost as fast as using the internal HD and I had zero problems with it so far.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Cheers,
Matt

[Len911]

When it comes to furniture, I like to shop the thrift stores. I bought an old Steel Case desk probably 35 years ago at Goodwill, when AT&T upgraded, it's a tank. About a year ago I found a printer table at the Salvation Army, it has a drawer for mini keyboard, and a drawer for amp. Granted, most tends to be junk, but there are occasional gems perfect for re-purposing. When the companies donate, the stuff is generally more durable than the consumer junk.

[mojobone]

I found a corner computer desk with foldout 'wing' shelves for my 'cube' speakers, but I didn't put it in a corner. The triangular shape left space for the independent free-standing speaker stands for the full-range monitors, My controller fits across the widest portion of the desk and a 27" monitor behind that. The back is mostly open, for easy cable management.Above there are shelves for a variety of rack gear and the Zen Studio I/F; at some point I'll add actual rack cases and a patchbay, maybe a summing mixer. all of this 'upstairs' stuff except the FX rack will connect with DB-25, Tascam pinout; that's my number one workflow tip-cheap and cheerful modular multicables and snakes. The Mac Pro and an assortment of HDs fit under the desk which has a bog standard keyboard drawer for the ASCII 'board and mouse. I theenk the speaker stands were a Musician's Friend Stupid Deal Of The Day. I theenk the original unit was $169 on clearance from...Staples, IIRC.