my girlfriend brought two baby-cats into our home last year (2 brothers, 11 months now)
they´ve been very wild sometimes, lot´s of hunting, playing and fighting. but not too many things
got broken. they are excellent climbers. they can reach places we didn´t believe that it is possible.
it was not easy to explain them that i don´t like it when they walk over my equipment and my laptop
but finally they respect that (well, most of the time)
normally i put a blanket or cloth over my machines when not in use. somehow they think i do
it for them - it´s one of their favourite places to sleep on. would you allow that ? well, i do.
but we had some serious problems already. one of the cats pissed on my machines, when i forgot to
put a blanket on them. he was fair enough targeting that little gap between my octatrack and an oto biscuit.
(that gap was not more than 1 cm, so i guess i was just lucky)
i´m pretty sure (?) that no such thing will happen again. they are old enough.
one of the cats has been very fascinated of the knas moisturizer. i had a hard time to keep him off.
he did not accept that. when nobody was at home, he made it somehow under the blanket and ripped out
one of the springs. bad kitty, very bad !
but the major problem are the speakers. like many cats they love high places. they slowly learn that
they are not allowed everywhere. it´s getting better, but they don´t care at all when no humans are
nearby. so both liked to jump on the speakers. so i put things on the speakers. they considered that
as a challenge and tried to get up there anyway. putting things on the speakers was a bad idea, because
it helped one cat discover the tweeter and that it makes funny sounds when he touches it.
first time i really got angry with that cat, nothing helped… he won.
i´m on headphones for months now.
watching youtube videos i recognized cats running around in studios quite often.
so i thought i ask the cat owners here:
what experiences did you make and what are your strategies to protect your equipment ?
They’ll probably grow out of it over time. My cat lives in the studio much of the time and sleeps on the speakers, chair, mixer, loves the valve guitar amps…
She’s not interested in any of the gear any more (she was as a kitten) which is good, but keeping the hair down is the biggest problem.
We have two cats that like to be on everything (as well as 3 dogs). Getting the pl covers was the first purchase after the machines…dust covers for everything else (I’m sure my mesa rectifier cabinet looks like a perfect scratching post. Sure it takes a few more seconds to play anything but it’s piece of mind and no hair or dust on them. They are all expensive pieces of equipment I plan to keep for many years. Also I keep the room closed. When my wife comes and goes the cats sneak in pretty fast and it can take some time to get them back out and she’s a lot less paranoid about my gear…
We have three cats, but only one is allowed in my studio/video game lair (its own room with a locking door); she sits on my lap or on my swivel chair if I’m standing and just chills. The other two can’t be trusted – one climbs on everything and the other tries to get into or underneath everything else, both occasionally knocking things over or breaking something. I’d take the time to train them, but it’s just easier to keep the door shut!
The number one thing you can do to keep cats from doing… well, anything really, is to give them an alternative nearby that commands even more of their attention or makes them feel that they don’t need to do whatever they desire to do in the first place. For example, If they play with or chew on wires, give them toys that satisfy this need and put them near the problem area.
Same with synths – in addition to making sure they’re covered/protected at all times when you’re not near, place their food, toys, or favorite blanket near or on them. Most cats won’t mark (urinate) or otherwise disrupt their food or possessions. Place a scratching post (or one of those cheapy cardboard scratching beds) near your equipment as well and consider buying an additional cat bed that you can set up nearby. All of this will reinforce that they’re already welcome in this area and there’s no need to mark it.
Something you can do in the meantime is to add a low, long shelf above your synths (say, 6-10 inches high (give or take) that sits directly above them; try to find a height that will allow you to still use your equipment, but is too low for the cats to fit underneath. You should be able to find an inexpensive shelf board and four “legs” from Ikea or someplace similar near you.
Oh, and as for the climbing, your cats have shown that climbing is vital to them, and I’m sure you know it must be satisfied. Install shelves along the walls if you can, that they can climb on, or place empty stands next to your speakers (hopefully with a nice blanket or bed on top) that are higher and more accessible than your speakers. They’ll be all over that, guaranteed.
Also, cats don’t like certain smells, like citrus. An old school cat deterrent that I’ve not tried, but read about many times, is to place fresh orange peels where you don’t want them to go. You’d have to keep replacing them (or maybe try a scented candle or similar), but a few weeks might do the trick to make them stay away.
Finally, apply double stick tape to the tops of your speakers. They hate how it feels on their paws. We do this on our fireplace mantle during Christmastime (they try to steal the hanging stockings!) and it works every time. They try to jump up there exactly once, get stuck on the tape for a moment, and don’t come back.
My cat likes to get on top of everything. She also sheds lots of hair, sprays snot constantly, and vomits hair balls somewhat regularly. It’s fucking grimey and disgusting. I’ve had my cat for eight years, and in that time I’ve realized that 1) I will never have another cat, and 2) cats don’t give a shit about “rules”!
I either place an object on the area where I don’t want the cat to go, or I shove her off every time she goes there. Eventually she just gives up. If my cat pissed on my machines, she’d never be allowed near them again.
My cat doesn’t generally care about my gear, except for the speakers. They’re high up and he loves that. I found the suggestion somewhere to put aluminum foil on top of the speakers; apparently cats don’t like to sit on it. While it looks ugly, it has largely stopped him. Occasionally he’ll try to strip the foil off, but I’d say it’s 98% of a solution.
My late cat used to sit on my MnM’s plastic cover and that was just an exception - he did that just one time, never touched anything else (cables, speaker, PC, MIDI keyboard)… actually nothing at all in the house - it used to play with hazelnuts and walnuts on the floor - that was the way he had fun…
Cats hate Tin foil and empty tin pie plates. Maybe place a few on the spots you want to deter them from going. The racket that it makes when they step on it will do the trick. I know our cat used to go under the couch and scratch the bottom all to shreds, so a few sheets of Tin foil place on the carpet helped.
Also like someone else stated perhaps a super cozy cat bed or tower will help. Just my two cents, hope you figure it out so you can live in peace with the furry dudes.
Mine aren’t allowed in the studio unless I’m in there…and they generally don’t like being in there when music is playing. One of them has a hairball issue, not to mention that he’s the more destructive of the two.
Without a door to keep them out tho…all you can do is find a good way to cover your gear, and more importantly, figure out why they may be spraying.
I have a studio Maine Coon Cat Mix that have had him since a wee kitten, now going on 8 years and he does not bother a thing. I keep all my keyboard synths properly covered with dust covers when not in use and I actually learned something very helpful from a non-profit ‘cat colony’ that I financially support that is entirely humane and keeps both cats and dogs from ever bothering ANY of your audio/midi/electrical cables:
Buy a cheap bottle of Hot Pepper Sauce… A small one will do. Some cotton balls and some medical type gloves. Cats (and dogs) cannot stand the intense hot pepper…very similar to how we humans do not care for “Pepper Spray”. All you have to do is with gloves on, saturate cotton ball with sauce and simply wipe/coat all your cables, including electrical wires with a very thin wiping of this and cats are smart enough that the smell alone, let alone perhaps that one time taste of it, will condition the potential problem kitty to NEVER bother them again.
My cat will occasionally reach up and decide to “play a key”, emulating what I am doing in putting together compositions and practices for future performances. He usually lays on a piano bench that’s below one of the three tiered keyboard stands, and seems to enjoy electronic music. I think I have more “cat issues” while wearing headphones while tracking/monitoring because it’s just too overwhelmingly tempting for my cat to NOT occasionally swat at the headphones cable while wearing them…but no chewing on cables NOR has he ever chewed on any of my many synth’s encoder knobs, as have read cases where cats have outright just chewed knobs…again, tiny bit of pepper sauce solves this and humanely, at that. You only have to do this procedure once on cables.
My cat seems to be both fascinated AND spooked by my Radikal Technologies Spectralis and all it’s sequence chase lights that can indeed move forward, backwards, ratchet, etc. However, not so much on the Sub 37 and he could care less about the Analog Four…he’s decidedly German rather than Swedish:-)
Hope this info helps even just one pet owner. They are often our creative muses, especially those of us that choose to remain single.
Lastly, as long as you provide a structured ‘play time’ with your cat, have scratch post or a pc. of furniture you do not care about they can use for that, your cat will not feel the need to be passive aggressive and bother your gear. I also could just be incredibly fortunate that I have a Maine Coon Cat because they are one of the most intelligent domestic cats and closely related in behavior as the Norwegian Forrest Cat. My best friend and inspiration.
Haven`t you ever heard about Ivan Pavlov and his dogs? Keyword…classical conditioning.
I always used a small water pistol to “educate” my cats. Just take care to “shoot” her immediately after she jumps on your speaker. Otherwise the cat can`t assign the punishment to her behavior.
Yes, but your mode of operation has one huge fatal flaw in that whether or not studio electronics in set-up in studio are plugged-in or NOT–water and anything electronic does not mix at all.
The technique I expounded on using the ‘hot sauce’ on cables is a form of passive classical conditioning and cats are incredibly smart, so rather being dependent on having the squirt gun or bottle always ‘handy’ (and any cat will be very aware WHERE it is), a belligerent feline will easily circumnavigate the squirt bottle which in a cat’s mind, views it’s use as circumstantial punishment rather than conditioning of any kind.
Morale of story is simply that water squirting + studio filled with electronics simply never are a pragmatic/wise combination nor a realistic solution.
(big upping the octatrack too)