Custom-built furniture for a neat setup?

Maybe a custom enclosure for the Matriarch is the solution. A nice enclosure with a hinged or removable top. I’d also have a shelf somewhere for EFX and/or a few Elektrons.

Order a set of cheap hair pin legs and when covered it could act like a cool piece of furniture. I made a quick rack with those legs. Cheap and sturdy.

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This is what you want. I have one and it’s great.

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Looks really nice! If I had a dedicated room for music stuff, that’s something I could totally see myself getting. Alas, right now the setup would probably have to be in our livingroom. What I’m after at this time would probably be something like an Ikea Bestå “storage system” turned into a cupboard of fun with some keyboard trays… An enclosure for the Matriarch with a shelf for some desktop gear as suggested by @Kegeratorz would also sound viable.

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You finally got rid of the PERfourMER?

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This is definitely a fun problem to have, but like has been said above it’s really difficult to get it right the first time. There’s so much to consider from the point of view of ergonomics to layout and positioning. And let’s face it, we all like to move our stuff around so it can be hard to plan a design for that.

My first thought for you as well was something like the desk posted above, but mention of the ikea besta, are you after living room furniture that also has a part for your synths hidden in it?

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I’ve gone through some iterations
Can’t stress enough to ease into it with mock up scenarios.

Currently I have a stand up desk with everything on it.
I’d still like to build a case that housed everything

It’s definitely a fun on going project.
Lately I’ve been considering getting an A4, OT, AR just for gigs.
Leave my desk as is.
Still sorting it out in my head.

The hardest part is making the back of the gear accessible. Sorting out cables etc.

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Yep, exaxctly!

Haha, I think I’ve played it twice in 2022 but I still couldn’t sell it! I had a backup MDUW I was keeping for gigs but I’ve played two gigs in the past year so even though they were MD-only livesets, maybe I don’t quite need a spare MDUW just for that! :grinning:

After I said I’m not really looking for a studio table at the moment, I started sketching an idea for, drum roll, a studio table and realised the slightly smaller Audio Housing table (Compact One) would actually be a thing of beauty next to my piano. It’s 115cm wide tho, so maybe 25cm wider than I’d like but might be doable. It’s definitely not cheap but it looks pretty flexible for what I’d like to have set up at any given time: one bigger keyboard synth doubling as the master keyboard, two Elektrons, a poly module and a couple of fx.

Not saying I’m ordering one right now but marking it as ”maybe” and not ”definitely no”.

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Do it.

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I def should have probably taken @bodymechanics advice on iterations but building something for specific gear when the likelihood of getting more gear exist, makes things complicated lol. I did doodle a lot before getting started with the table saw tho. Anywho, i gotta super tiny office/jam room that i wanted to tidy up the gear in so i made this desk/rack/pedal board set up. Def gonna add a shelf above it when i get more gear :roll_eyes:

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Cool set up.
The thing that always happens to me on an iteration, is not taking some space needed to plug certain things in.
I like trying to make everything as tight as possible.
I also try to keep everything right in front of me at arms length instead of a lot of side by side stuff.

My first/current table is this one (some gear has been sold since I took the picture tho). Built it from two scrap pieces of wood and Ikea table legs. The stands for the Moog semis are clamp laptop stands. The crown jewel is the Ikea table underneath which is the perfect width for 19” rack stuff! :rofl:

The table in itself is not bad. The problem is it’s in the garage so not very comfy and it also gets a bit too cold in the winter. Plus it’s a separate entrance from the house which is why I often prefer to stay inside and work on a single machine on the kitchen table. The dimensions (of the main table) are about the same as the Audio Housing table would be. But for aesthetic reasons I wouldn’t want the current table in the middle of our living room.

So I have the space and a table, but despite some effort I haven’t been able to make the garage comfy enough to be inviting throughout the year…

Here’s how I had it set up for a smaller setup.

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If you can get over the separate entrance, could you use some funds to frame out and heat a small room in the garage?

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At one point I was thinking about that but I don’t think it’d be possible - would probably feel a bit claustrophobic. The first picture shows pretty much the entire space I have in the garage - immediately to the left there’s a big rack for off-season clothes and to the right there’s winter sports gear etc.

When I first cleared out the space about three years ago and made the table I was ecstatic and spent almost every night in the garage making crappy jams. But quite soon I started to take gear from that main setup and play with just one box on the kitchen table. I think it’s a combination of a number of small things that makes the garage not a very inviting place (anymore).

One factor is the size of the setup tho! The amount of stuff I have plugged in in the first picture would put me off today - frankly it did back then, and I found out I was much more productive with a smaller setup.

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I like this advice. At the beginning of lockdown, I made an angled desktop synth stand with some spare 2x4’s. I was tried of the neck pain from looking down at the screen. I made it wide enough to fit two Elektron boxes, and raised to allow midi/audio cables to snake through the bottom. I had planned to paint it, but here we are, 2.5 years later still not painted.

Based on your advice, maybe it’s time for a MK2 build :slightly_smiling_face:

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I would put the OT and the moog right in front. Stack the silver boxes right behind that.
Then make a shelf so the keyboard sat right above the silver boxes.
You’d have to reach over the boxes to hit key, but to me that makes sense. It’s not a far reach.

Put the OTOs one on each side of the front row.

By Moog do you mean the Matriarch? Or the Subharmonicon? The latter isn’t part of my main setup right now. (What is, one might ask, as I’m mostly pulling stuff out of the cupboard for 1-2 hours of jamming in the evening.)

I was talking about the sub harmonicon.
So what all is in your current set up?
Or what are you trying to put together?

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Would probably start with something like this:

(I have some other pieces here as well which I’d rotate.)

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:blush:
Thank you!

You need one of those desk armoire’s but one that is wide enough for your keyboards.

Something similar to this type:

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Then you can add more custom slide out keyboard shelves as needed.

You can see the slide out keyboard tray in the picture. You just add enough of those for your synths and desktop modules and then the top shelf can be a computer (if a computer is your bag).

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