I’m about to lose my mancave in our home. That’s okay, but it means I’ll have to stuff my setup into a corner in our living room, most probably.
Has anyone experienced the same? How did you go about it?
I’m expecting to downsize, but wouldn’t want to go completely ITB. Right now I have a Cirklon, two Elektrons, small modular and bits & bobs (audio interface, MIDI controllers etc.). For the Elektrons, I have a Thon rack from Thomann with two metal “shelves” that mount to the rack space, but it’s still quite bulky.
I’m after clever ways to “hide” gear when it’s not in use – shelves, smart cabinet solutions etc. As for the modular, I’m probably going to buy a case that can be closed patched, so I can just stuff that in a corner when I’m done with a session.
Any advice would be highly appreciated! Looking forward to your war stories concerning the battle for aesthetic space
I think the best way is to have a big case (or two) with everything connected and ready to go. Just unplug a power cable and headphones, close the case, done.
We have our gear in a room we don’t want to end up looking like a studio, too. So we have to be very selective in what we buy and how everything is set up. This shelf from IKEA is neat (forgot the name, sorry):
You can select either “fold down” hinges for the front panels or drawers. The panels come in all sorts of colours. And the furniture itself in various heights and widths. Each “slot” has room for at least 2U (but not 3U) of gear. We have rack gear in a “drawer” where I didn’t mount the bottom of the drawer or the back plate. So when opening the drawer the gear stays put in the shelf, but I can access the front panel controls. I have my Elektron boxes on top. There is room for the modular behind them.
Since all cabling is hidden behind the furniture, recabling is a pain. So we wanted our gear always connected and some solution to be able to change what goes where without reconnecting anything. Instead of a mixer we use a sound card with lots of analog IOs that works in stand-alone mode without a computer. If we want to deviate from our default mixer settings/routing, we connect a laptop to the sound card to access the mixer software. We would probably rather go for something like the Qu-SB today, but the sound card solution has worked well for us so far.
DL - yeah, I think that’s a very potential solution. Will have to explore all avenues, though, as I’d like to be able to … I don’t know, just slide stuff out from a drawer or something
Abhoth - wow!! This is exactly the kind of stuff I was hoping to find. If you don’t mind a few questions – where are the Elektrons exactly? How’s the height of the controller keyboard? Can you still reach the modular okay, even though the controller is out like it is in your picture? The rack system sounds ingenious - aaahhhhh
The height for the keys are too low. I use it to lay down some chords or play a quick solo, but I wouldn’t want to do serious playing for hours on end like that. Also, when the lid is folded down like that, you obviously can’t see or easily access the front panels of gear below. I’m pretty sure the same furniture comes in a taller version with another row of shelves, though. We had to go for one this short because of the sloping ceiling.
I went looking for some more pictures, but couldn’t find any. The video in this blog post was the best I could find. At least you can see where the Elektrons are and the rack gear underneath. (This was before I came up with the bottomless drawer idea).
The low ceiling is a challenge, but even with everything very low, like this, I can work with the Elektrons and modular for a whole evening without discomfort. Which is a bit surprising, tbh. I’m old and fragile!
using expedits (and their replacement models, forgot the name) here. They are super stable and multifunctional. I’ve bought a few compartment addons for cable etc storage, and sawed off the center bit from one in order to fit rack width stuff inside. The sturdyness of the expedits as table space is unbeatable!
I have half a room for my rigspace, the rig is “hidden” by three slim ikea shelves (forgot the name) from the other side of the room. Great bang for the buck!
Here’s two old photos (about 6 months apart, from both sides of the keyb stand) have since modded em (no pics of those yet):
You can lay them side by side and have all your elektron gear at the right angle along a desk or sideboard.
Drill holes in them to feed the cables through then underneath for a stealth look.
I’ve thought about going “stealth studio” many times. I don’t like clutter, and wow can a studio add up to the cluttered look damn fast. I’ve thought about buying a large wardrobe and building custom sliding shelves inside. Just pull out whatever gear you need to work on. Kind of like this one:
But I’d need sturdier shelving (google accuglide drawer slides), real wood, etc. Plus need to think of better monitor placement ideas. It’d be easier to have those out to listen to music regularly anyways.
My wife use that for her Electribe. It doubles up as a dust cover when not in use. If you look closely it can be seen under the toy piano on the pictures I posted.
Too bad ikea doesn’t cater to the mod where you combine two adjacent horizontal cells - if they’d sell two cell lenght doors, you could customize things even more
That ikea hackers drawer thingy looks sweet, but I wonder how much beating the shelves can withstand? I’m always scared of beating the gear so hard that a flimsy surface mount would eventually give in
True… For instance, the Rytm couldn’t be placed on such a shelf, as they need to be whacked to get results…
I currently have the Rytm on a shelf like this https://www.thomann.de/pics/prod/134235.jpg - and I still need to place a book between the shelf and the desk to keep things steady.
Oh yeah, sure. That’s why I just suggest using it as a template or idea, not a ready-made purchase. I’d have to have solid wood and sturdy drawer slides myself. Probably why I haven’t gotten around to it (lazy).
