I am looking for suggestions on how to store papers in a home studio so that they are somehow part of the studio, meaning being accessible, organized, functional, inviting…
Pics, links, photos, videos, audios welcomed 
I had too many paper manuals, and they were all different in size, impossible to store them all in a folders drawer, or on a bookshelf, decided to download them all, or scan older ones if I couldn’t find them on the internet, I can access the PDFs on my iPad, neatly ordered in folders by category.
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I keep all my manuals and sheet music/tabs on an ePaper tablet:
I like the reduced eye strain compared to an iPad.
Most of the devices are not quite ready for casual users but more and better ones are coming.
If Apple ever releases an ePaper iPad, they will probably wipe out the competition.
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Wow that colour e-paper really looks nice!
Manuals are in a ‘cloud’ folder as PDFs with usable names.
Me-generated cheat sheets are on 3x5’s in an organizer.
Song info also on 3x5’s in an organizer.
Patch info for non-savable instruments sit alongside the song info on separate 3x5’s.
I tried using the Notes app for a while, and I do that for install/update logs. But I don’t like the computer requirement (I don’t mind for manuals as I just refer to them periodically and if it’s a re-usable but forgettable item I add it to the cheat sheets).
This works for me.
Paper manuals are in a box as they tend to ‘date’ with OS/firmware updates anyway, so I don’t really use them anymore.
3x5’s are great; small. Takes a bit of practice to figure out how to organize them. I have one section that’s just on ‘saving/loading/init’ type stuff, by instrument, as I tend to forget ‘some’ part of that all the time. Another on mod-matrix type stuff.
For editing/synth-chops: nothing anywhere other than an occasional cheat entry if something takes too many button presses or menu locations to memorize, but general synth programming I commit to memory (and it’s similar so much of the time anyway).
Hope this helps.
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I’m also storing everything in a cloud and using whatever I have access to at the time.
My preferred device is the Boox Tab X and I’m looking forward to testing the Boox Note Max
all over the place 
help
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I really like it. It runs on Android so not all but a useful number of apps are available.
If anyone is considering buying one, however, do it through Amazon and purchase a warranty. Onyx’s own customer service is nonexistent.
That said, it’s a well designed device. I can use multiple eBook apps: Kindle, Libby/Overdrive and Hoopla. It can take a microSD card which is loaded up with a ton of books from Gutenberg and comic books.
I use it when I transcribe songs. My next thing is to see if it handles the Amazing Slow Downer. If it works, I will load music onto it and transcribe without needing a separate music player.
+1 for e-ink tablet (Boox Tab Mini C here) and cloud folder with subfolders by manufacturers with subfolders by devices. Most used ones are downloaded in the device. Search within document is crucial sometimes. I use CDisplayX comic reader app for PDFs, it’s more responsive when zooming on e-ink screen then stuff from Adobe or Boox’es reader.
In the box with the gear that’s been packed away
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I use one of the big 13" iPad Pros.
I wouldn’t mind something bigger though - where the display is at least the size of an A4 sheet, or the page of a music book.
I haven’t found any problems with eye strain here, but I’m not trying to use it outdoors or directly by a window (where eink does much better).
I did add a matte glass screen protector to it though (Mothca). It’s nice not having direct reflections on the display, even if it reduces the contrast quite a bit (if you also want to use it for watching HDR movies etc).
If it’s a hard copy, it stays in the box on the shelf after I’ve read through it or decided I’m done needing it initially (I can’t stand to throw away the original packaging for gear). After that, I find a digital copy for reference or future use.
If it’s a digital copy, those stay on my phone, I have a dedicated page on my home screen for them 
I find it’s the quickest way to get to them for reference.
I am hoping to go 13” Boox one day. The price/quality/feature balance will improve enough to justify it one day.
It’s really not a massive difference but purely as a note taking and book reading device, I kind of prefer black and white ePaper over color. Right now, battery power and image quality on b&w is a tad better. But I read a lot of comic books and magazines so the trade off it well worth it.
I started using Omnivore for this over the past year and it worked really well - highlights from manuals or posts or web pages feed from there into Logseq so I kinda have my personal cheat sheet there with anything that’s confused me plus tips and tricks.
Unfortunately Omnivore is getting shut down at the end of the month after getting bought out by some gimmicky AI startup - because of course it was - so I’ve moved over to Readwise Reader. Does pretty much the same thing only somewhat slicker. I also like how it handles YouTube, downloads and formats the transcript to make it easy to pick out the useful information.
Picked Omnivore at the time because it was free, so I guess I probably should have known it wasn’t going to last, Readwise is paid which I can live with if it means it will just keep delivering the basic read later / highlights and not get swallowed up by the endless VC money for AI nonsense, not sure how optimistic I am about that though. It already pushes AI summaries which are either nothing you couldn’t get from the title or actively misleading, but it still delivers the fundamentals … for now.
This strikes me as a worthy endeavour 
.
I use one of those IKEA pegboards to clip cheatsheets for various bits of gear. I try to keep them quite small so that I can unclip the required sheet and place it close to the device.
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It’s all up their mate.
They always say to get more rack space than you need, so I did. In the meantime, those 1 U shelves are great for pedal and manual/notebook storage.
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If you’re an Apple person, Books is a very underrated App imho. I create lots of specific subsections for my manuals and I just put them wherever they belong. The app keeps track of where you last were in the PDF as well and it also propagates to all your iOS and OS X devices, so it’s all with you all the time, if needed.
I use Notes or ToDoist to organize thoughts/idea/learning for specific purposes, but the manuals all live in Books all the time. I’ll upload the folders I’ve created to give you an idea of what things look live. Sometimes the same manual lives in multiple folders if warranted.
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Can you tell me the path of PDF library on iOS/iPadOS?
I would like to sync my manuals but they are not in correct folder 