Who's in love with constantly re-shuffling their studio?

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

Lol, I must admit, I’m a sucker for continuously moving/shifting things around. I take great pleasure in taking things apart, moving them and putting them back in different places or connecting them differently… Only to realize maybe it was a bad choice and put them as they were before… or visa versa… or not :confused:

Not sure it’s normal. Doesn’t obviously happen every week but every couple of months I will have a complete reshuffling of my gear.

Thing is, contrary to the (admittedly correct) critique that it interferes or gets in the way of creative time, I actually enjoy it. Anyone else that’s as OCD as me or am I just a weirdo? :grinning:

I am also OCD with taking care of my gear…

Thing is, I’m not OCD with anything else… hahahah

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#2

Haha, same habit here. I bought a patchbay so I wouldn’t have to move stuff around. Just makes it harder/slower/more inaccessible now every time that I do :wink:

Like you mention, half the time I also put it all back how it was previously a few weeks later…

I used to permanent rent a huge rehearsal room so going from that to a corner of a bedroom… It’s hard to switch off the thought ‘there HAS to be a more comfortable/flexible/accessible formation than this!’. Truth is that there probably isn’t a better formation for this space than how I’m set now but part of me is harking back to when I had like 10 times as much room and everything exactly where I wanted it…

Would love to be able to reduce/minimise my set up to one desk and like 4 bits of hardware and be set. I hate selling stuff tho, always feel like I’d miss it… And stuff like pedals/amps/guitars etc make it hard to have the kind of focused desk that I see a lot of people with. I envy them!

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#3

Haha… story of my life! :grinning:

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#4

Been doing it for 40 years, still love the freshness of having something close to hand when it was previously in a different place. It changes the way I think and feels like I’ve been given a load of new gear for free. Plus it inexplicably provides loads of extra cables, a cleaner signal path, new clarity of thought.

The need to rearrange gradually builds up over time, sometimes with small shifts but eventually some kind of critical mass is reached and there’s no choice but to have a massive move-around. This is very theraputic. One has been building here for a while as my Eurorack corner swells, but it’s not quite ready to burst yet.

I doubt it will ever stop.

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#5

I buy and sell, take things out and move it about. Right now I’m working in my office with a toraiz sp16 and analog 4 and nothing else and all my other gear is in my attic studio untouched for over a month.

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#6

Cant stand it, I see it as a time waste and kills my enthusiasm to play.

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#7

I love/hate it. I do wish i could get the mind set right to live with what I’ve got but at same time I love researching gear and things.

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#8

Yup, you either enjoy it or you dont… funny thing is, I’ve never packed gear away. In another thread @J0n35y had mentioned pack it up and see if you miss it.

For some reason, I’m obsessed with needing to have everything laid out and somewhat plugged in “in case” I want to use it.

How therapeutic it must also be to have 1-2 pieces of gear on the table and nothing else… reminds of a previous thread where @andreasroman had posted that lovely pic of his OT on a little table and nothing else…

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#9

Jesus it’s such a curse

I always take it all apart, put it all outside the room

Clean the room and start bringing it all in bit by bit

I always TRY and get in a different order but it always ends up in more or less the same place

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#10

Yeah I do this quite often. I kinda see it as a form of procrastination though.

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#11

i have a phobia of messy cables. im always trynna get em really neat. always starts well but by the end of the tidy theyre all over the shop again. :slight_smile:

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#12

I do this constantly but made some proper changes this week when I sold some stuff off. Was thinking to get a MacBook Pro but who knows maybe a DT. Anyway did a complete renovation on my space, bolted some frames to the wall and setup a floating tabletop. Two Analog boxes, an Air and headphones. This stuff stuff still pipes to some speakers but trying to keep it simple.

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#13

This sums up exactly my experience.

When you set everything up fresh it’s all clean, tidy, efficient. Slowly I start altering it, plugging in pedals, rerouting midi cables, etc. Eventually it reaches a ‘critical mass’ (as you so nicely put it) and I feel anxious and panicked and convinced that the only solution is a complete studio overhaul.

I half enjoy the process, and half hate it. But when it’s done I find it immensely satisfying. I’m always at my most creative in the weeks following a studio overhaul.

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#14

Hi nice post… i´m exactly doing this at 7.47 am.

extra coffee xpresso, some ambient electronica to do the job, with the mission to remap the controllers and some new ideas for the setup. seems some Nauts are over their machines… part of the creative process re-arrange. :elan::elan: :smiley_cat:

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#15

Oh yeah, this is me. You’re definitely not the only one. I’m lucky at the moment as I have an excuse. I’m moving so will soon get to set up and try yet another studio configuration. Which I’m sure I’ll tear apart two months later. I think I said in another thread somewhere - my wife always says my true hobby is “unplugging things and then plugging things in again”. And, buying and selling gear, of course. Amazingly, I can still finish songs occasionally though, so I’m not completely hopeless.

I also have pages and pages of routing notes, ideas, sketches of gear configurations, etc. And attempting to have a hybrid studio makes things way more complicated. My ultimate goal would be to have a way to use all my vst/daw stuff and incorporate hardware, but also being able to jam totally computer free. Haven’t found a satisfactory and streamlined way to do this yet.

I can’t believe some of the more complex setups people have. I get a bit queasy thinking of the routing, maintenance, expense, etc. Hell, just dusting all the crap. Jesus. Looking at those gearporn photos simultaneously gives me GAS yet makes me want to simplify. Strange. But they do give good ideas on ergonomics and physical studio layouts.

Lately I’ve been back in a classic L-shaped two desk setup. But, the thing that always bugs me about the L-shaped setup is turning away from the monitors to play synths. I like facing the monitors. Yeah, I could use headphones but it’s a pain moving the damn cord all the time. Setting monitors on stands, further apart? Maybe two sets of monitors? I dunno.

I have a patchbay sitting in a cabinet waiting to be fully utilized. That might help with the constantly unplugging and plugging. But doesn’t help much with ergonomics and moving the actual gear around to optimal positions.

Not sure there is ever an optimal layout/setup. Especially if gear is frequently bought then moved along. You never have time to adjust and dial things in I guess. Yeah, this OCD/over-optimization thing is one reason I don’t want to go down the eurorack road. Endless.

tl;dr - yeah, love/hate with constant rearranging here too.

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#16

I love rearranging the studio, recabling and reconfiguring. I am just now putting the finishing touches on a major rearrangement, in fact. However, as I succumb to the ravages of time, my aching back isn’t really up to the job of moving some of the larger bits around (Hammond, modular, and old heavy vintage gear). Plus, racking up gear can be quite hard on my neck and shoulders. Now, though I love the inspiration I glean from having a new setup, I fear the pain I will suffer as a result. :worried:

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#17

This ^^ this has made my day. I also get the:
“I wish you were as OCD with where you leave your shit around the house” :joy: once in a while…

In all seriousness, it has made me fearful of buying “permanent” furniture or custom housing for gear given how often I a) like to move things around b) buy/sell things.

As others have mentioned, I too love the novelty of a new little setup or one that looks squeaky clean and fresh - for the most part, it gives me an extra boost of motivation to write/finish something and triggers new creativity. Mega therapeutic for me…

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#18

Lol! Yes. The studio is literally the one place I actually keep neat. Funny how that works.

Oh yeah, I limit myself to IKEA hacks for studio furniture, racks, etc. I’d feel terrible if I made some sort of funky housing for something that I then begin wanting to sell, or if it doesn’t fit into a new layout. Would double the pain of a wrong move.

Exactly. It’s like fixing a flat bike tire (let’s ride!), washing a car (time for a drive!), buying a fridge full of new ingredients (let’s cook!), etc… It’s recharge/refresh/reboot kinda thing.

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#19

I was doing that for years, finally committed to a simple yet effective set up and decided not to add anything until I finish and release some music. After that I’m free to re-arrange or try new things, which will probably be just in time for those Malekko boxes.

#20

I think my gear’s been in the same position since late fall 2015. Some cabling changes here and there… I’ve never sold any gear and haven’t gotten any since 2014, so it’s been exactly the same for years. I did explore heaps of configurations for some years before the current one, a lot of routing can be done internally with the gear I use. It takes me an entire day to take everything down, clean the room and the gear, clean cables, etc, and put it back together, I’m overdo for one of those at the moment…
Oh, and it takes a whole day because I’m kinda ocd with my studio, no cable spaghetti, audio cords only cross power cords at right angles, and various other quirks. I dust off all my gear after every session and throw purple and green dust covers over it, the OT and Little Phatty get gold spandex dust covers!

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