The new studio takes shape!

Having finished exporting stems for all our works in progress, I've finally started setting up the project studio.

Originally, I had planned to use a keyboard stand to put my master keyboard on, then plonk the computer somewhere on the existing computer desk (my 'general use' Dell desktop is also in the corner of the new room). My other worry was trying to find a home in storage for all the stuff left behind, so I eventually decided to bring some racks through to the new studio and use them as a keyboard stand instead. I brought through two Quiklok 10U racks on casters, one under each end of my M-Audio Keystation Pro88.

Keeping some rack space is a bonus - it means I can keep my (rackmounted) PC off the flimsy existing computer desk, plus I've still got some space to put other equipment in if I need to. At the moment, the space above my PC contains my ESI Wami Rack soundcard and an old Roland RSS-10.

The RSS-10 is an interesting bit of kit - interesting in that I've had it for around 4 years (I long-term borrowed it off a friend of mine named, coincidentally, Roland!) and have never once switched it on! It's a 'sound space processor', and gives the impression of stereo sounds appearing to be in a 3-dimensional space. For example, the demo I heard on a cover CD once had a helicopter sound, which sounded like it was flying around your head - not just stereo panning, but virtual 3D panning! So anyway, I left that in the project studio in the hope that I might actually switch it on and see what it can do...

The other rack is currently holding my Yamaha MG166CX mixer - I knew I'd find room for it somewhere! How much use it'll get I don't know, but it's a big bit of kit to find room for in the storage unit.

There's enough room on my chest of drawers (god bless bedroom studios!) for my Macbook Pro, but I'm a monitor down, since I can't really fit the 17" CRT monitors from my old studio anywhere. It's amazing how quickly you get used to multiple screens, and how irritating it is when you have to downsize. I'm thinking I might have to buy a cheap LCD monitor so that I've still got enough space to have the arrangement, mixer and any relevant VSTs open all at the same time in Cubase. (Yes, I'm still using Cubase. There's probably a whole other blog post there, but avid readers will remember that I've been a Steinberg aficionado since around 1991!)

Since my Macbook far out-performs my studio PC, and has most of my biggest virtual instruments installed on it already, I'm toying with the idea of using some kind of MIDI-over-ethernet trick to use it as a remote VST station, while my PC worries about running Cubase. I'd need something cross-platform, since one end is Windows and one end is OS X, so I'll have a look into that at some point. If anyone has any recommendations, please let me know!

Anyway, the studio is working enough that I've managed to start work on another remix. More on that later, once I've got something to show for it. In the meantime, have a picture of the new studio (apologies for quality - iPhone is amazing, but not at taking photos...).