Studio Furniture

[soysos]

My good friend built me this console at least 10 years ago with 3 racks.
Originally it sat not so steadily on 2 rolling rack cases. On Saturday we took apart an old table and he created a really stable leg and locking base system. The center section holds a Schertler mixer that is just a fantastic studio tool

[kbra]

Still needs some little cable management tricks and setting up the actual gear, but in principle it’s ready now.

The one thing I realized towards the end of the work is that adjustable sit-stand type legs make complete sense for something like this - you have 2 (potentially 3) different levels, and you may want to use any of them either sitting comfortably or standing upright, after all. So, seeing that the material budget for this one was ridiculously low otherwise (about 100 euros with fancier premium birch plywood and the kind of furniture wax I like most), I could afford to spend some extra and installed a height-adjustable electronic frame. It should be easily able to lift the whole load of the 30kg+ table frame and all the gear - even if I end up getting a hefty keyboard controller again at some point.

Just got it finished yesterday so I haven’t used it with the actual gear yet, but at least the idea and general ergonomics feel good with a little testing.

One more with “unplugged” almost complete studio setup to get an idea of the scale (still missing a compact mixer on top, and some little stuff in front, plus one more stand for an acoustic instrument):

[Voltmeister]

Here’s my budget home office setup. I thought to post it here, as it might be useful as studio setup for someone. All Ikea. Desk is a 200x60cm Linnmon surface with 5 Olov legs. On top of that a 190x26cm Lack wall-mountable shelve, with six Capita legs (8cm, but they come in 15cm too).

[kr0n]

Nice build and great idea with the height-adjustable frame. I’ve been eyeing this design for DIY as well, but I wasn’t quite sure about the ergonomics of the two desk trays (was planning to use it for work/production).

Please, do share more impressions once you have more hours in and more pictures with the setup finished!

[Oldanalogger]

I like the speakers - what make are they please?

[kbra]

@kr0n

Thanks! I’ll definitely post some experiences once I get to use the desk a bit more. My initial hunch is that for long hours on the desk I’d just opt for a more “traditional” type of studio desk (perhaps still modified with height adjustable frame if you want to stand at some point?) if space allowd, and the main benefit for this type of design is a decent compromise between compactness and ergonomics. But let’s see if I’m wrong (as usual)…

@Oldanalogger

Those are Gradient 5.0, from a local (Finnish) hi-fi manufacturer. Single coaxial element, sealed / passive radiator on the back. They’re sort of designed for flexible positioning and difficult spaces and work really well on my small & difficult home studio room. Passive, I run them with a pair of Hypex amplifiers. The current version of the model is called “Five”, with a bit different design - I bought my pair used for a very nice price.

I suppose they aren’t very widely known or available worldwide unlike, say, Amphion who make great sealed + passive radiator studio monitors (One series) around here that some audio engineer friends in the US of A seem to like a lot as well.

[Oldanalogger]

Thanks for the info. I prefer the design of yours to the current model.
They look great.

[kbra]

Yeah, the 5.0 is a superb looking speaker to my eye (also sounds very, very good as long as you don’t mind the somewhat light bass response) - and funnily enough, I only just now realized that the plywood ends match the thickness and color of the desk material pretty much perfectly. A lucky coincidence rather than a planned thing…

[janglesoul]

I’m always very impressed seeing skilled woodwork, dovetail joints and all. Myself, I’m more of rough hand. But at least I’m pretty fast. This lunch-break (working from home) I made an angled shelf with a pretty simple solution – just mounting a wooden wedge on a regular Ikea-console.

I just used some scrap wood. I put a thin strip on the front of the shelf with a 5 mm edge sticking out just to prevent stuff from sliding off. I plan to paint it white, clean up my space, and get everything wired nicely.