Acknowledging that the current WFH reality is like to be continuing through at least the end of the year, last week I put in a bunch of time & money to rethink my tiny studio corner. My work and music zones were intermingled and it was really affecting my ability to concentrate on either.
Work zone: I just added the chair, desk, monitor, SSL2, and Genelecs (which are significantly more accurate than the Yamahas below, and which I will raise up on tabletop stands). all really help me get into the right mindset, as opposed to makeshift desk of my laptop on top of a road case on a keyboard stand!
I also programmed this X-keys controller with macros to control Pro Tools. After 12 years of keyboard, it was hard to retrain my brain, and I had to rearrange the layout a few times. But now it’s such a more organic user interface; I keep my left hand there and my right hand on the trackball and rarely touch the keyboard. Highly recommend for any DAW!
And now my music corner has been refocused. I’ve been really inspired by Donnacha Costello’s Love From Dust and those “3 module only” videos, and want to go down a similar path of simplicity and melodic variations. It’s based around the Tascam 4-track (long lent out to a friend) and Zoom H5, with the computer relegated to editing down stereo mixes & live takes. This is pretty much how I made music from about 2006-11, but now I’m actually using the Tascam’s sync feature to clock everything! I think once I add the 0-ctrl I will call it “complete” for quite some time, because this simplicity really works for me In These Uncertain Times.
