My Continually Evolving Home Studio
Time to get creative again.
I've had some sort of home studio since probably around 1993. My girlfriend at the time bought me a Roland JV-35 for my birthday, which I immediately hooked up to my 386 computer via the midi port on my sound blaster and started making beats and crazy little songs.
I have moved a lot over the years and I always end up with different stuff hooked up. As you can see in the above image, I have a lot of instruments that rely on plugins and virtual instruments - excepting the Model D there behind the keyboard which is fully analog. Of course, this was not even possible in the early days.
In order to reproduce the compositions the way that I originally made them back in the early 90s, I'd have to hook them back up to the actual keyboard. Well, unless I got a hold of some kind of emulator. These days it's much easier with wave-table software synths and samples that are easy to pass around.
Even my setup from 2012 had a lot more external equipment that produced its own sounds:
Anyone recognize the little black box just underneath the drum machine on the top of the stack between the KRK monitors? Yep, that is a Roland MT-32. That is by far my oldest piece of equipment. These things were absolutely fantastic when they came out in the late 80s.
Game developers such as sierra online wrote the music and often sound effects for their games to work especially well with this device. Before the MT-32, you were pretty much stuck with the crappy 8 bit sounds that came out of your computer.
Well, The Sound Blaster did get pretty advanced after a while, but in the early days it really sounded like crap.
Home Studio 2003 edition
So the following image was the only photo I could find of my studio during this era. I remember having some really big studio monitors at the time, but I don't know where they are at at this exact moment because I don't see them anywhere in the picture.
Sorry for the rude middle finger in the shot. My brother had just woken me up from a nap for some reason and I wasn't too happy. On my desk behind me, you can see that keyboard (Roland JV-35) that my ex bought for me years ago. I loved that keyboard! I still have it, but it's in storage.
Funnily enough, these images started with the most recent and went backward in time. This isn't even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all of the studio setups that I've had. I wish I could find more photos but I was having a bit of a hard time with my ridiculous unorganized photo library. I need to get on that!
A New Motivation
So why am I talking about all of this now? Well, I've been in a bit of a creative funk. I haven't made any music for more than a year and my studio has just been a big pile of mess. I've began the process of getting everything in order and I'm about to start trying to make music again. Well, technically I have made a few things but they are all work related. I do a bit of voice-over work and the odd jingle/background music for work projects, but nothing that inspires me much.
I was glad to see the posts by @swelker101 and @isaria about the new sonicgroove tribe for musicians. I was thinking that this is an opportunity to start making stuff and putting it out there for kicks.
So it's time to get at it! See you guys soon.
hey buddy, give me a brief explanation about what those really small keyboards are for. I don't need technical specs but my DJ friends always have one as well and I'm curious.
by the way, the "workstation" looks awesome.
So basically it is for portability. Most people who do sound design, or produce electronic music don't necessarily need an entire 88 key keyboard because they are often not playing more than one part at a time and recording it into a piece of software (Like Ableton or Cubase). As you are recording tracks you might just need a couple of octaves at a time to play chord progressions or melodies.
Your DJ friend could be using the keys to trigger effects, or samples or any number of things. Keyboard with only a couple of octaves and no internal sounds are generally called 'Controllers' because that is exactly what they are for; controlling either other instruments, or parameters in the DJ or production software.
Personally, I like to have a full sized keyboard because I am 'slightly' better at playing than most EDM people you run into, so I actually like to play left and right hand at once when I'm hashing out ideas. But I am a bit space constrained at the moment!
nice set up, it is all really compact now a days. I look forward to hearing what you create xx
Wow, i would love to hear music from your side.
And glad to know that you are trying to get things back ready for work again.
Loving that new setup, perfectly spaced out!
Yeah, this is the first desk that I've really liked for this purpose. It's the first time I've had access to all my stuff at once!
Your studio looks well equip and I like the settings and arrangement of the studio equipments . Nice one man ✌
Yeah, I've got pretty much everything that I could want, even the latest Cubase and Ableton licenses, as well as NI Komplete. I have no excuse to not be making music!
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Great to see you motivated mate !! im motivated too!! surething it's a good time to bring people to the plattform and grow, oportunities has to be takken with good foot and it's great to see every effor on every human being building this blockchain, will be using the #sonicgroove tag and creativecoin too! hey! you should see my recent contest, maybe you could fit some post in it and got some nice feedback and prizes (:
those are nice gears, i need to find me some for me!! im more a guitar type of guy but im a sound engineer, i never used a daw but i had the theory as a mindset.
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