I'm gonna get right to it today with two words: ergonomics and templates. My entire studio life lives and dies with these two words.
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Ergonomics is how my gear is setup around me in theHi, gang!
I'm gonna get right to it today with two words: ergonomics and templates. My entire studio life lives and dies with these two words.
Ergonomics is how my gear is setup around me in the studio — for minimum movement. Can I reach everything from my seated position in the sweet spot of the control room? Templates are how I set my gear for maximum usage and flexibility, where sound is concerned.
I must preface this column by telling you how much I hate plugging in and unplugging cables and power chords. This was the reason behind my thought process. It's such a waste of time.
Let's dig right in with ergonomics. From my seated position during the time I spend playing my studio (Yes, playing my studio), I like everything to be an arm's length or short roll from the best listening position. We call this the sweet spot. The monitoring position. On my hard left is a mixing board used for routing and controlling my sources of sound. All my mics, modelers, keys and special effects are routed through here. I also keep my beloved Line 6 HD500 at arm's reach. I do not keep it on the floor. I rarely use the wah or volume, so I prefer it at arm's reach from where I sit. On my front side left are my mic pre-amps and compressors. SSL, UA, Neve, PreSonus, DBX and Summit. The rack also holds my converters.
On my right side is MIDI central. My MIDI router and all my keyboard modules and keys live here. I do a ton of work on keyboards so I need a large setup. I am NOT a keyboardist, per se. However, I have a decent knowledge and use these mods and keys for