Furniture for your Recording Studio
December 11, 2011 - http://www.canadianmusicartists.com/
Old conventional furniture can easily be used in your recording studio, but having custom designed furniture for your studio does have its advantages. Most studio desks are built to give you the most efficient access to the most amount of equipment. This is done with adjustable, swivel, speaker stands to match the height of your ears when you are sitting in front of desk. Another common feature is sliding stands for the monitor, musical keyboard, or computer keyboard. Allowing you to reach all of the main components of your set up directly in front of you.
When sitting in your chair in front of your mixer, realize that anything within an arms reach of you is a prime location for whatever equipment you find yourself using most. When all of your gear is organized efficiently than you can begin maximizing your creative possibilities when laying down tracks.
The other vitally important piece of furniture in your recording studio is your chair. This may sound very trivial but when you think about it, it is the most used piece of furniture in the room. Recording studio engineers spend allot of time sitting, so why not sit in comfort. The more comfortable you are in your studio the less distracted you will be when trying to focus on a mix or a long session of recording.
Get Rid of Clutter
Clean up your studio of all clutter lying around and then clean it very thoroughly this is important for a few reasons. Keeping your studio clean is a good way of keeping down the dust levels in the room, in turn keeping all of your equipment virtually dust free. Although don't think that this will allow you to skip regular maintenance of your recording equipment. The other benefit to keeping a clutter free studio is that it will help your mood and your creativity boosting productivity of your time spent in the studio.
Rack Mount Stands and Cases
Racks come in a variety of styles and sizes, to cater to any of your needs. There are two main categories of racks. Those meant for taking on the road gigging and those meant to be stationary in your studio, many road cases are good for both. If you buy a desk custom designed for recording studios it will have several spaces for holding your rack mount recording equipment. If your needing something with more flexibility some rack are adjustable and can be positioned at many different angles for optimal positioning of your rack mount gear. For anyone who has a multi computer based set up will want to invest in a server rack to house all of the computer power backing the studio. These machines can even be kept in a different room and accessed remotely to avoid excessive noise in your recording studio.
Placement of your Speakers
Whether you are using speaker stands, wall mount brackets, or the hutch of your studio desk speaker placement is key to having a good sounding and useful studio. Some recording engineers turn their speakers on their side claiming that the speakers can be positioned to target your ear level directly both tweeter and mid speaker in a vertical stance, the argument against this would be, that it would offset the angle in which your ears are receiving the sound giving a false perception of the true l/r stereo panning, because the tweeter and mid range would project a few degrees apart horizontally when targeted toward your ears.
I don't want to go to in depth on proper placement of speaker as there is just not enough space to scratch the surface of this topic. There are many solutions for mounting, hanging, or supporting speakers of all weight and size. The acoustical treatment and room you are putting the speakers in effect where and how you will want to position your speakers.
Equipment Storage
Recording studios can be kept picture perfect with the aid of small cabnits or drawer units, to store excessive cables and microphones that are not currently in use in the studio. Not only does this keep your studio clean and clutter free but it stops cables from getting snagged and saves mics from being knocked over and damaged. Guitar stands and instrument stands are essentials, these will keep your instruments in top shape between recordings and breaks. You don't want to have to put your guitar away in its case every time you want to take a break. Guitar stands also prolong the life of your guitar from neck warps and damage while outside of its guitar case.
Last but not least is accessories for all of your new furniture, for some reason lava lamps have shown great popularity amongst recording studios, or you can always add a nice piece of artwork, or unique lighting to help set your mood when producing a track in your studio.