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My new music production workspace, 29th Dec 2021, last updated 23rd April 2024
- Thread starter MajorFubar
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@MajorFubar :
This kind of warts-and-all studio configuration blog is a tremendous resource for this community. It is insightful and practical. Thank you for continuing to update us on your project.
This kind of warts-and-all studio configuration blog is a tremendous resource for this community. It is insightful and practical. Thank you for continuing to update us on your project.
Thanks. The issue is I felt my workflows warranted more than just the standard M1 machine. I felt that stringing all this gear onto an M1 would maybe be asking too much of it, and what I really wanted was a Mac Mini Pro with the M1 Pro chip. However Apple didn't deliver a Mini Pro, so I had to opt for the Studio Max, which is probably over-spec'd for my needs.
Yes there are times I wish I'd waited a bit longer before migrating to M-series Macs, because the transition of third-party apps and plugins is snail-pace, and the issues I've had trying to get all my hardware to work reliably with my Studio Max have been stressful to say the least, literally starting on day 1 with the monitor which gave me an empty screen when connected HDMI->HDMI. But I didn't really want to invest in a 'dying' Intel architecture (from the Mac perspective).
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Thanks but my audio interface already has a built-in loopback function. Although from a hardware-perspective it is a four-channel device, the computer actually sees 8 inputs, where channels 5-8 are loopbacks.
You don't know how much it means to read that. It's difficult to know sometimes whether these blogs are actually useful to anyone or whether I'm just needlessly filling-up a server somewhere.
Many years ago (2005/6), when I was reinvigorating my interest in audio production and setting up my first digital home studio based around a Windows XP laptop and (a shamefully torrented copy of) Cool Edit Pro V1.5, I reached out to members of various music and producers' forums to ask for 'stems' of work from unsigned bands and other producers for me to mix for free, in return for constructive feedback on my techniques. Among all the largely banal cr-p sent to me by teens who thought their school band were the next Green Day was one member who sent me a cryptic msg saying, 'I'm going to send you something, and if you can mix this, you can mix anything.'
The RAR file he linked me to on his USA-based P2P server took nearly three hours to download via the weedy mid 2000's broadband here in the UK, and he would give me no clue what it was. I was flabbergasted when I finally uncompressed it and found it to be 24 high-res FLAC files of the 24-track session-tape of 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. The sender claimed he'd acquired it from a contact who personally knew Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker; a fact which of course I've never been able to confirm. My asthmatic XP laptop with its 1GB of RAM, 5400rpm hard drive and 1.73GHz Pentium-M Centrino wouldn't even play all 24 96kHz tracks, let alone allow me to proactively produce the song, so I thanked him and shelved it.
In fact I would end up shelving it for over 16 years, as much as anything because I was frightened of p*ssing on a Rembrandt. But earlier this year I dusted it off, and finally mixed and produced it. For anyone interested, here is a video of my mix with my desk reacting to the automation, motorised faders and all:
https://youtu.be/J0vGY27Xqp8
This video was recorded late in March before I received my Mac Studio Max. The whole production, as you can see, is being driven by my 2010 Core2Duo Mac Mini, upgraded from standard with a 256GB SSD (originally had 500GB HDD) and 4GB RAM (originally 2GB). I had decommissioned my 2011 iMac by then, and I was waiting for my Studio to arrive.
The RAR file he linked me to on his USA-based P2P server took nearly three hours to download via the weedy mid 2000's broadband here in the UK, and he would give me no clue what it was. I was flabbergasted when I finally uncompressed it and found it to be 24 high-res FLAC files of the 24-track session-tape of 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. The sender claimed he'd acquired it from a contact who personally knew Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker; a fact which of course I've never been able to confirm. My asthmatic XP laptop with its 1GB of RAM, 5400rpm hard drive and 1.73GHz Pentium-M Centrino wouldn't even play all 24 96kHz tracks, let alone allow me to proactively produce the song, so I thanked him and shelved it.
In fact I would end up shelving it for over 16 years, as much as anything because I was frightened of p*ssing on a Rembrandt. But earlier this year I dusted it off, and finally mixed and produced it. For anyone interested, here is a video of my mix with my desk reacting to the automation, motorised faders and all:
https://youtu.be/J0vGY27Xqp8
This video was recorded late in March before I received my Mac Studio Max. The whole production, as you can see, is being driven by my 2010 Core2Duo Mac Mini, upgraded from standard with a 256GB SSD (originally had 500GB HDD) and 4GB RAM (originally 2GB). I had decommissioned my 2011 iMac by then, and I was waiting for my Studio to arrive.
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Wow, great work.
Everytime I hear that song it gives me goose bumps....😁
You are very talented.
I see on your YT page many other mixes, all stuff I love (Jean MJ, Mike Oldfield etc), will have to check them out.
Everytime I hear that song it gives me goose bumps....😁
You are very talented.
I see on your YT page many other mixes, all stuff I love (Jean MJ, Mike Oldfield etc), will have to check them out.
Thanks. Much of the other stuff is just my playing keyboards, however.
I've only uploaded three mixes of commercial songs, the other two being Superstition and Killer Queen, in my "Watch Me Mix" series. The latter two I found on a sharing website in 2008. I don't know if they are still available. I saw the same website sharing MP3 versions of the BoRhap multitracks, but I have never seen them shared anywhere as hi-res FLACs. I've seen various sites sharing 'stems' of various commercial tracks, but they are invariably all pre-mixed to some degree, and all you do is bring the faders to unity and boom you're done.
I do have a few more under my hat that I will release once per month to continue the "Watch Me Mix" series.
Looks like you (finally) have a solid, working setup. Great job pulling it all together. Rotating the setup to prevent backlighting is, I'm sure, very helpful. I did the same in my space.
If you do decide to add some reflection control, may I suggest cloth-covered rigid fiberglass as opposed to foam. For a given thickness, fiberglass is more efficient. Panels, as thick as you can afford space for (and mounted several inches off the wall if space permits for additional effectiveness at lower frequencies) surrounding your work area will enhance the accuracy of your playback system.
I recently moved from a 5,1 12-core Mac Pro to a Mac Studio Ultra in my studio. The Ultra absolutely smokes the old chesegrater, but getting all the external drives connected was definitely a change of pace from the Mac Pro, which housed so many drives internally. I was fortunate to have everything just work for me, including the HDMI connection to my main display.
Thanks for sharing... Carry On with The Journey!
If you do decide to add some reflection control, may I suggest cloth-covered rigid fiberglass as opposed to foam. For a given thickness, fiberglass is more efficient. Panels, as thick as you can afford space for (and mounted several inches off the wall if space permits for additional effectiveness at lower frequencies) surrounding your work area will enhance the accuracy of your playback system.
I recently moved from a 5,1 12-core Mac Pro to a Mac Studio Ultra in my studio. The Ultra absolutely smokes the old chesegrater, but getting all the external drives connected was definitely a change of pace from the Mac Pro, which housed so many drives internally. I was fortunate to have everything just work for me, including the HDMI connection to my main display.
Thanks for sharing... Carry On with The Journey!
In lieu of any significant update here's a completely pointless and gratuitous night time pic
Sorry this blog has been quiet for a while. There comes a point where the studio is more or less settled in its gear and layout so there isn't much to add regularly.
I bought two cheap rolls of self-adhesive LED lighting over the weekend (the kind which can be set to various colours, or made to pulsate or fade between them), and fit these under the two shelves to light up the control surfaces and the Arturia KeyLab 88 MIDI controller.
I quite like the ambience this adds, and the colours can be changed to reflect mood.
I need to change the bulb in the overhead desk-lamp to be daylight balanced because there is a WB conflict going on which screws with my eyes when I switch it on along with the LED strips. I didn't think about that when I bought the strips, so that's a job for next weekend.
I bought two cheap rolls of self-adhesive LED lighting over the weekend (the kind which can be set to various colours, or made to pulsate or fade between them), and fit these under the two shelves to light up the control surfaces and the Arturia KeyLab 88 MIDI controller.
I quite like the ambience this adds, and the colours can be changed to reflect mood.
I need to change the bulb in the overhead desk-lamp to be daylight balanced because there is a WB conflict going on which screws with my eyes when I switch it on along with the LED strips. I didn't think about that when I bought the strips, so that's a job for next weekend.
My wife (with whom I no longer live) has been pressuring me to rid her loft of my legacy junk, which I guess is a pretty fair request.
This has found me re-welcoming to my home studio the computer which 25+ years ago was my home studio: my upgraded Amiga 1200:
Years of storage in the loft had not been kind to it even though it was boxed. The monitor, mouse and external FDD have noticeably yellowed. I was pleased, and I have to say slightly surprised, that its internal HDD has survived and I was able to load-up one of my nearly-30-year-old projects in my DAW from that period, OctaMED V5:
I have removed all the keys, washed them, and prepared them for Retrobriting. After a week I'm still waiting for the gallon of H2O2 to arrive in the post. Literally zero chance of my being able to buy it from a physical retailer where I live so I didn't even try, so progress is glacial in that respect until it arrives:
Inbetween time I fully dismantled the Amiga to its bare bones, cleaned everything and resprayed the case. Even before it yellowed it was always "that" shade of 1980's 'PC beige' so I decided to brighten it up with a full respray in matt white:
This little buddy then looked kinda old and tired so he received a full clean and a lick of paint as well:
So here we are, partly complete. The monitor and external FDD are still to be dismantled and repainted to match the new brighter shade of the Amiga, the keys are awaiting the H2O2 for the Retrobriting process, but everything is on hold anyway this weekend because I'm pet-sitting at my wife's while she is away camping with her Brownies troupe for the last time before winter properly sets in:
This has found me re-welcoming to my home studio the computer which 25+ years ago was my home studio: my upgraded Amiga 1200:
Years of storage in the loft had not been kind to it even though it was boxed. The monitor, mouse and external FDD have noticeably yellowed. I was pleased, and I have to say slightly surprised, that its internal HDD has survived and I was able to load-up one of my nearly-30-year-old projects in my DAW from that period, OctaMED V5:
I have removed all the keys, washed them, and prepared them for Retrobriting. After a week I'm still waiting for the gallon of H2O2 to arrive in the post. Literally zero chance of my being able to buy it from a physical retailer where I live so I didn't even try, so progress is glacial in that respect until it arrives:
Inbetween time I fully dismantled the Amiga to its bare bones, cleaned everything and resprayed the case. Even before it yellowed it was always "that" shade of 1980's 'PC beige' so I decided to brighten it up with a full respray in matt white:
This little buddy then looked kinda old and tired so he received a full clean and a lick of paint as well:
So here we are, partly complete. The monitor and external FDD are still to be dismantled and repainted to match the new brighter shade of the Amiga, the keys are awaiting the H2O2 for the Retrobriting process, but everything is on hold anyway this weekend because I'm pet-sitting at my wife's while she is away camping with her Brownies troupe for the last time before winter properly sets in:
Just basic matt white paint in an aerosol, that once again I had to buy online, because with my local retailers, if you don't want basic colours like gloss white, jet black, gold or silver, you're out of luck.NIIIIIICE.....
I was an Atari ST user back in the dark ages.
What sort of paint did you use, looks like a nice finish.
I'm getting used to having to buy pretty much everything I ever want via the internet. I look at my whole studio, and other than the Amiga hardware which was bought 30 years ago from something we used to call a 'computer shop' (ask your grandparents, kids) literally everything else in it was bought online.
So after a weekend of letting the keys soak in my little homemade stew-pot of UV-lit Key Soup (stirring every so often to ensure equal exposure):
...we went from this:
...to this:
(Bear in mind the case looks whiter because I've painted it)
If I'm being ultra critical it's not 100% perfect, but for my first Retrobriting job, I think it's turned out OK. And remarkably no keysprings were pinged across the room during any part of this exercise.
Monitor next. Though that will be painted like the computer casing, not Retrobrited.
...we went from this:
...to this:
(Bear in mind the case looks whiter because I've painted it)
If I'm being ultra critical it's not 100% perfect, but for my first Retrobriting job, I think it's turned out OK. And remarkably no keysprings were pinged across the room during any part of this exercise.
Monitor next. Though that will be painted like the computer casing, not Retrobrited.
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Final update for the day, I've just finished the FDD
Before:
After:
As they used to say on Sesame Street, one of these things is not like the others...
To be continued...but not today.
Before:
After:
As they used to say on Sesame Street, one of these things is not like the others...
To be continued...but not today.
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Ok so the final piece of the restoration jigsaw is now complete having painted the monitor
Here are the before and after shots to remind you what it was all like and what it looks like now:
Before:
After:
Thanks for following.
Here are the before and after shots to remind you what it was all like and what it looks like now:
Before:
After:
Thanks for following.
ENIGMA, SADENESS (cover) originally recorded in 1992.
<<SADENESS on Amiga 1200, originally recorded October 1992>>
True story. It's October 1992 (almost 30 years ago to the very day), I've just finished recording this song (then on my Amiga 500+, but the above YT link is on my A1200 yesterday), which uses a mixture of samples played by the Amiga and an external keyboard controlled by the Amiga using MIDI. My friend at work, Big Daz, is raving that he's just bought Windows 3.1 for his PC and a Soundblaster soundcard, and when he plays keys on his computer keyboard it almost sounds like a real piano. I'm like, "awww, that's cute."
Octamed 5 tracker (DAW) doing most of the work here, playing the Amiga's built-in 4-channel samplers and controlling my workstation keyboard via a MIDI interface to play strings, choir pad, and glockenspiel (everything else is the Amiga).
I realise this mostly just a memory-trip just for me and of little interest or relevance to others, but now and again I find it useful to remind myself where I started, from a digital home-recording point of view.
<<SADENESS on Amiga 1200, originally recorded October 1992>>
True story. It's October 1992 (almost 30 years ago to the very day), I've just finished recording this song (then on my Amiga 500+, but the above YT link is on my A1200 yesterday), which uses a mixture of samples played by the Amiga and an external keyboard controlled by the Amiga using MIDI. My friend at work, Big Daz, is raving that he's just bought Windows 3.1 for his PC and a Soundblaster soundcard, and when he plays keys on his computer keyboard it almost sounds like a real piano. I'm like, "awww, that's cute."
Octamed 5 tracker (DAW) doing most of the work here, playing the Amiga's built-in 4-channel samplers and controlling my workstation keyboard via a MIDI interface to play strings, choir pad, and glockenspiel (everything else is the Amiga).
I realise this mostly just a memory-trip just for me and of little interest or relevance to others, but now and again I find it useful to remind myself where I started, from a digital home-recording point of view.
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I guess you didn't click the link to the video in the above post...Have you fired the Amiga up yet.....
(I now realise my wording made it look like the video was 30 years old, but no, it was from two days ago.)
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Be sure to put a couple if baffles on the walls beside your speakers. Check out the stuff from GIK acoustics (im not affiliated, just what I use)
Ok small update not Mac specific or even computer-audio specific, in fact the exact opposite, but over the weekend I added a Revox B77 mkII HS to the studio. Cosmetically it's seen better days but it is fully serviced and warrantied for 60 days, and I've been wanting one of these for about 30 years.
This is the 15IPS half-track stereo model, i.e.: the L and R channels each occupy half the width of the 1/4" tape so a tape cannot be 'turned over', as opposed to a quarter-track stereo model which behaves similar to a cassette (two tracks in each direction).
I will use this for certain mixes which I believe would benefit from the sonic signature of being bounced-out to a real analog recording device then recaptured. There are various tape emulation plugins, but all the lot of them seem to be developed by people too young to have experienced a great tape deck. They ironically take pride in how accurately their plugins emulate the undesirable imperfections that tape-enthusiasts proactively take great lengths to avoid (such as noise, dropouts, uneven FR, W&F and compressed dynamics) without ever completely nailing the actual sonic signature.
It's been fully calibrated for modern RTM SM911 tape, on sale by my nearest supplier at £75 for 2,500 ft, which at 15IPS gives me about 33 minutes recording time (totally uncoincidentally, the common maximum playing time of one side an LP). 'Used sparingly' is going to be the mantra.
This is the 15IPS half-track stereo model, i.e.: the L and R channels each occupy half the width of the 1/4" tape so a tape cannot be 'turned over', as opposed to a quarter-track stereo model which behaves similar to a cassette (two tracks in each direction).
I will use this for certain mixes which I believe would benefit from the sonic signature of being bounced-out to a real analog recording device then recaptured. There are various tape emulation plugins, but all the lot of them seem to be developed by people too young to have experienced a great tape deck. They ironically take pride in how accurately their plugins emulate the undesirable imperfections that tape-enthusiasts proactively take great lengths to avoid (such as noise, dropouts, uneven FR, W&F and compressed dynamics) without ever completely nailing the actual sonic signature.
It's been fully calibrated for modern RTM SM911 tape, on sale by my nearest supplier at £75 for 2,500 ft, which at 15IPS gives me about 33 minutes recording time (totally uncoincidentally, the common maximum playing time of one side an LP). 'Used sparingly' is going to be the mantra.
So final update for a while this is my little home studio finished, for now:
I say, 'for now' because I can't think of anything else I want in it atm...least not in terms of things you can see, but are these spaces ever finished? Like any hobby you're always working on them and improving. I want to rig-up a second half-decent audio interface behind the scenes to keep the Revox permanently connected to the main digital rig instead of cable-swapping, but that will be hidden from view behind the mixing consoles which already hide a multitude of sins including power supplies and several powered and passive USB hubs.
I say, 'for now' because I can't think of anything else I want in it atm...least not in terms of things you can see, but are these spaces ever finished? Like any hobby you're always working on them and improving. I want to rig-up a second half-decent audio interface behind the scenes to keep the Revox permanently connected to the main digital rig instead of cable-swapping, but that will be hidden from view behind the mixing consoles which already hide a multitude of sins including power supplies and several powered and passive USB hubs.