NEW Tour of my Home Studio [Video]

Joe Gilder | June 7, 2010

Several months ago I posted a video tour of my home studio. Well, I’ve since moved and changed things up a bit, so here’s a brand-new updated tour of my home studio. Enjoy!

What about YOU?!

I’d love to see a tour of your home studio. Post one on YouTube and put a link to it in the comments section here.

I’ve got something exciting to announce tomorrow, but I’ll need 10 comments on this post before I post it. Ready? Go!

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http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

I haven’t done an “analysis” per se…probably should…
http://www.techmuze.ca Techmuzepodcast

Hey Joe!
Thanks for the inspiration. Here is a video of my home studio. I get a bit long-winded at times but I think you and your audience may find it of interest!

http://vimeo.com/22154442

Enjoy!

TechMuze.ca
http://twitter.com/derFunkenstein Ben

Loved the tour of your studio, Joe. Curious what you’re going to end up replacing the 003 with. Wish I had the cash, I’d take it off your hands.

There’s not really much to my studio, but I’m a hobby guy. I do my vocal recordings in the closet (not in the picture) using the clothes to soak up the reflections. Works OK for me.

http://twitpic.com/48moit

From left to right:

Squier HSS Affinity Strat
Behringer MS20 monitors (I won them in a contest on Facebook, otherwise I’d have probably gone with Studiophile AV40s)
Mbox 2 Mini
My Compaq laptop with a Pentium Dual Core and 4GB of memory running Windows 7 Home Premium x64, Pro Tools 8 LE, and Finale Print Music 2011
M-Audio Keyrig 25 keyboard
MXL V67G large-diaphragm condenser
Audix i5 dynamic
Generic stand and pop filter from Guitar Center

Not pictured: Yamaha FX335 acoustic/electric, Peavey Classic Chorus 130 stereo chorus 2×12 amp, Sennheiser HD280 cans for tracking, any sort of acoustic treatment – like I said, I use my clothes. My wife tells me to come out of the closet. Har har.
Anonymous

Thanks for the tour. (Mine is in progress, so I won’t subject you to that.) As you know, acoustic treatment is very important for tracking and for mixing. I’m glad you gave that good consideration, and thanks for the inexpensive tips.

I notice foam directly behind your Sputnik. Especially for vocals, I find this really helps neutralize room sound…much more than wall foam, which helps more when mixing.

Again, thanks. Video shows how it doesn’t take a fortune to set up a good working room.
Scott

Excellent!
http://www.facebook.com/joeytownsend Joey Townsend

Joe,

Interestingly enough. The Eureka was purchased based off of your review/recommendation

http://www.youtube.com/user/joeytownsend?feature=mhum

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

Awesome!! One quick suggestion. If at all possible, try to move your studio
desk to the center of a wall. Having one speaker so close to a corner will
make that speaker have more bass than the other, causing an
unbalanced-sounding mix.

(I understand that moving it might not be an option, but I thought I’d
suggest it anyway.)

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

Nope. These are MTM style monitors. They were designed to face forward, NOT
angled in. Go check out the manual for them. They’re M-audio EX66′s.
http://silverlakestudio.com Travis Whitmore

Hey Joe and everyone… I love seeing everyone’s set up, very interesting stuff! I finally found the time to do a video tour of my studio as well. You can check out the youtube link here:

I’ll post the video to my blog next week as well – cheers!

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

AWESOME, Travis. Good stuff.

http://www.christopherbarnard.co.uk Chris

Joe,

How are you running your Imac the 003 and the firewire ext. hard drive all together on the one firewire port? Although PT9 allows you to use other interfaces now – as far as the Imacs are concerned, you hit a bit of a brickwall as you can’t use a FW drive and FW interface on the one port. At least that appears to be the case with non avid interfaces…

Just wondered…

Chris

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

It’s called daisy-chaining. I connect the computer to the 003 to the hard
drive to another hard drive. You can daisy-chain lots of firmware devices
together.

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

Very cool. Thanks for sharing!
http://woodworking-books.org Best Woodworking Plans

Thanks for showing your studio!
http://www.themactech.com Clayton Lewis

Hey Joe

Looking at your RAST Nightstand from IKEA… could a pair of 10sp rack rails fit inside of it? I notice you have 8s in there.

Thanks for the reply Joe
Joseph Lyons

Joe what kind of monitor is your secondary screen? I’m really wanting to get a secondary screen for my macbook so I can dual screen and get a better workflow going, but I’m having trouble figuring out what I want.

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

Y’know…I don’t even know. I got it from my old job.

Tony Pruessing

Thanks for showing your studio! I now feel there is hope for me yet. A good demonstration that you don’t have to get ultra complicated (or expensive) to get a great sounding recording. I would like to know how much the treatment kit was. I can look it up. Thanks again!
http://www.d-hydrate.com D-Hydrate

Here’s a old video of my studio. Since the recording I have added Dynaudio BM5A monitors, as well as acoustical treatment in the Drum Booth. I also have a new PC . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_LOYCFfNm0
John Fitzpatrick

Your monitor is straight in front of the window this will have a huge impact on your listening?

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

Probably, but there’s always gonna be some give and take in a home studio. This is the best orientation for the room.

http://www.tracytowns.com Tracy Towns

Cool studio! Here’s a video of my studio.
http://www.rokaproductions.com John

Joe this is a great site. Keep up the great work. Here is my Home Studio.
javier

hey joe this is my home studio…hope u like it and tell me what u think and tell me what u think i need to upgrade…..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu8lbFt8S6Y
Heath

Hey Joe,

How are you liking your hollow body?? Is it the Ibanez AS73 ?? Does it stay in tune for you pretty well??? I was thinking about buying it this weekend. Have and pro or cons??
Ben

carbon copy? shoulda got a memory boy.

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

Tried out Memory Toy. Didn’t like it as much as the Carbon Copy.

Ben Peilow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThoPiPKphmQ

Heres a quick video i made of my home studio. Theres quite a bit of home made stuff, which has worked out pretty well. Its by no means incredible gear but its enough to get me recording!

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

Nice. I think we could all use more green in our studios.

Thanks Ben!

Ben Peilow

yes my room is very green do you think that im going along the right lines equipment wise?

http://www.bmius.org Mark Hewitt

Nice work Joe.. I need to clean up before I show anyone my studio
http://www.onstage.co.nz Jacko

Hi guys. Heres a video response and tour of my (very) small studio.

Cheers
Jacko

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

Great setup, Jacko! Thanks for posting!
Andrew Shook

I love that Tascam mixer!! I’d love to have one. Great looking studio, Jacko!

Alfonso

Nice …. I like your new Ibanez guitar where did you get it and if you can share the price… I see you got a new computer too… congratulations…
Georg Egloff

Hey Joe, Thanks for putting the video tour together. Fun to see other people’s home setups…
Question: You were so thorough with your acoustic treatment and everything is really nicely laid out… so WHY do you have a glass surface behind your left monitor? All the low end coming off the back of that speaker has to be reacting to that surface, yes? You did that trick with the ceiling tile on the other window, why not this one as well?
Thanks, G.

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

Again, low frequencies are fairly omnidirectional, so trying to “absorb” their reflections doesn’t really help all that much. Also, I would go insane if I blocked out all the sunlight from my studio.

Georg

Right, got it. And the foam is more for highs and mids anyway. I have tons of light coming into my room so I can definitely appreciate the need for that aesthetic.

http://www.francopellegrini.com FRaNCo

Hey Joe! Nice video of your studio! It looks cool and very convenient. I am thinking on buying a rack too and IKEA’s one seems a practical idea. Do you know the model of the product(furniture)?
Saludos
christopher [chrisw92]

I’m not going to do a video or a picture today, because I’m getting ready to go on holiday tonight. (although I will be making music thanks to my PSP and a application called psprhythm… its not my macbook pro running logic studio but it will do the job for a week )

p.s. the website just changed/is currently changing, it look nice (but unfinished currently)
Carlos

Dude I’m like SO jealous. I had to make my rack out of old plywood crates and covered with mahogany imitating self-adhesive paper lol. Love IKEA thought.
Love the studio, very simple
http://www.myspace.com/jasijansson Jonas jansson

Hey dude. What you think about the focusrite preamp? thinking about buying almost the same. The Platinum preamp. Mostly for el guitar, some bass, vocals to, mostly rock and screaming
Musicats

Hey Joe! Thanks and I was dying to check your new studio!!! I’m trying to post them soon, so if I do, I’ll come back and list the link!

I have one question: Does Alesis Compressor good for vocal recording?? They are so affordable and tempting… Maybe you could do the “Things to buy under $100″ post, I loved your under $50 article.
http://www.wideopenwest.com/~liquidblueband tummyfish

hey another quick note ,we host a jam session here in columbus ohio and have for over 2 years ..seen many a great talent and some worse for wear!! but I have been telling certin clubs about the back dropping you have on your walls to absorb sound ..so many of these small cement built clubs cant even control there room and mostly bitch at the bands because there to loud and most amps are on 3!!
I tell them use some of these panels and it would make a big dif…. even in the club not jus a home studio cheaper then putting in a mas PA system ..with much needed compression .so exp.or at least build from there just a thought..
http://potbellystudios.com Jay W.

Hey Joe, that was a decent little tour. Cozy yet practical layout. I don’t have a video (yet) of my studio but I did make up a little layout that I’ve posted on my blog:

http://potbellystudios.com/2010/05/studio-setup-your-layout/

It’s still in it’s early stages (the blog) so there’s not much posted there yet.
GlenK

Joe, Thank you for the studio update. I’ve looked all over trying to find a studio desk to fit the needs of home office and music desk at the same time. After wearing out my catalogs and searching the world over via internet, I finally built my own. So far so good. I plan to post a video tour of my own studio soon. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and thoughts. You’ve been an inspiration. Congratulations on your new baby – a blessing from heaven.
Joseph J.

Joe, what do you use the 3630 for? I have one that I haven’t used for years. Might be nice to put it to use. Just curious on why you might use the outboard compressor as opposed to a plugin. Basically: when? how? why? Thanks!

Great IKEA idea as well.
sakarr

Looking good!!! I’m just starting to build my studio I’m going to do a diary of the build and post pic’s and a video getting started in a week!!
http://www.davekingmusic.com Dave

It looks like the rack to the right of the listening position might interfere with the sound coming from the right speaker. Wouldn’t it be better to position it lower (like on the floor)?

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

I really don’t hear much of a difference. The rack doesn’t block the tweeter. It does block the lower woofer a little bit, but low frequencies are fairly omni-directional, so I don’t think it’s a huge deal.

Ideally, yes. I’d have it on the floor. But I honestly just don’t like it down there.

Tom

Joe,

How did you hang the bass traps, as well as the other treatment on the walls and ceiling? Thanks,

Tom

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

I actually just used small nails/tacks. You can use their TubeTak (glue).

Brian

Finally the new house studio tour!
I made one of the Rast IKEA mounts a couple months back and love it, I wish there $15 racks to put in it tho, all i have is a power conditioner and my firepod currently. I will make a studio tour soon to share.

When are we gonna get a blog on Snow Leopard and it’s affects on your studio (positive/negative). I know alot of people have are still having trouble with it. How about you?

Thanks JOE

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

Hey Brian, I honestly don’t have much to say on Snow Leopard. I only use it because it came installed on the new iMac, but I haven’t noticed anything too crazy.
Joseph J.

Snow Leopard has been a pain for me. Lots of apps crashing (iTunes, Firefox, Pro Tools 8, etc…) even though I did a CLEAN install on a bare metal drive and reinstalled all apps from scratch. I’m hoping the 10.6.3 v1.1 Mac OS X Update fixes a lot of the issues I’m having. I’ll update when Avid gives it the thumbs up!
christopher [chrisw92]

snow Leopard is pointless for people like us (who use computers for more than just a web browser and office work). as it is more stable overall but not for specific tasks e.g. recording.

by my understanding it only reads the memory different (you know how a 100gb HDD is actually something like 97gb, snow leopard reads it as 100gb) and that it got rid of some powerPC code which frees up about 8gb.

rick

Oh yeah… what did you steal that’s in this studio?

I kid, I joke…

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

Nice.

rick

Awesome! Nice find on the IKEA “rack.”
Jon Rohland

Nice, Joe! And congrats–I hope baby Gilder is as much a blessing to you guys as ours has been to us.

How do you like the Ibanez? I picked up an Artcore a few years back and for the cost the sound/playability is surprisingly good. Almost as remarkable as those Tech21 pedals!

Speaking of which, I noticed you’re running all your other FX before the Blonde… one of the things I’ve done with good success using my Liverpool is to really think of the Tech21 as my amp’s preamp–meaning overdrives/compressors/etc. go in front of it, and mod FX like delay/chorus come after it (as if it were in a real amp’s FX loop). But I also tend to run the Liverpool into the FX return of an actual tube amp and mic it, which gives me the organic feel I still want along with real spring reverb, but with more tone shaping control than just the amp alone. So not sure that trick holds true running direct.

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

…rearranging pedalboard now… Great suggestions, dude.

http://www.sweetsoundstudios.com Jed

I’ve made a number of racks in my day and they have all saved me lots of money over buying the ones from the store but that’s a great rack you got from Ikea. Love the new set-up and congrats on the soon-to-be new edition to your family. Here is a link to my home studio video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOaIENVF3iw – I’ll be doing a video for my guitar rig soon.

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

Awesome!

Joe

Very Sweet. Gave me some good ideas.. Keep up the good work and thanks for the info.
http://www.mydigitalpathos.com Julian

Cool tour Joe, great to see the studio evolve and change in this new location. You’ll have to time the session volumes carefully once Baby Gilder shows up!

I’ll get out the old video cam and do an update on my space soon. I wanna finish a song song first, to bookend the video. Will be fun since I need to learn iMovie anyway.
Kevin Hilman

Regarding Joseph Lyon’s question about M-Audio EX66′s. I also had difficulty finding these monitors but was glad to eventually get two of them with the big discount. I bought one from musician’s friend and the other from a seller on E-Bay. They’re hard to come by but worth it if you can get them at the lower price. They are self-powered and connect directly to the interface.
Andrew Shook

Here’s a video I made at my old studio location. I am in the process of moving it to my new house, so I’ll do a new video when I get everything set back up. Enjoy!

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

Cool, Andrew. Thanks for posting!

Joseph Lyons

Hey Joe, just a quick question about your ex66s. A few months ago, I looked those up at sweetwater and they were having a huge discount on them, but now they are no where to be found. I think sweetwater stopped selling them. My question is, are you powering them with an amp? or are they self powered. Are they plugged directly into your interface?

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

They’re powered monitors, so no amp is needed, and I feed them directly from my 003. The reason you don’t see them anywhere is because they’ve been discontinued. You may still be able to find a pair out there, though.

http://www.myspace.com/dreamsilent Vinnie

I’m eager to do a video of my Studio, but I’d rather wait until July when I’ll have it in a separate room…at the moment its still in my bedroom, which is tiny and is in a complete mess!

Loving the setup and the acoustic treatment! I’m eager to get me some bass traps when I relocate my studio. How much would you say it’s improved the sound with what you have there?

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

Good question.

No treatment vs. SOME treatment = night and day difference.

Some treatment vs. MORE treatment = more subtle difference, but still good.

http://www.myspace.com/diego.pozo Diego Pozo

thanks for posting this video, joe! i found it very lightening. now i know where the magic happens

a couple of weeks ago, i moved my bed to another room, so now the computer and the speakers have their own place. it kinda looks like your studio, but not quite.

while watching your tour, i noticed that the tables where you put the computer and the rack are made of glass. is there a specific reason for this?

http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

Nope, it was just a cheap computer desk I found. I liked the glass look. Other than that, no fancy reason.
http://www.wideopenwest.com/~liquidblueband tummyfish

Hey jus dropping a line great stuff joe!! not only your very insite…full guitar lessons but great home studio wish i was there jaming it must sound great!!
love to hear some or ur org. meterial kepp it up very inspiring…peace