Do you leave your gear set up all the time, or do you set up/tear down every session?

Do you leave your gear set up? Or do you set up/tear down each session?

  • I leave it set up all the time

    Votes: 13 86.7%
  • I have to put away my toys when I'm done playing

    Votes: 2 13.3%

  • Total voters
    15
I have been in situations where studio was in the bedroom or living room with a family of 5. So I get an idea of your plight

Today I have a converted garage & everything stays up all the time, but I do power down. Instruments have to be broken down for once a week live situation and then re-set up....If I didn't perform live I would never move anything....

I want to move from our house to an apartment because of expenses & 2 daughters moved out. But my studio is isolated from the house & is also a Man Cave called "The Kave". In an apartment it will all change. I can literally blast at 2 in the morning if i want to (I don't)....

I don't want to go backwards to the earlier days. Besides, my studio is growing so much with all the Stupid Deal of the Day stuff I buy......I have an addiction

Probably going to stay in the house just because of "The Kave".....
 
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My synth, interface, DAW, monitors are pretty much up and accessible all the time. I have portable gear for on site recording.
 
Y'all have given me some good ideas to work with. This part from Mickster was great: "At least one mic stand and mic up all the time. Headphones plugged in and ready. Amps just need power on. Monitors are one switch..."

This describes my set up, except that the monitors and everything esle are always on.


Compromise. My desk, though a mere "...platform for writing letters and [earning $$ so I can pay the damn] bills", could be cleaned off a bit so maybe I can fit both computers on it.
This is the way to claim the space. Get rid of, hide, or relocate other stuff and make the desk your music desk. Use the power strip to your advantage.
 
I can't count all the times I've take doors off the hinges to use as a larger work surface. I will not be denied deck clutter pursuits. The small desk, here, where I do the internet is a folding leg six-footer - two computers, etc.. And I'm on the box that's on TV stands at left angles to it. As, the music room sits ready for use, the desk has two full sized synths - 37 and 64 key and a bunch of dinky small ones and sound modules. I usually can arrange space better, but this is for a stationary camera
 
I keep everything pretty much in place between sessions. However, I do put covers over my mixing board, keyboards and condenser mics.
 
LOL.....I have a nice chair .....It just would have obstructed the view...

Are you kidding me???? I even sit down when I perform live
 
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I have taken over the whole bottom floor of my geodesic dome for my studio. I leave everything up. I cover the microphones and 24 track recorder at night.
I turn off all gear at night! I do not want to leave a 29 year old recorder and Dolby SR29 units with Soundtracs Consoles on all of the time. I do have UPS units for the gear!
 
Steve, is "The Kave" really always that minimalist and tidy?

If so, good on ya but! That rats nest of wires is a disgrace and potential noise polluter. You even have fluorescent lamp cables mixed with audio and WFT are the lights so close to the audio system? Notorious for squirting crap out, especially into guitars.

Do you have ANY acoustic treatment in there? It also looks as though the monitors fire across the room instead of down its length?

Dave.
 
Steve, is "The Kave" really always that minimalist and tidy?

If so, good on ya but! That rats nest of wires is a disgrace and potential noise polluter. You even have fluorescent lamp cables mixed with audio and WFT are the lights so close to the audio system? Notorious for squirting crap out, especially into guitars.

Do you have ANY acoustic treatment in there? It also looks as though the monitors fire across the room instead of down its length?

Dave.

I try to work in a neat environment. It makes it so much more inviting.....The other half of "The Kave" has a 54" Big Screen TV, recliner, & couch...

The cables are cause I just set back up from the church, but yeah I noticed that too, & need to get those together. Unaware of the light situation, will look at it....

No treatment as of yet....(I know I know....) Not sure what you mean by the monitors should go down it's length????
 
I try to work in a neat environment. It makes it so much more inviting.....The other half of "The Kave" has a 54" Big Screen TV, recliner, & couch...

The cables are cause I just set back up from the church, but yeah I noticed that too, & need to get those together. Unaware of the light situation, will look at it....

No treatment as of yet....(I know I know....) Not sure what you mean by the monitors should go down it's length????

Ok, say a room is 25 by 15 feet? You would want the monitors firing down the LONG, 25ft axis and ideally, about 1/3rd the total length of the room out from the back wall (I think the ideal is 38% of room length?)

Re the lights? If you are not getting buzzes from the guitar (and with HB pups you could be lucky) fine but lights at eye level would do my old minces in in short order!

Good test for everyone. Run a "silent" recording at 24bits, 44.1 kHz and stuff that into a Real Time Analyser and SEE what crap you could be picking up! Right Mark Analyser is a good free one.

Dave.
 
Ah! I see there are two strip lights (more?) These can be daisy chained along the wall, away from audio wires and plug into a remote socket.

If you tear the system down and re build on a regular basis consider some fixed wiring running to breakout boxes so that gear can simply be unplugged using short, dedicated cables. Things like power supplies should be "hard wired" well away from audio and duplicated for location use. In any case, backup/spares are NEVER out of order!

Dave.
 
Sort of both... My attic is usually set-up and ready to go but with the kids going to bed I'm often down in the livingroom on a night and I tend to just grab a couple bits (Laptop and Maschine or circuit, maybe a drum machine) from the attic to noodle on... I have an acoustic in the attic and a mic and a semi-hollow and a small amp with USB recording in the livingroom... Have a turntable and records in both.
 
The upstairs mix/project room is pretty much always ready to go. I use the same monitors (really in both senses of the word) for recording and mixing as for watching Netflix and whatever else. I have a KVM switch so I can just hit a couple keys on the keyboard and be looking at and controlling the mix machine. Flip the switch on the "monitor controller" (actually a headphone amp) and I'm listening to it, too. I usually keep a mic and a guitar pedal plugged in so I can record any time I'm ready. Course it's all fucked up this past week because I'm doing a pretty extensive treatment ATM, but it fuck well better be back together soon!

The basement live room is usually ready to rock for rehearsal/jam, live shows, or recording. Well, I guess the PA is always plugged in and ready to rock. I use my live computer rig as the core down there, and it gets pulled out when we have gigs, but it's also designed to set up and tear down quick. I don't generally record live amps or drums for my own stuff, and when I record others it's usually just a day gig where they set up, play, and leave. I did have stuff pretty much all set and miked for Circadian Nations (a band I was in a while back, recording things we meant to capture beforecwe quit, and using live amps for a change) for a month or so. That room doubles as my kids' game room, but it's pretty big so they can usually just work around my bullshit. Worse, though, is that it triples as a live venue. I only do it every few months these days, but when you get a bunch of drunk punks down there, you have to remove anything you don't want broken. Worse still is that it quadruples as "grandma's apartment" when my mom comes up to visit. I can still leave the PA set up, but again most everything else has to be torn down.
 
both, depends on the season I guess. My music room is tiny. The amps, computer, patch bay, components, stereo, etc are all permanent. I currently have the 4 track and the mixer out on a card table, covered with towels when not in use. I've had them out since the week before Christmas, got my new interface NYE and haven't used either of the 4 track or mixer since. I was dubbing from the 4 track to the DAW via the interface but lately I've been just going through the interface. I meant to go back through some old tapes but apparently I already did 3 or 4 years ago, dubbed to PT and then bulk erased almost all my old tapes. I'm listening to my old stuff and preparing to re-record it and I probably will go right to DAW now that I'm getting a better handle on it. GarageBand has been proving more user friendly than the old PT LE 6.0 although there are a couple of features like the on screen meters I wish I had still. But beggars can't be choosers.
 
yup,gotta tear down. I had a killer 9 piece acoustic drum kit & all the mics but now I have a 6 piece electric kit that i CAN RUN DIRECT usb OR midi & sound just as good @ 3 am then fold up & stash away & noone hears anything but tap-tap-not to mention my f-ups because I'm no drummer.
 
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