Writing in a shitty home studio

I've been trying to write again (yay) and I'm dealing with a bunch of limitations to my setup. My setup is basically a used m-audio keyrig 49 connected to an old (pre-retina) macbook pro. I use sennheiser hd 280 pro headphones

What's interesting to me is by FAR the biggest limitation is my screen size. I just don't have enough pixels to interact effectively with a sequencer. The shitty keyboard, etc. aren't nearly as annoying as the screen size.

What home studio limitations do you all have to deal with?

sometimes I'm also making music on a MBP 13'' with Audio-techinica ATH-M50 phones and it's not that bad but imo the biggest limitation are my lo-fi monitors when working on my desktop pc (besides of my knowledge and a lack of spare time).

there's a place here in portland called "Free Geek" that has all kinds of salvaged electronics and they get a lot of computer stuff... so there's a room full of monitors for $5 and up. I got a pretty decent dell 21 inch monitor for $25. plugged it into my old PC laptop and viola so much more user friendly.

i had 15 inch monitors for most of my music making life. adding a 2nd monitor is great if you can make it fit somewhere.

for about 10 years i've had my studio in a good permanent space in the basement... before that it was always in one end of the kitchen breakfast nook or part of a spare bedroom or half in a living room etc etc etc..

just make the most of it.. multitrack everything.. you can go to friend's places to check mixes and all that.

  On 3/27/2016 at 10:46 PM, xox said:

imo the biggest limitation are my lo-fi monitors when working on my desktop pc (besides of my knowledge and a lack of spare time).

Using headphones as my primary speakers is probably a bit limitation for me. But I haven't tried playing my tunes on any other systems so I haven't encountered that yet. Should be a challenge during mastering.

  On 3/27/2016 at 10:57 PM, ignatius said:

there's a place here in portland called "Free Geek" that has all kinds of salvaged electronics and they get a lot of computer stuff... so there's a room full of monitors for $5 and up. I got a pretty decent dell 21 inch monitor for $25. plugged it into my old PC laptop and viola so much more user friendly.

 

i had 15 inch monitors for most of my music making life. adding a 2nd monitor is great if you can make it fit somewhere.

 

for about 10 years i've had my studio in a good permanent space in the basement... before that it was always in one end of the kitchen breakfast nook or part of a spare bedroom or half in a living room etc etc etc..

 

just make the most of it.. multitrack everything.. you can go to friend's places to check mixes and all that.

Solid advice. I can definitely afford really nice monitors, but the problem is I live in a tiny 400 square foot apartment, shared with 1 human and several cats. It would be hard making space for a good desktop setup.

  On 3/27/2016 at 9:24 PM, Root5 said:

I've been trying to write again (yay) and I'm dealing with a bunch of limitations to my setup. My setup is basically a used m-audio keyrig 49 connected to an old (pre-retina) macbook pro. I use sennheiser hd 280 pro headphones

 

What's interesting to me is by FAR the biggest limitation is my screen size. I just don't have enough pixels to interact effectively with a sequencer.

FWP

The two laptops I use have slowly but surely turned into a puzzle devised by a sadist.

One is old but still working fine physically, just not up to processing heavy jobs and about 70% of the internet is incompatible with it now.

The other one is a beast from 2010 or 11, really good specs but has faulty USB ports. One is dead and the other one is temperamental.

This means sometimes I want to transfer stuff back and forth that I'm working on but can't as the old one can't install dropbox and the new one won't read a usb stick unless the humidity is right or some shit.

I've sometimes had to take a file from ext hd plugged into old laptop, dropped it via usb stick on third laptop I've borrowed and then upload to dropbox on laptop III to dload on new laptop, ugh.

My efforts to connect them via ethernet cable have so far been fruitless.

  On 3/28/2016 at 12:16 PM, hello spiral said:

My efforts to connect them via ethernet cable have so far been fruitless.

how so? it shouldn't be too hard (except for the million trillion ways everything that has to do with computers can go wrong)

^ exactly

I will pick your brains on this later

  On 3/27/2016 at 9:24 PM, Root5 said:

What home studio limitations do you all have to deal with?

I need an extra table/desk for my second set-up.

Monitor screens are piss cheap nowadays, why bother with second hand when you can get a new 24 inch screen for 150 euro's?

Girlfriend and I are temporarily housed in my parents' house, so our combined stuff is all in my bedroom. All my gear is in drawers. I have to unpack absolutely everything, set it up and take up a load of floorspace just to do anything. I consider this a limitation.

My biggest limitation is space, I've had to put one of my speakers much closer to me than to other so I always have to mix using headphones.

I'm going to have to remove half my room and put it in the living room in order to move a table in to set everything on. What a hassle.

I have enough stuff to make great music in my bedroom studio. The main problem is that I'm in it and I'm garbage tier.

Don't be the guy that loses at Mario Kart then blames the controller.

in a way I am limited because I have too much money. My creativity in a sense is limited because I have access to any gear id want really.

its basically my dream to buy an auditorium with great acoustics, and to have like 60+ choir people do what i want. i suppose i can't afford that yet :)

  On 3/30/2016 at 11:37 PM, digman said:

I have enough stuff to make great music in my bedroom studio. The main problem is that I'm in it and I'm garbage tier.

 

Don't be the guy that loses at Mario Kart then blames the controller.

Absolutely agree. This is part of the reason I made this thread. When I started I used to drool over midi controllers and synths. Now I just want more pixels to look at.

Main obstacle is using software with no quantisation (basic wav editor) but i am pretty used to working this way now and have some bizarre workarounds to get what I want out of the software.

  On 3/27/2016 at 9:24 PM, Root5 said:

I use sennheiser hd 280 pro headphones

Be careful about that. Producing music using headphones will demolish your ears

  On 3/31/2016 at 8:50 AM, Goiter Sanchez said:

Main obstacle is using software with no quantisation (basic wav editor) but i am pretty used to working this way now and have some bizarre workarounds to get what I want out of the software.

why are you using such sw?

The less I look at the screen the happier I am. I just want to make music as I hear it, let that govern the way it should be. If I look at the screen it's easy to get bogged down in making things look pretty or follow ideas by numbers. Some people work better that way.

You got to buy the things that most suit your way or idea of how you want to work. Me, means I need gear to make it happen. If you want a massive screen, good monitors and a controller then do it, spend time and money on treatment though not more and more plugins each month. Plugins lust is worse than gear lust ;)

  On 3/31/2016 at 11:48 AM, xox said:

 

  On 3/31/2016 at 8:50 AM, Goiter Sanchez said:

Main obstacle is using software with no quantisation (basic wav editor) but i am pretty used to working this way now and have some bizarre workarounds to get what I want out of the software.

 

why are you using such sw?

 

I have bought professional DAWs in the past but I always seem to hit a brick wall with them: I bought Pro Tools 9 in 2010ish and was making some progress with it but now it makes my computer blue screen whenever it boots for a reason that escapes me entirely. I always end up back with the wav editor.

The lack of quantisation imbues a slightly off kilter feel which I have grown to appreciate though.

Seriously just get a pair of headphones.

Monitors are just one more altar/obstacle in the way of success.

Get a $70 pair of headphones and get to work.

No matter what you have there is no excuse.

You could make a hit record with garage band, a microkorg and a set of earbuds.

I have made hundreds of tracks using a budget lenovo and the qwerty it came with.

  On 4/2/2016 at 4:56 PM, sheathe said:

You could make a hit record with garage band, a microkorg and a set of earbuds.

I have made hundreds of tracks using a budget lenovo and the qwerty it came with.

hardcore

Limited space so had to get rid of mixing desk, so it's lack of inputs really. Soundcard has 8 mono inputs which isn't enough for all the gear.

I recently put a splitter in each input so can plug in 16 mono sources, 2 into each soundcard input which works fine for jamming. Pretty neat solution, dunno why I didn't think of it sooner. Solutionz

Limited time. Working for a living blows.

finding a decent place to work on tunes can be a challenge in expensive cities. maybe you should all move to detroit and buy a city block? ;) or just find friends you trust and go in on a studio space. there's often rooms in rehearsal spaces but those are becoming harder to find (at least in portland) as development ramps up to 11.

regarding monitors/headphones/mixing.. if you get to know your headphones or shitting monitoring environment well enough you can make it work. just takes time to figure out because you have to do it wrong like 50 times before it becomes easier.