It started all way back when my wife and I decided to buy a new flat. Soon it was clear, that the flat will feature an own room for each of us.
I immediately started thinking on how to build my small music studio in that room and a lot of questions came into my mind: Is the room big enough? What about absorbers? How to place the desk? How to ensure that the monitor speakers have the right distance to walls? Where to place the subwoofer?
Staying the first time in the raw building I thought: wow, that’s not that big! Is that really 3×4,3m = 13qm size?
I started to read a lot about acoustic treatment, placing of equipment and distances. I feared to do the wrong things or just easily to overdue it. After a while I considered to get professional assistance. And so I engaged HOFA Akustik to make an acoustic planning for the room.
A few days later HOFA Akustik came back to me with a quite good suggestion:
The engineer at HOFA worked out a solution to reduce the reverberation time by using 10 of HOFAs new basstraps v2, two wall and a ceiling sail and an acoustic curtain. The room should be used in longitudinal direction and the desk should be placed in distance to the wall and window behind. In that way the window stays usable and the required distance between the speakers and the behind lying wall is ensured.
With this setup the room was simulated to reach nearly studio quality regarding RT60 by HOFA.
After a long waiting time we finally got the keys to our new flat in July 2023. I immediately choose the color for the absorbers and basstraps and ordered the material as suggested by HOFA. It took a while until the dust of the move settled and I finally found the time to set up everything properly.
But now I’m just happy to had the chance to build this wonderful place. It became a place where I like to spend time and I enjoy making music. Of course the desk is still used for working in mobile office also.
Studio tour:
Recording rack
Base of the recording setup is an RME UFX III interface with an ADAT connected Steinberg UR824. This sums up to a total of 20 physical in- and outputs. The MADI and AES connections of the RME UFX III are not yet in use and foreseen for future expansions.
MIDI is handled by the IConnectivity MioXL interface. Most of my synths are connected to the MioXL with USB and some of old things with standard DIN MIDI.
Equipment list:
- RME UFX III
- Steinberg UR824
- iConnectivity MioXL
- Yamaha Motif Rack ES with installed AN and DX plugin cards (incl. PLG150AN and PLG150DX)
- Palmer PAN16 (8/16 channel passive DI box)
- Behringer Ultra DI4000 (active 4 channel DI box)
- Black Lion Audio PG-1 Type F Power Conditioner
- Microphones:
- AKG wireless microphone receiver (on the back of the rack)
- AKG dynamic microphones
- Rode NT-1a
Desk & Computer
I use a 2019 self made and noise isolated computer with Microsoft Windows 11. My main DAW software is Steinberg Cubase Pro 13.
Equipment list:
- Yamaha HS7 studio monitors staying on IsoAcoustics ISO-200 stands and a Yamaha HS8s subwoofer (nearby the basstrap on the right side)
Additional Yamaha HS5m monitors on the side for keyboard playing - FisherAmps wired bodypack for IE monitoring with InEar StageDiver SD-3
- RME ARC USB (remote control for the RME UFX III interface)
- Native Instruments S49 MKIII keyboard
- PreSonus Faderport V2
- Software:
- Steinberg toolchain with Cubase Pro 13 & WaveLab Pro
- Virtual Instruments (selection):
- Steinberg HALion with a lot of expansions, Groove Agent
- Native Instruments KOMPLETE ULTIMATE 14
- Arturia V Collection X
- Synthogy Ivory III
- Roland Cloud Ultimate
- IK Multimedia B3x, ModoBass, AmpliTube
- MusicLab RealGuitars
- …
Instruments
Equipment list:
- Yamaha Montage 8
- Yamaha MODX 6
- Roland Jupiter XM
- Yamaha Motif Rack ES (built into the recording rack)
- Yamaha Reface YC
- Korg i4S (nearly 30 years old – my first professional keyboard)
- Controller keyboards
- Arturia Keylab Essential 49
- Native Instrumentes S49 MKIII
- AKAI MPD226 Pad controller
- Yamaha FX370c dreadnought western guitar
- Yamaha Pacifica 612VIIFM (Indigo Blue)
Sometimes my wife surprises me with a visit to listen me making music, sing for me, play the keyboard or her wonderful violin:
Lego Technic toys
Some toys if I’m annoyed of making music and I’m searching for new inspiration 😉
So, now that’s all! If you have questions, you want to make some music with me or you want me to make me some music for you please don’t hesitate to contact me.
best regard
Werner
Links to manufacturer pages:
- https://hofa-akustik.de/
- https://rme-audio.de/
- https://www.steinberg.net/
- https://www.iconnectivity.com/
- https://www.yamaha.com/
- https://www.palmer-germany.com/
- https://www.behringer.com/
- https://www.blacklionaudio.com/
- https://de.akg.com/
- https://rode.com/
- https://www.presonus.com/
- https://www.fischer-amps.de/
- https://inear.de/
- https://www.native-instruments.com/
- https://www.arturia.com/
- https://www.synthogy.com/
- https://www.roland.com/
- https://www.korg.com/
- https://www.ikmultimedia.com/
- https://musiclab.com/
- https://www.akaipro.com/
- https://www.k-m.de/
- https://www.hidersine.com