 So I was recently in one of my favourite Facebook groups, Cakewalk by BandLab Talk, and I was asking you folks to post photos of your home studio setups, and I thought it may be fun to give my reaction to those right here. Hi folks, I'm Mike and I hope you're well. Now whether your studio is fancy and full of great gear, or whether it's just on a small table in the corner of your house, I find it really inspiring to see the spaces where you folks make music. So that's what I'm going to be taking a look at today. Now please don't be offended if your studio is not included in this video. I've got a limited amount of time to include all the posts which have been made. Now if I happen to see gear in these studios, which I think is worth me recommending to you guys, I'll put links for that in the description down below. Let's take a look at your studios. Okay, so let's get started going down. Let's go for the first one here from someone called Barry Tune. Let's just go in here and take a look. Smallish photo. Let's zoom in here. Barry, this is a great little setup, isn't it? This is someone who is determined to get music done no matter what the circumstance, no matter how small a space they've got to work in here. Just looking at the notes Barry's given, he's saying it's a little bit out of date. He doesn't actually have this native Instruments M32 keyboard. Oh, he does have that. He's got rid of this keyboard, which is the Oxygen 61. I won't be putting a link for that in the description down below. And he's also saying that this drum pad here is the Acoi MPD 218, which is to be honest a great concept poorly executed due to far too much unwanted double tapping. So I won't be putting a link for that in the description down below. So given that Barry doesn't really use this drum pad, his main thing, which is sort of making this his studio, is the fact that he's got the keyboard there. And you know, that's all you really need, obviously, with an audio interface to make music. And depending on what type of music you're making, you may not even need a microphone. The only thing I'd say about this setup, Barry, is I hope you're not using these little speakers here to do your mixes. You shouldn't do that because they're going to be very difficult to get a good mix out. Almost any pair of headphones is going to be better than mixing on these two speakers and you may very well be doing that. So that would be my suggestion there. But you know, this is what I mean. Even if you've only got a few pieces of gear, you can still make music. You just need your computer, probably an audio interface. That's not a must have, but something I would definitely recommend. And a keyboard is always a massive, massive advantage. So good on Barry for making the most of what he's got there. Moving on. Let's move down. We've got one here from Roy van de Borne. I hope I've pronounced your name correctly. Roy, let's just go in and have a look at this. This is a nice setup, isn't it? Hey, isn't this just so welcoming here? You just feel like you want to go in here and make music. It looks like it's a dedicated space and Roy's lucky enough to have a dedicated space here to make music. First of all, the things that have pinged out to me are these posters on the side here on the right hand side. I love the Rat Pack. I often spend time on YouTube watching Rat Pack videos. Just love the chemistry between those three guys. So I can definitely love those. Not sure about this number 10 over here. I think it's a Maradona shirt for a man like me of some English heritage. I don't think I can be supporting that. But it's important to have things that you love in your studio. I guess that can be really inspiring. But looking a little bit more in detail. I'm just going to zoom in here a bit so I can look in some more detail. Strikes me right away that we've got this Behringer X touch there. Door controller. I haven't actually tried this. This is something I probably should try out on the channel and give a review. But many, many people say this is very, very good and I believe them. So and it does work well with Kate walk from what I hear. So not surprised to see it there. And it's angled up as well. Hey, you've got some sort of stand. I'd love to hear from Roy, whether you made a stand or whether you got one from somewhere because it can be with door controllers that the pan controls and things can be kind of out of reach by the time you've got your computer keyboard and then that door controller. And I often thought a stand as I see some people using is very, very useful indeed. Nice curved monitor there, which I'm just going to look at the notes. I think I saw something earlier on on that. I think it's a touchscreen monitor. If my memory serves me correctly, I could be wrong. But some Yamaha, I think these Yamaha monitors here. HS eight or HS sevens, something along those lines, a very popular monitor. And I've used them a few times, really love them. And we've also got I think it's avid 11 here, which is a guitar interface. Again, something I haven't used, but a lot of people do use this. I've heard it's very, very good. And I do believe this is an ART or Art Pro VLA to compressor here. This is a really popular hardware compressor, which is not that expensive. It's probably not the cheapest one you can get. But a lot of top end studios actually have this in there. It's very, very affordable. And from what I hear is worth using. I do have some Art Gear. I've got the voice channel myself here in my setup at the moment. I can highly recommend pretty much anything from ART, to be honest with you. I've got a few pieces of their gear, but this is probably their most popular piece of rack gear, I would say, so definitely worth getting. This is interesting, isn't it? This screen set up in the corner of the room here. Love to know what stand you've got that on Roy. I've been looking for a stand for some of my larger monitors. But yeah, it's sort of interesting the way you've got this position here. I wonder from your sitting position, whether this monitor doesn't block your view. I could be wrong, but I'm just interested as to why you haven't put that above your main monitor, like stacked upwards. Let me know if you do watch this video or if you're a person who likes to have big monitors right off to the side. Tell me why you do that rather than put it up behind. I love to hear. I think this is an M audio keyboard here. There's nothing in the notes about it. But if it's the one I'm thinking it is, it's an older model, the sort of silver color one. It was one of my first keyboards that I had a few years back and really good little keyboard, actually. So definitely worth checking out. You've got one of these call these sort of mic reflection panels or something. I've got one myself from Essie Electronics, which I know a lot of people sort of have done videos on these. You know, do they work? My opinion, just the short version is yes, they do work. They're not magic. They don't solve every problem, but they do have a desirable effect on cutting down on some of the reflections you'll get in a room. I think this may be from a company called newer, this particular model, N-W-E-W-E-R. And I've got quite a bit of newer gear, mostly photography gear, I must say. And although they're a little bit cheap and they're on Amazon, everything I've had from has been really good quality. So I love to hear about that one, whether it's worth getting. Lots of guitar gear there, which I won't go into right now. But yeah, what a lovely, welcoming looking studio. The only thing I'd say about this studio is I would say the next purchases should be probably for some room treatment. It doesn't look like it will have an awful sound. You've got a cloud up here at the top, but I'd probably like to see some slightly more serious bass traps in the corners. I think you've just got these foam ones here, which I've used in the past. But I just think that if you can upgrade some better bass traps, you will definitely hear the difference here rather than just using the foam ones. And you've got a few things going on the walls, but probably some early reflections would be a good idea to capture there with some broadband absorption there. But yeah, nice studio. Thanks so much Roy. Oh, by the way, are you enjoying this video? If you are, go ahead and hit the like button for me. Do it right away so that you don't forget. If you're not enjoying this video, hit the dislike button twice. And if you do like this kind of content, make sure you subscribe and ring the bell so that you're notified about my other videos now back to this video. Let's go down to this. We'll go down to the next one here, which is from James. I'm going to say Togher, but it could be Togher or something like that. I'm sorry if I'm butchering your name, James, but let's take a look. Look at this studio. Hey, I'll just zoom in here just as a space to go and make music. Isn't it so welcoming? Very obviously, James must be a keyboard player rather than a guitarist or anything like that, because I don't see any guitars in there and pretty serious because I spy in on the edge of this photo, some sort of piano, either a baby grand or a regular sized grand piano. If you're going to invest in a grand piano, then I'd say you're pretty serious about your keyboards. Not quite sure what that is in the corner there. I wish I could recognize it. I'm not always that great at recognizing vintage keys, but let me know if it isn't already there. I'm just looking. I can't see it in the comments or in the notes here from James. But yeah, definitely just a lovely space to go and work. I do spy here the same controller keyboard as I've got. That's the Arturia KeyLab 88. I think I've had it for around about maybe eight or 10 months now. And I absolutely love it. It's just one of my favorite pieces of gear in my studio. It just does so many things so well. It's just the best MIDI controller keyboard you can get. I think I'd love to hear what James thinks about that. But yeah, in my opinion, it's the best you can get. And also some more Yamaha monitors here. I think these may be probably the HS5s by the looks of it. So they're a great little monitor to get hold of. And we've got some sort of not quite sure what this microphone is up here. So there's some amount of audio recording going on. Now, I think this is more of a sort of music studio in the in the sense of going to record to make music there more so than a recording studio. Now, the reason I say that, I'm sure that James is doing some recording here. The reason I say that is because of the almost complete lack of any kind of room treatment here, it looks like there's some nice carpet in here, which is probably going to help a bit. But you probably do struggle a little bit with your audio recording in a space like this. It's fairly large and there's lots of potential for reflections, base build up and all that depending on what sort of music you're you're recording, of course. But I suspect that most of the time James is recording keys. So he's not overly concerned with the acoustics of the room in terms of reflections when recording vocals and things. But yeah, James, look, it may be that you just don't want to ruin a room in your house by putting sound treatment all over the room or over the walls. And I get that. But that would be again, I'm saying this to a lot of people, I guess, but that would be where I would spend my money next. If you want to make this a better recording space, OK? But yeah, lovely little space there. James really loved that. I'd love to go and play music in there. So moving on from there. Let's go down. We have just checking my time here. We have a no dress school. Let's take a look at this one. This looks like a little mini setup here, doesn't it? I love these setups. This is just so this reminds me of some setups I've had in previous years myself. And it's amazing how much great music you can get done in small setups like this. Looks like it may be in a cupboard of some sort. So it's sort of like looks like the draw can can the draw slide in here and perhaps the cupboard closed on the whole thing. What makes this a music studio is the fact that it's got an audio interface. It's got the Evo 4 here, which I've reviewed on the channel. This is from Audion. I've done the Evo 4 and the Evo 8 as well. Just really great audio interfaces with some great little features on them, especially for beginners, but it's not really a beginner's interface. It's got those great quality preamps that Audion have on their interfaces and just really easy to use. And if you're in a small space like this, they're a great size in terms of the real estate they take up on your desk. Next to that, we have some sort of Akai, I think it's an Akai MIDI controller here. Look, if you want to get anything, which is just going to make your life easier if you're just starting out, get a MIDI controller keyboard. Even if you get a small one like this, which can be quite inexpensive and they're going to fit in small spaces, it's much better than trying to put things in manually or even using those virtual keyboards. Katewalk's got one. They're OK if you just need to get by, but this obviously gives you some options in terms of control, velocity on your keys. And it looks like there's some drum pads on there as well. They're not always great, these drum pads. Sometimes I prefer to actually use the keys. So I wouldn't make drum pads a priority if you're looking for a good price keyboard, but these Akai keyboards, and I think it is an Akai one. I'll check the notes. Yes, it is. They're really great quality. I've owned two or three of them in the past myself, and the quality is really great. So definitely would recommend that. Moving on from there, I'm going to go down to Arjun. I'm not going to try and pronounce your second name Arjun. I'm sorry about that, but I'm just not very good at names that are not like Peter or John or James. Well, look at this studio. This is just really interesting. Just home studio through and through. One thing I'll say about the first thing I notice right away is all of the guitars in here. If you are a guitarist, I think it's really worth thinking in your studio about getting a range of different types of guitars. So what I've tried to do is like one six string steel guitar, one nylon string guitar, one I've got more than one, but at least one electric guitar, one bass guitar and something like I've just spied it actually in this photo right over here. A 12 string guitar over there. It's nice to have a 12 string guitar around. You may not use it as often as you think, but definitely worth having it around. Another thing I've noticed is the angle of things going the precariously stacked here, the various pieces of gear. But I will say that it is a good idea to have your guitar amps, if they're small ones like this, not pointing at your ankles, your ankles, but pointing up towards your ears. So I do appreciate the angle that's going on here. And probably the angle for this mixer as well is yes, probably good. You know, it's sort of arms reached, you know, if you want to get all of the controls out. Anyway, the other thing that I find really interesting, I mean, apart from all of the keyboards here, just arranged around your your seating there. The thing I spy up here with a metronome on top is this really old computer. I don't think this would be your actual computer. If it is, I'd be very surprised. I suspect your actual computer is hidden away somewhere else. But this looks to be either an old Commodore Amiga or my other guest. And I think this one would be the right one is an Atari ST. One of the computers that I first started to make music on many moons ago. Let me know, Arjan, if that is an Atari ST. And whether it still works, don't tell me you still make music on it. I refuse to believe you. But it was good for at least recording MIDI and stuff. And I can't quite see what monitors you've got there. But you've got this gear stacked up on top of them. Yeah, I mean, whatever floats your boat in terms of the way you organise things here. Again, no room treatment, but a bookshelf or two can actually really help you in some curtains as well. Can really help you. They've got some available here. I'm not sure if you use them or not, Arjan. But yeah, anything you can use in terms of soft furnishing things, things and things like that can be really helpful. So anyway, we'll move on to the next one. Thanks, Arjan. Well, this one's really noticeable, noticeable, isn't it? Because of the lighting. Love me a bit of coloured lighting in my studio. I find it sets the vibe. I know some people just don't believe in coloured lighting. Well, maybe not coloured lighting, but I do think that lighting in general puts you in the mood. Good lighting and good smells as well can really help your creative vibe. One thing I've noticed right away about this studio were a couple of things I've noticed. But the first thing is is you're using the same door controller as me. That is the Icon Qcon Pro G2, I believe. I've had this for several months now. I did a video on this. It is just fantastic. I was talking to my mate, Dan, over the Lonely Rocker video YouTube video channel. And he was he's got the same piece of gear as me. And we were just just talking about off air the other day. And we were just both saying how fantastic it is. Rock solid works really well. What was it with Ricky T Brown? I was making that comment with can't remember. Anyway, and some Bayer Dynamic, maybe DT770s. There, I imagine great, great headphones. Definitely worth getting hold of. Two monitors there. Look, if you're if you're looking for sort of gear, which really makes a difference to a studio, one thing can just be going from one monitor to two monitors. It's hard to describe how much it does for your workflow. In this situation, what David's done here, and you can see that he's got his main cakewalk window there. He's got some sort of mixer there. I'm not sure that's the cakewalk mixer. Maybe something else I can't really quite see from this photo. I mean, he's got a plug in going on here, which I think is the ACA multimedia or the amplitude maybe there could be mistaken, actually. But anyway, he's got his plug in sitting up there. And it's just very, very handy. He doesn't have to keep opening these things up to get to them. So, yeah, if you're thinking about where could you spend your money next? One of the great things you can do is by going for a dual or even triple monitor set up just workflow wise really does help you. It doesn't improve the sound, of course, but workflow is also valuable. Now, something else I notice here down here, right? I'll just zoom in and go to the bottom here is David's PC. Now, under normal circumstances, I would berate someone for putting a PC down on the floor. But it so happens that David's actually got this on a hard tile floor. So that's not too much of a problem. But please, if you do have a carpeted floor, make sure you get your PC somewhere up away from the carpet because it will suck in lots and lots of dust and dust. I can tell you from many decades of building PCs will ruin your PC more than anything will affect the performance. It will affect the thermal performance of it. Slow down the computer and you will always think, oh, my computer is just getting slower and slower and slower. It's just because the dust is being sucked up off the floor. So if you're going to make a change to your studio today and you've got your PC down the floor, find another place for it would be my suggestion. And what else can I talk about here? Well, something about, you know, there's a little bit of room treatment going on here, but I don't see much on these walls or in the corner. So I have this kind of thing going on above my desk. You guys may have seen it in my videos. It wouldn't be my first choice. I happen to have some spare foam tiles kicking around. So I've got broadband absorbers around the rest of my room, but on the back of the door and just above my desk, I had some spare ones, so I put some foam tiles. So I am guilty of having the same setup here, but I would say if your only option at the moment is to use foam tiles, I would focus on your first reflections, which are going to be over on this wall over here. I can't see the right wall, but I think I can see a left wall there. Unless I'm mistaken, that could be straight off there. Let me know, David. Anyway, I could be wrong, but I would definitely focus on those first reflections first. Anyway, thank you so much, David, for your submission there. It's a lovely looking studio. And yeah, let's move on to the next one. Moving down here, this is from Ed Haywood. Ah, now, the first thing I noticed about this one, compared to the other ones that I've looked at so far, is there's been a lot more effort put into room treatment here, okay? You can see these big base traps here. I'm not sure of the construction of them, but if they have the thickness going all the way back into the corner there, then they can make a big difference there to your mixing. And also, you've taken care of early reflections in what looks to be the correct place, more or less here. Anyway, I can't see how far they go back. So yeah, that's the first thing that strikes me there, especially when you've got a kind of a smallish space here. The other thing I noticed, and this may have, I think this may have been true in some of the other ones I've looked at, but you've got your monitors off of your desk. So you're really on stands for me. I've done it in all kinds of different ways. And in my experience, on stand is the best place to be, because if you have them on your desk, even if they're up on a top shelf or what have you, the sound does tend to go through the desk and you're getting sound coming from your desk if that makes any sense. So yeah, I'm trying to think of what the correct terminology is there. But yeah, I would say that's a great decision that you've got. You may even be using the same stands that I personally use myself. Great little setup here, a couple of pretty serious looking compressors going on there. I'm not sure what interface you've got. Let me just have a quick look at the not sure what the interface is there. But yeah, a great Allen and Heath desk going on there as well. So there's some pretty serious gear there. I suspect you get a pretty good sound in this little studio. Moving down from there, we've got this. Oh no, I've seen another one I wanna do. I'm gonna run out of time here, but Catherine. This again, what a lovely looking space to work in. I love the lighting here. It's not my sort of RGB colored lighting style, but nice and relaxing here. Looks like a fantastic desk you've got there. It has the guess that this is not homemade one. The finish looks too good on that. So I'd love to hear from Catherine about that. Lots of rack gear here, just slightly out of reach. I guess I may, if I could, I would maybe just move that sort of pointing towards you a little bit more and a little bit closer. Depends on how often you're wanting to access it. Probably you've got the gear that you access most at arm's length here, I would guess, built into the actual desk. And then the stuff you access less frequently off to the side here. Can't quite make out what monitors these are. Probably Tanoi ones by the looks of it. But I'm interested in these speakers you've got up above. I can't remember the model and the brand of these cube speakers. I'll look that up and put a link for it in the description down below. I haven't tried these, but I've heard a lot of people use these for getting, well, first of all, they're supposed to be good for mono mixes, but they're also just when you wanna do a mix check on a typical setup that a lot of people have with very little low end and things in there. So I know a lot of people use them for that. Just can't remember the maker model of them offhand. There's a lot of effort put into room treatment here. I'm not gonna go into the whole should you get foam, tiles, debate. I have used them in the past. When I went to broadband absorbers, I did notice the difference. That's all I'll say about it. But if you wanna use foam tiles or that's all your budget is allowing at the moment, they're okay. There's a lot of them behind your desk here, which is an interesting choice. I would be looking for some early reflections. You may have done that here. I can just see on the corner of the picture. You may have some strategically placed tiles there, which is fine. But I wouldn't personally think that I have tried them in the past. These foam base traps, I know they're sold as base traps by many, many companies. But again, I would go for some more heavy duty ones than that if I had a choice. But it looks like a really serious little setup there and a really nice looking setup as well, Catherine. It looks like you get some serious work done in there. Again, I'll point out a keyboard at your fingertips is just from my perspective, a kind of a must in a studio. I used to have it to the side before, continually reaching around to the side. Doesn't do your back or even the creative flow that much good I find. So what was your favorite studio of the ones we've taken a look at today? Let me know in the comments down below about that. I'd love to hear from you guys. Now, if you would like to post a photo of your studio for a future episode, do that on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook using the hashtag My Creative Studio. Don't forget, if you post that on Facebook, make sure it's public so that I can see it. Now, if you want to check out any of the gear that we've taken a look at in today's video, do check the links in the description down below for that. And also check the links to the Facebook pages we've taken a look at today. And also, don't forget to check out my Patreon.com link where for as little as $1 per month you can help me help you by making more videos like this. And I'll see you in the next video.