Category: Home Studio Gear

The things we can use to bottle up our tone and put it on display for all to marvel at!

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Studio Diary #15: Revisiting Old Gear

I’m currently getting my home studio more organised, and along the way I’m sharing my thought process, decisions, discoveries and regrets.

One of the benefits of this autumn’s home studio mini-revamp is that it’s now pretty easy to use any piece of gear that I’ve currently got. I’ve been taking advantage of that, by revisiting old pieces of gear that didn’t get much use in the past.

Thanks to the cleaner cabling, I’m finally able to hear this gear at its very best. And – spoiler alert! – I’m rapidly falling in love with a couple of items that I never got on with first time around.

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New Arrivals For November

My home studio revamp is in full swing. I’m hoping to complete it this month, so that I can spend the winter months getting to grips with it all and starting to record music for myself once again.

The second hand market on eBay has picked up a little since the horror show that was October. It feels like the number of items is up a little, but I haven’t really felt tempted by any of the items put up for sale.

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Studio Diary #13: The Planet Waves / D’addario Cable Station Cables … Aren’t Very Reusable

I’m currently getting my home studio more organised, and along the way I’m sharing my thought process, decisions, discoveries and regrets.

For the past few years, I’ve been using the D’Addario (formerly Planet Waves) Cable Station system to make my own solderless patch cables. I like it because it gives me the convenience of making custom-length cables, and I rarely make a dud cable.

I used to have a huge pedal board with 20 pedals on it. I tore that down earlier in the year, giving me a lot of Cable Station connectors and cable to try and reuse – along with some new connectors that I ordered in for the studio revamp.

The results have been mixed.

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Studio Diary #12: The Neutrik NYS-SPP-L1 Is A Pain

I’m currently getting my home studio more organised, and along the way I’m sharing my thought process, decisions, discoveries and regrets.

I’ve spent the last two days getting the studio rack wired up at last. And, during the process, I’ve grown a bit frustrated with the Neutrik NYS SPP-L1 patchbay that I bought for this project.

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Studio Diary #11: Thunderbolt 3 Brings A New Problem

I’m currently getting my home studio more organised, and along the way I’m sharing my thought process, decisions, discoveries and regrets.

When I traded for the Apollo x6, I couldn’t test it right away. Universal Audio don’t include a Thunderbolt 3 cable with their Apollo units. I had to buy one separately from somewhere.

It’s frustrating that UAD (and their competitors!) don’t include an essential cable in the box. But I already knew that they didn’t. That’s an inconvenience, not a problem.

The problem is that Thunderbolt 3 cables are much shorter than Thunderbolt 2 cables. The Apollo x6 is in a studio rack about 3-4 metres away from where my computer normally sits.

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Studio Diary #10: Cables – Build Or Buy?

I’m currently getting my home studio more organised, and along the way I’m sharing my thought process, decisions, discoveries and regrets.

With so many extra cables needed for the studio revamp, I’ve had some choices to make.

  • When do I just use standard-length, off-the-shelf cables?
  • When do I get cables made up to a specific length?
  • When do I make my own cables?

Here’s what I’ve decided, and my thinking behind each choice. It’s too soon for me to say whether or not I’ve made good choices 🙂

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