Monday 12 January 2009

Home Studio Feng Shui

One of my hobbies (I guess I can call it a hobby now) is making use of, and adding to my home studio. I studied a music degree at university, and started piecing together a DIY studio in my second year there. I decided that I wanted to compose, record, and produce some music in the comfort of my home. At university everything was time restricted and of course there were many students in the building. I sometimes felt inspiration was hard to come by this way. After much researching I realised that I could put together some of my work at home with the right gear. This is where the credit cards came involved (I'm still paying them back now). After a few months I managed to rig together a fairly impressive studio that I could use for many musical purposes.

After finishing the course I decided to take a break from music altogether. My aim was that this would be a temporary thing. I would work for a while, have a holiday in China, come home, and start it all up again. Things obviously didn't turn out that way. Once I had decided to come back to China I knew that leaving my keyboard (a Roland Fantom X8) at home would be a mistake. Not only would it be neglected for a year or two, but it would also be devaluing by the day. So I logged onto eBay and sold it immediately. Actually, the money of the sale paid for my plane flight and financed my first two months in China.

I returned home 5 months later, and felt that more of the equipment should go. Just like the keyboard, some of the other items would just get old. New technology is released all of the time, it is wasteful to keep them in my bedroom collecting dust. So I sold some more. By this point my studio was down to more than half the size.

Today I posted off the remaining pieces of gear that I own: my Mackie 1402 VLZ Pro mixer, and my M-Audio BX8 speakers. The reason I had kept these for so long was that I didn't want to see them go. Unfortunately I don't know how long I will stay in China, and after reading an article about Feng Shui the other day, I realised that getting rid of them was the right thing to do. When I do return from China for good, I can slowly rebuild my studio again -- I hope.

Mackie Mixer, I will miss you the most

My studio speakers (confusingly, in music we actually call them monitors, not speakers)

5 comments:

mabelp said...

Wow! Chris! Guess what, your mixer and mine are the same!! Mine is still brand new in box! I always want to sell it out due to the depreciation. But,I will be missing it!! I bought this mixer when I just returned to HK from the UK in 2004. I have some midi and audio interfaces as well. They're new, but I haven't used them for ages!

Did u try to hear your old compositions again? One of my compositions is the soundtrack for a horror movie. One of the vocal lines is a mixture of my voice and my DJ friend's voice. His voice is very low, so there must be a big contrast between his voice and mine. Horrible enough? Haha!

What're your musical ex-classmates doing now?

Christopher said...

Oh cool, you have a Mackie 1402! It really is a brilliant piece of equipment. I didn't want to sell it at all, but the money has been nice, haha. It's been discontinued now, there is a newer model which is very expensive. I also sold my audio interface about a year ago too, and a compressor, reverb unit, MIDI interface....oh god I do miss using all of that stuff. I'll definitely start again in a couple of years....with a Mac!!

I had a listen to some of my compositions a while ago. Some of them are just awful, I wish I could do them again now. Some I am quite happy with though.

I have been terrible and haven't kept in touch with many classmates form university. I know that one is in the army (playing music), a couple are in bands trying to make it, and others I have absolutely no idea. I'm terrible at keeping in touch :(

Johnny Ding said...

Cool,man. Umbelievable that you have your own musicial studio. God. You shall have your concert at WEB when you return. I will be your first fan,man!

大眼睛熊 said...

I'm sure u'll get them all back again, better ones of course! : ) I forgot to mention it, the big wheel outside Selfridges looks great, I love it! .. Ohh memories~ xxx

mabelp said...

Yes, 1402 VLZ pro is a wonderful stuff. Ha! What price did u sell it at? My Mac is full of dust as well!

Ha! I still have some of your old compositions. Not bad!