My studio is finally back together.

... now I just need to organize the rest of the house!  :)

The newest additions are a Roland CSQ-600, a Delptronics ThunderClap, a Korg MS20mini, and a Arturia MiniBrute.

My Studio, Ka-Boom, Over the Years part 3

I scanned in some more pictures of the studio.  This will fill in some of the missing years from parts 1 and 2.  If you wish to view the other posts, they are all under the label ka-boom.

-- 1991 --
This first picture (above) would have been from 1990 or 1991.  I was working with my friend Brandon (who peeked his head into the photo on the right) on some songs.  We recorded several things but never released anything.  Brandon simultaneously started singing for Optic Rain, a band that I recorded, produced, performed with, and later would cover one of their songs for the first House of Wires record.  On the wall, there are posters and pictures of Howard Jones, Ian Curtis, The Damned, Mad at the world, Nitzer Ebb, etc, etc.  The large mixer in front of me was in front of the door - the photographer that took this photo (probably my brother) would have been standing in the door because you had to crawl under the mixer or through the bottom bunk bed (where Brandon is) to even get into the space.  What a mess.

-- 1994 --
This photo would have been around 1994.  I remember this year because I had moved bedrooms and reorganized everything - which is why nothing is on the floor (yet).  The stand that the Juno-60 is on was a grocery store candy rack that I hack sawed every other shelf off so the equipment would fit.  it worked really well and could squeeze up against the wall, allowing me a lot more room to move.

-- 1996 --
The photo on the right shows a later incarnation of the same space, where the grocery rack is still on the same wall, but has a different arrangement of equipment on it.  The bunk bed was always a part of my room and bedroom studio but by this stage, I had removed the lower bed and just slept up top.

-- 1998 --

Below is another picture of the studio during the time when I recorded the House of Wires album 'Monogamy'.  The Aries modular was borrowed from my friend Cyrus.  The Aries, Kawai K5 and Akai S20 sampler, were all big parts of that record.  When we mixed down, some of the tracks were on the Tascam 388 mixer and some were on the Mackie 1604 because we used 3 ADATS (24 channels - the Tascam was only 8 channel and the Mackie was 16.  The Tascam has more to offer in terms of EQ where the Mackie was great for 6 effects loops, so every song was rewired depending on how we wanted to process the tracks).

My Studio, Ka-Boom, Over the Years part 2

 -- 2002 --

My friend Dan Michaels took this photo of me in my studio after I moved again.  I was back in a small, crowded room and slept on top of the bunk seen to the right of my head.  A Halloween skeleton and mannequin sit in the corner of the studio.  Behind Dan would have been the door and to the right of him would have been more synths and modular gear.

-- 2003 --

 I moved from Fullerton, CA to Akron, OH in 2003 after I graduated from Cal Poly Pomona to continue a 2 year, long distance relationship.  I set up my studio in the bedroom of a small apartment and recorded 'Imaginary Hospitals' and 'The Winter EP' in this space. 

 

There was one other apartment location that the studio was in before a house was bought and the studio moved into the house. 

 

 

--2009 to present  --

There have been 2 different arrangements for the home studio.  The photo above shows the first.  Then in 2012, a flood came into the basement and everything had to be moved out.  It was really only about 3 inches of water, but it was enough to take everything out, redo the drywall, clean everything, and move it back in.  There are several earlier posts in this blog about the flood.  The photo below shows the current setup.

 



My Studio, Ka-boom, Over the Years part 1

It takes time to develop a workable layout for a studio.  Many things have to be considered:  what equipment is used with what?  Will cables get in the way?  Where do things go that I don't use as often? - these and many others are all good questions to ask.  My studio is a work in progress.  It is constantly evolving and expanding.  Here are some glimpses of the studio over the last 25 years.

  -- 1990 --

This is basically how I had my room when I was a senior in High School.  Many of the walls were covered with posters of various bands and things that I was into at the time.  At this time, I did not have any drum machines or tape machines to record.

On the keys of the Rhodes 73, you can see a little box that had a homemade multiple and an attenuator in it that I would use to sync the Juno and Jupiter arpeggios to the gate out of the SH-101.

 -- 1998 --

I know that there are a lot of years between 1990 and 1998 - I will scan and post pictures of those years at another time.  Most of the years in between were spent recording with the Tascam 388 reel to reel and making Pivot Clowj tracks.  This 1997 photo shows the studio around the time Robert Gutschow and I recorded the House of Wires 'Monogamy' album.  I did not have a mixing board large enough to support 3 synced ADAT machines, so some tracks were mixed to the Tascam 388 and some went to the Mackie 1604 mixer.  The Aries synth was on loan to me from my friend Cyrus.  I eventually bought it from him years later and now it once again resides at Ka-Boom.

 -- 2001 --

Right around the year 2001 or so, I moved to another house with some friends and had the master bedroom.  It was a large space and had tons of room to spread some things out.  The types of songs that were recorded in this space were the House of Wires 'Found Sessions'.  Toward the end of my stay in this house, I started putting a modular synth together which eventually led to the first Travelogue album 'The Art of Conversation'

Ka-Boom..

So my studio is called Ka-Boom.  I have been calling it that since 1991 or so.  Even though the equipment seems to divide, move, and multiply, the space in which I work is still called Ka-Boom.

Originally, the name came from the chaos of my recording space.  my collection of synthesizers, drum machines, and mixers shared space with my bed, clothes, records, books, dressers, mannequins, etc, etc.   There was one point, where I had bought a mixer off of my friend Matt and it was so large, that it blocked the door to my room and I would have to crawl under it to get into the space.

I think that subliminally, the name Ka-Boom was also influenced by one of my heros at the time, Edward Ka-Spel, singer of the Legendary Pink Dots.  My studio needed a hyphenated name, much like the singer of my favorite band from that era of my life.

I am so glad that those days are behind me... or are they?

The studio continues to expand and change, with the latest additions:  an Emulator IV rackmount, an Oberheim OB1, an Archangel Sequencer, and an Octave Catstick.  Also, a Marshall halfstack and Mesa Boogie half stack are currently being borrowed from my friend Myk.

Patch Cable Rack Solution.

Storage of cables can be a problem - especially when you need access to them in different parts of the studio.  I came up with this portable cable rack for this purpose.  It holds the patch cables for my modular synthesizers and can move out of the way if I need the space.  This beats cables hanging in the way.

Studio Organization

In the past, I have used hanging shoe organizers to store effects pedals and other small electronic devices.  In the new studio, I have built some custom shelves to take the place of these.  Here are some photos of the process...

On the left, the photo shows the various pieces of the shelf.  The bottom of each section of the shelf is covered with felt.  The photo on the right shows various scraps of wood being glued into the top of each cubicle.  These random surfaces will allow the shelf to also act as an acoustic diffuser.  These wood scraps were then painted to match the shelf and the wall as seen below.

Setting up a new workspace

 

 As I put back together the studio, I am rearranging and reorganizing - mostly because I would like to have all the modular equipment closer together and have minimal gaps inbetween the different modular synthesizers that I own.  Here is how I made my own stand that will allow all the equipment to be at the same angle, regardless of size or shape.  I do this by first making a plywood table - reinforced by 2"x3"s, with aluminum tubing for the legs (this table is sturdy enough to support my weight, so I know that it won't have a problem with the modular synths)  I figure out what angles that I would like the equipment to rest and make patterns for each piece of equipment.  Next, I cut out pairs of wooden shapes based on the template patterns to be used as arms for the equipment to rest on - these are shown in the photos on the left.  The pairs are linked together with a short length of 2"x3".  At first, they are loose and moveable.  Equipment is placed on them and they are moved into the desired position.  Each pair of shapes is then fastened to the plywood table with screws.  Finally, the entire thing gets 2 coats of black paint and 2 coats of polyurethane.

After everything is fully dried, I am able to place the equipment back on the racks.  I put a hacked ultimate support stand inbetween the Modcan and Synthesizers.com systems.