My New Composing Studio

Building My New Composing Studio

So this year (2024) I decided to both rebuild my computer and completely reset my composing studio. I use this space for all of my music business work, arts management, composing, arranging, mixing, and even some recording.

In dreaming up how I was going to enhance the space, I really wanted to:

• Use the space in the room better, feel less separated from the gear;
• Integrate some new outboard gear and a rack for gear;
• Build a new computer to solve software workflow issues.

The room itself is only 8’x12′, so it leaves only certain ways to setup the space. I’ve talked before about the sound absorption panels I’ve made, but I moved those around a little bit too. A lot of this was spurred by receiving a new rack to hold all my outboard gear. I also needed to implement a patchbay so that I could wire all the different gear. I went with a standard Behringer PX30000. At some point I’ll chat more about how I wired it (it was complicated), but basically I now have the ability to use the old PreSonus FirePod with my Focusrite 18i20 interface and wire all the outboard stuff. I use only 1 preamp, the Warm Audio Tone Beast.

At some point I have some post-processing units I want to add, so I left some space. Next up are:

• Rupert Neve Designs Master Bus Transformer
• Solid State Logic Fusion Analog Master Processor

Additionally, I now have 2 different reel-to-reel machines. The FirePod makes it so I can wire out to them and back into the Focusrite. Yes, I could have done this without the patchbay, but I was tired of reaching around the back and plugging in and unplugging stuff. I finally got to the point where I just wanted everything to stay working all the time. I find that I won’t use the outboard gear if it’s too much work to plug in. Am I lazy? haha ya, maybe, but the end result is the same. I just need it to work.

I had asked a lot of people about power controller to use. John Clinebell and I had a conversation about this at WUP and the end result was, what else is there besides Furman? So here we are with a Furman.

A New Computer

I upgraded from an i7 to an i9 which has made a world of a difference. My case was also from 2008/09 (not sure which) and it was huge, heavy and built for the old days when you had multiple disk drives. Since I was upgrading everything else, I decided to upgrade the case too because I really didn’t want to redo the wiring all over again.

I had a hell of a time because I bought an AMD computer build and it kept failing. It hated windows. No matter what I tried, who I called, how I reinstalled, everything kept crashing. So after 3 weeks of this pain, I was falling behind on work and I decided to just return everything and buy an entirely new build. I went out to MicroCenter and went back to an Intel setup.

This composing PC isn’t the most powerful in the world, but it’s good for what I need these days. I’m running an i9-12900 with 64GB of DDR5, I also have 2 NVMe drives + a handful of other SSDs. I then turned my old computer into a server where I have leftover SSD & HDD as my solid backups of everything I do. This process took such a long time, but was well worth the effort.

My AMD build would not stop crashing, no matter what I did.

Back to Intel

This composing PC isn’t the most powerful in the world, but it’s good for what I need these days. I’m running an i9-12900 with 64GB of DDR5, I also have 2 NVMe drives + a handful of other SSDs. I then turned my old computer into a server where I have leftover SSD & HDD as my solid backups of everything I do. This process took such a long time, but was well worth the effort.

I was finding that Dorico was acting slower than it should be. I spoke with Daniel from Steinberg about it and he agreed, something else was the problem. In composing The Great Lake Concerto (which is almost 30 minutes of full orchestra), the scrolling would delay which got infuriating over time. I have found that since the upgrade, Dorico is behaving better. Additionally, Premiere Pro is doing so much better too.

Making the Space Work

So I made a video tour of the new space wanted to showcase how I use a small room, but also how it’s definitely not perfect. As artists, one of our assets can be limitations. Use what you got, and when you’re ready, grow. Until then, don’t feel the need to constantly buy new gear to keep up with trends. I have goals for this space, upgrades I want to make, a long list of gear in my Sweetwater wish list, but for now, this is where I’m at.

This space needed to be pretty versatile for me because I:

1. Compose for live performances (like orchestras, bands, and chamber groups)
2. I arrange music in Finale and Dorico for other composers
3. I do music production work, including some mixing and synthestration
4. I compose and record music for film scores and interactive media (video games)
5. I print, bind, and ship my own sheet music as my own publisher
6. I manage and work with multiple arts organizations which includes fundraising, grant writing, event management, board management, and general business work
7. I work with TouchOSC and create videos just for you. So ya, I need a space that can handle a variety of tasks quickly and easily.

Check out the video below to see exactly how I did it.

Watch the full video tour!