hi

i remember your vastly lengthy reviews

I hope people remember me for these, just as much as I hope to get them.

Side note, I picked up a part-time job. Life is good

im 30 and ive been fired from every job ive had hahahah

I work a typically 44.5 hour a week job as a flat rate Ford mechanic. Used to work more and make less, but then I quit and joined a dealership. Flat rate means I make money based on an hour amount per task, so I can easily make more than the 44.5 hours if all goes well, but that doesn't always happen.

Anyway, happy Saint Patrick's Day if I'm not on here tomorrow. Anybody make any sweet Irish music?

Whew, I haven't made any tracks since 2020 which is the longest I've gone since I started making music.

I've redecorated my office/"studio" though and bought some boring gear to actually hook up the few synths I've got with dedicated audio inputs so they can be used properly in FL Studio. Still waiting for carpet to go in and then I can stick everything in there and connect it all up.

I'm particularly pretty proud of the cable ducting setup I put together for it, with some big snake cables running through to keep things tidy. Please enjoy this shitty panorama picture in a small space.

It all will get hooked up to this patch bay and audio interface, which will live in a cabinet (that just about closes fully when there's patch cables in the front side of the patch bay).

Anyway, super excited to get serious about making music again, here's hoping I don't get stuck on an 8 bar loop, hate myself and give up!

Ew, suddenly it smells old in here and I don't know why.

Yes you do! Recarpeting the studio is so a semi-stable 30+ move and we all know it haha.

Good on you @Mich! The past couple years all I've managed to do besides get steady cash flow is upgrade to a proper XLR mic interface, get some portable shielding, and upgrade laptops. I've found I use a lot more software than hardware, so storage was the biggest concern.

I've graduated from 20 GB of storage back in 2014 to 2 TB, already mostly used, and working on external drive capability to move my lightest weight libraries and seldom use cases over. Then I plan to upgrade to 64 GB ram. Potentially use my old PC as a slave drive if I can back up the current state to a trusty external. My compositions are getting heavy layered, so having something to serve up samples would be top.

Wish I could say I had plans for a studio like yours, but I've been moving every couple of years and leaving behind unnecessary gear. It just never seems to get done!

Looking forward to what you come up with!

For real this guy is gonna put in new carpet, EVERYONE KNOWS CARPETED FLOORS ARE DISGUSTING, but useful for preventing drum kits from walking around the room. I've found that you can get rid of coffee stains by scrubbing furiously with a wet hand towel for 3 days straight. See, stains totally gone:

Good God! What was your hand towel made out of? Razor blades?!?!?!

I just need carpet to catch all the dog and cat hair. And so I can't see the ground through the cracks in the floorboards

I can make arguments for and against carpets, it's owner's choice. I like a good contemporary vinyl though, flooring is so easy to install now. If I wasn't forced to play my drums in a room with carpet I'd just toss down a rug and be done with it.

I was just violently struck with the memory of the chickens. We raised chicks in the music room one winter and everything got a coat of chicken dander on it. They are the messiest, nastiest creatures on the planet (cute as they are). I'm barefoot on the carpet right now and I just got shivers because I know how gross this carpet is. I need to put on shoes...

For a second there, I thought you had a makeshift foundry in your studio.

Truly metal. In the most literal sense.

I wish I had a foundry in my studio, pouring metal is fun. Got to do a little bit of it in uni. Wax sculptures, molds, bronze pour. Welding was rad too. We got a TIG for our next solar array but we haven't had any fun with it. Maybe I can use it to burn away the carpet in my room...

Dude what? I grew up with tons of chickens (chicken farm) and have 23 chickens myself right now. They are the easiest, cleanest barnyard animals! All you gotta do is feed em, water em, coop em and give that guy a clean out every now n then and that's it. Heck, you can train them to do stuff too if that's what you're into. Now I could be a little biased because birds are my favourite type of animals and I grew up with them and all but come on.

Ducks though. No. I will not have ducks. THEY are the dirtiest, meanest, doofus birds out there. They can stay on the lake at the other end of my rifle, not in my run.

What kind of chickens are you talking about? I got Rhode Island Reds, as chicks they fucked my whole studio up with dander without ever leaving their little tub. Dust on everything. I won't let you try to un-sully their name, those little shits are nasty. They poop in their own water and they try to eat Styrofoam if you've insulated your spaces with it. They try to run into the basement with me to get some of that sweet styro-taco off the walls, I have to be quick.

We eventually made space in our shipping container to move them out of the house. Whatever situation you dealt with on your farm, I'm calling bullshit on them being clean animals. It doesn't sound like you ever had to raise chicks in a music studio, it's not the same as a coop. The chicks were too young to live with the adults, we had to raise them in a separate space, hence the music studio.

Ducks are just water chickens.

Both have pooped on my hand at least once. In front of other people.

There is no such thing as pooping alone with chickens. There is only pooping with friends. Pooping with enemies. Pooping all the time. Oh, and pecking all the feathers off of your unlucky friend! But they can be very intelligent and loving creatures with the right raising. They're much cleaner and nicer when raised separately from other chickens. But if you're hungry and want eggs, I think that defeats the purpose of raising chickens such a way.

Still love them, but you are 100% on point. Will eat anything. Even chicken.

I raise my chicks indoors. I have mostly Barred Rocks (very friendly) but we got some Sapphire Gems, one Rhode Island Red (I think that's what she is), and one... Heck I don't remember what that one is either. But I got 3 Gold Lace Wyandotte chicks upstairs right now and there ain't dander all over the place. We had the Sapphires and the other two up there recently too before they got too big.

Animals in general are not clean in the way humans are. It's a comparison study: I wouldn't want certain animals in my house at all, but chickens are not bad. They poop where ever they feel like because they are birds and they make a mess because well, they ain't as smart as you. It's about you being smarter than the birds, that's why you are the caretaker and they are the animals.

In any case, no don't try to raise them in a music studio. The heat and dryness required alone could destroy some of your solid wood instruments. Just read a story the other week about a guy who had a mandolin that was played by some musician he liked and he came home to the whole thing being split in half from the lack of humidity and having it hung up on the wall.

Word. I had carpet in my last student dorm, which came in handy when my father gave me an electric drum kit for my graduation. Otherwise it was a bitch to clean. Puked on the floor next to my bed once after a bender, took me a couple of hours and a ton of baking soda to get rid of the stain.

Currently my drum kit is standing on some sheets of floor isolation, which doesn't work at all and it kinda holds me back from actually drumming. Probably gonna invest in a Persian rug in the near future.

That's actually a pretty fire graduation present.

The only thing I've ever gotten on my carpet, thank god, is cocacola, and that's bad enough as is. But I live with someone who has dogs and cats, and you can imagine the amount of vomit, urine, and feces that occasionally amounts to. Carpet is gross, but not quite as gross as what happens to the hardwood flooring when you have a double coated hi-shedder. We have to vaccuum at least twice a week, and our clothes are constantly covered in little white hairs. If we had carpet everywhere, would be totally fine, but nooooo.

TLDR, carpets are good for one thing. Catching pet hair before it flies into my nose.

Dude, our outside cat came in the house literally 2 days ago, went into the corner that had a pet mess mat and some sheets or whatever laid down and PUSHED IT ALL OUT OF THE WAY and proceeded to birth 5 kittens on our carpet. We figured she was coming in the house to have a safe place to do this so we made a spot and she just went and screwed up my carpet anyway. Now we are looking into new carpet.