There’s no delay or turning back now. Virtually all reworks start with undoing, and such was the case last Friday when my friend Jim came over and got on one end of many wires no longer needed in the studio. I’m not sure he would have volunteered once he saw just how big of a job it was to remove that much cabling. I knew it would be a high number, but even I was surprised by the height of the coiled pile those cables created once removed. A lot of it had been installed for over 25 years.

The new system actually has more connection capacity than any prior setup, but with the new one comes more streamlined and compacted interconnectivity – such as digital ethernet snakes. And now instead of 4 interfaces, the new digital console will also serve as a single interface unit. So the studio now looks to be quite in shambles with 2 equipment racks emptied, 4 patchbays orphaned, and dozens of wires still “hanging out” that will be rerouted to the new system (along with other additional new ones).

And while I’m at it, I thought it was high time to address the original and later expanded desk tops that had gotten kind of tired. 35+ years of wear and tear by chair bumps, coffee spills, hole drilling and re-drilling, patchbay reworkings and such is calling for a restart on those surfaces. So today with spring weather here, the final cuts were made on the two main pieces and a sealer and stain applied.

In the meantime, what to do about my ongoing weekly work? Well it turns out that the new system is so self-contained and most of those needs only require that I hear the audio (all imported files – no recording), with two connections from a portable interface to a pair of the patchbay monitor inputs I was back in business (after rounding up the driver for the interface). It will definitely be great to get most of the studio back to a semblance of normalcy and expanded function, but in the meantime there’s no getting around this phase if you want to enjoy the full benefits of the new. There must be a proverb in there somewhere?!

Measure once, measure twice, draw a plan, revise the plan (again), make cuts and more cuts. The redesign and partial replacement of the studio “desk” is taking shape. Last Saturday I spent most of the day at my friend Robert’s place as he and I used the old Craftsman table saw he inherited from his father. Robert and I have been friends since college (that’s a few days – er multiple decades ago) and I knew his family quite well. As Robert said, “If my dad is looking down today, he’d think it’s pretty cool we’re using his saw to make something for your studio.” The saw may be dated, but quality always has lasting value and function, and I will be warmly reminded when I’m sitting there from here on. Most of the parts and pieces are now cut and ready for assembly to house the new 500 Series rack, the eight + new and new-to-me mic preamps, and also one of the digital input units for the Behringer X32 rackmount console and various other interconnect.

Although this rebuild won’t be nearly completed by then, there’s an added incentive to keep it moving. I met with a new client this past Friday over lunch and there’s an exciting and significant project intended to launch this week at Tesco Productions. I’m not going to reveal anymore about it right now, but what’s to be unveiled promises to be interesting, encouraging, challenging and a true story from his heart and life. Just a hint – twenty years ago I spent several days in a neighboring country (see that story here).

So here we are at the end of the first month in 2023. It seems time keeps flying by and sometimes I wonder what I have to show for it. In reality a good amount of progress has been made on the computer side of the update with a majority of the 3rd party software being loaded. The core DAW software has been running for several months and in use, but additional add-ons and supplemental elements can be many (likely too many) and quite time consuming to put in place. Those software toys have been years in the accumulation and so getting them loaded takes time at getting the latest version, establishing the new authorizations, then testing that each component functions and in some cases deciding I really don’t need some feature and again removing it. I’m probably about 80% finished with that phase and the larger element remaining will be to re-establish the sound libraries for keyboard, guitar and other music production. Most of the those sounds are already on the system – just need to make the connection on the new computer to their associated players.

In the meantime I’ve also spent time redesigning the patchbays and seeing how many I can eliminate altogether. Also there’s been the ongoing myriad of ideas bantered and tested for the best placement of the computer monitors. This element is complicated by the planned addition of a 2nd set of audio monitors. You can’t hear properly if you can’t fully see the speaker. I think a solution is in the works, but only a final in-place layout will decide if that idea gets the final stamp of approval. Onward and forward.