LinuxMusicians

I use an HP TC4400 tablet pc running mandriva linux.

It has a duo core 1.86 ghz processor and 2gigabytles of ram with an 80gb hard drive and a 16-bit 44,100khz sound card.

a tablet PC ? wow! never thought of that.

My h/w specs (from memory, I can't remeber everything):

PC stuff

• motherboard Intel DG965SS
• CPU : Core 2 Duo E6600 (2 x 2.4 GHz)
• 3 sata 2 HDs : 80G Samsung Spinpoint for OS, 500GB WD Caviar SE serie for data, and another one for backup
• 4GB RAM : 4 x 1G Kingston something, PC6400
• a few Zalman passive coolers for the HDs, a big Zalman CNPS9700 for the CPU (super efficient!!)
• Antech Sonata III for the PC case
• RME HDSP PCI card for audio work (Disabled the onboard intel HDA), using its own interrupt (of course)

(very silent and cool PC at the end)

External gears

• RME Multiface II
• RME Quadmic preamps (line and mic levels with phantom power)
• Two compressor/gate units 266XL
• Patch panel NYS-SPP-L1
• MIc AKG C414B XLII and Audix OM5
• some OK headphones that I rarely use (Philips SBC HP890) but I want to upgrade ...
• Rackmount 19'' Thon something (about 80cm high)
• Old turntable Technics SL-1710 to rip rare old LPs
• Two large screen Samsung monitor, SyncMaster 226BW
• 2 speakers Dynaudio BM5A
• small extra stuff lying around

Instruments

• Electric guitar Fender stratocaster (made i US, bought over there - very cheap!)
• Electric bass guitar Fender Jazz Bass (made in US as well)
• Electroacoustic guitar Jasmine by Takamine (got it as a present 15 years ago, still sounds good but the mic died, which is no big deal!)
• a couple of harmonicas (a diatonic in A and chromatic in G)
• a jew's harp from ... I don't remember ...
• a drum from India (don't knwo the name, it's a present from a friend)
• a tambourine, a triangle, some claps (? a pair of thick wooden sticks), a violin stick
• a kalimba from South-Africa (present as well)
• a digital piano, Kawai L1, given by a friend 1 month ago. With the Pianoteq software, it sounds splendid!
• my own voice, which I have been using for "singing" for 10 years or so
• ... kitchen pots, friends' didgeridoo at times, whatever ... anything that makes a sound

As you can see, I don't have a mixing board. I haven't felt the need until now and with the way I proceed, I don't need it at all, the TotalMix (hdspmixer app in linux) is very very versatile. But this may change when I open my studio to bands (it sits in my cosy living room with a big view on a local lake and forest ) I should post a picture ...

Oh yeah, all my cables are from a brand called ... something-Wave (a bit pricy but I get no noise)

Sweet Thorgal! How about posting a picture of that dream studio???

OK, there you go (a bit random). You can see it's a tiny bit messy but under control On the screens, you can see a rosegarden session with Addictive Drums and Qjackctl. In the bottom picture, you can have a glimpse of my PC in the back and my mini-ITX mythTV server on the low shelf. I have plans for surrounding the center area of the living room with heavy curtains for voice recordings (have not done some serious singing for recording yet). During the day, the view from the window wall is fantastic! I shall update that one

The one thing that is uncool is the shape of the room and the asymmetry in my speaker location + no sound neutralization on the wall behind them. I can live with that for now.

I await the day I get a studio like this. NICE!! I think I'm going to create a "studio pictures" thread/category.

When I resigned from my job in July 2007, I devoted one month to intense reading, and I do mean intense. In August, I started drawing plans on how to organize things (what room, what firniture, etc). I tried 2 or 3 combinations with dummy furniture, etc, to feel how comfortable I would be (facing the window or not, having an angled desk or not, etc) and at the same time, making it so I could expand with time. That's why I deliberately left some big open space in the center of teh living room because due to the geometry of teh room, it was obvious I would do the singing there, with curtains all around (there are supporting beams in this room that would be accomodated with curtain supports, creating a "booth" of about 4m2). At the same time, I started buying gears and a couple of instruments I did not have (bass guitar basically). It took about 3 months to set this up to its "final" form and my budget was about 10,000$. I built the desk myself from different cheap IKEA pieces and managed to get a coherent work desk. Then came the learning phase (which will never stop I guess ) but because of my unix / linux background, it was not too difficult. I was also dreaming about it before, watching others' home studio pictures, etc. But at the end, I did not draw much inspiration from them, it all depends on your local environment.

Looks really cool! I wouldn't need the guitars myself but the rest.. I'll post a couple of pics from my (modest) setup later.

Inspiring!

pfieuw....

maybe this belongs to studio section.... ?!