In this article Julian shares his thoughts on clutter in the studio and how, as well as being mindful of what in his studio does and does not get used and keeping things as minimal as possible, he’s found that introducing additional hardware can make the studio feel less cluttered.

For the last few years, I've been on something of a mission to reduce clutter in my studio. To reduce the burden of things which stand between me and getting stuff done. I’m not the stereotypical hoarder. I don't buy much gear and when I do buy things, I do so with care. It's probably something to do with the way I was brought up, but I feel buyers remorse very keenly if a purchase goes under-used.

As a result from time to time I prowl my studio looking at things and asking myself how often I actually use whatever it might be. I keep stuff because it’s useful day to day (e.g. Austrian Audio Hi-X65s), or because I think it’s cool (e.g. Akai 1/4” reel to reel), or because it’s both (e.g. BAE1073). If it’s none of these it’s probably not staying.

Desk Space

I really value desk space. If something lives on my desk it really has to earn that place. Given the high value of studio space (or residential space) it’s often the case that the value of the square foot of real-estate a piece of gear occupies is far higher than the gear occupying it. Keeping that under-used 24 track machine in your New York studio might not make financial sense. I see my desktop in much the same way. The tabletop of my sit stand desk is valuable to me and hardly anything occupies it full-time beyond a keyboard, a mouse and a notepad.

A good example is a 25 note M-Audio Axiom keyboard controller I’ve had for 20 years. I like it because it has a decent keybed but another big reason it hasn’t been replaced by something more up to date is that the case design means it can stand on its end so I can pop it on the floor next to me when I’m using it and pull it on to the table in front of me when I need it. I’ve tried keyboard drawers, they don’t work for me, and installing a keyboard controller between the qwerty keyboard and the monitor is no solution either. That’s prime real estate!

What Makes Something Clutter?

So what is the problem with clutter? As the name implies, clutter is in your way. It impedes progress. It could be the badly stored box of cables you hit your leg on every time you enter the studio but it can just as easily be the auto update from your printer which has installed itself in your Login Items. It’s all in your way, between you and the task at hand.

So isn’t the perfect solution to go entirely In The Box? Would my perfect studio be a table with just a MacBook Pro and a pair of monitors? Well no. Software is just as capable of getting in the way as hardware, just in a different way. We regularly talk about the benefits of clearing out plugin folders and it has to be said that a messy Desktop on your computer can be just as much of an inconvenience as a mess on the desktop your computer is on.

Advantages Of Hardware

The advantages of software are easy to understand: It’s inexpensive, it can be updated and gain new features over time, It is recallable, it takes up no space. But while the debate between hardware and software is often couched in terms of quality, there is something to be said for hardware beyond agonising over whether an 1176 plugin sounds as good as the hardware. This is where, counterintuitively I think getting more hardware can actually reduce ‘clutter’.

Increasingly I’ve been finding I can make my work environment easier, and my process feel less cluttered by sometimes introducing additional hardware into my studio. For example I’ve started using an ARC Studio in preference over software correction products, and for keyboard sounds I use my Nord Electro in preference to the virtual instrument pianos and organs I have as, although setting it up involves running a USB lead and two audio cables, focussing on a few good choices rather than navigating all the options a plugin library presents might temporarily increase physical clutter, but reduces what I’ll describe here as ‘decision clutter’.

Clarity Of Hardware

Many of the downsides of clutter aren’t about space or tidiness, they are about impeding clarity and decision making. An example of somewhere I prefer hardware to software is in signal routing. I grew up understanding signal flow in terms of cables and consoles and, while much of this has been subsumed into software, or at least software-controlled hardware, if things go wrong I’d rather be tracing cables than poring over a routing matrix. A hangover of this is my preference for audio loopback to be realised in hardware rather than in software.

Dedicated Functionality

Another good example is in my band where, although I know I could achieve much more in my keyboard rig using MainStage and a controller, I’m very reluctant to go down that route as a dedicated instrument gives me most of what I need and whenever I consider addressing the shortcomings of that solution, of which there are a few, I always conclude that it’s not worth the added complexity and, for want of a better word, ‘clutter’ it would add.

Why would I limit my choices by introducing a piece of hardware which by definition will never be as flexible as working in software? I’d say that because reducing choices can be so much more beneficial in terms of productivity and staying in the moment than getting stuck in software induced ‘option-paralysis’.

Visibility

It sounds obvious but it’s worth saying that you can move as many plugins as you like to the favourites section at the top of the plugins list, but they still won’t have the same visibility as that hardware compressor. Even my ancient DBX compressor (no, not a desirable one) has come back out of storage since I’ve had a Carbon, The ease with which hardware inserts can be set up using Avid interfaces compared to other brands is a great example of workflow ‘clutter’. In most interfaces inputs and outputs with the same number usually don’t line up in Pro Tools’ IO Setup…

Using something because it’s what you have available is the best reason I can think of for making a particular equipment choice. Many of us who pre-date DAWs remember the software-free, pre-DAW days fondly not only because of rose-tinted memories of youth but because we had limited gear available but we knew it inside out. While today we have plugins, our relationships with plugins can often be much more superficial.

Tactile Experience

This brings us to the killer feature of hardware - its physicality. For example while the software monitor controller might exist, actually they very good, but without a button to hit it’s nothing. The flexibility of DADman is stellar, but it still needs a MOM to satisfy.

So in my search for a clutter-free studio, to my surprise I’ve concluded (for now) that introducing additional hardware is actually working for me. It has to be the right gear of course. The additional gear is in a rack which is attached to the underside of my sit-stand desk so it rises with the desk. Definitely no extra gear on the table itself. And acknowledging that software clutter is just as debilitating as a messy studio, I’ve managed to free myself of software clutter by making a clean break and abandoning my old studio desktop and moving over to a new, clean, MacBook Pro but rather than retiring the old computer it’s still here and courtesy of my CalDigit Dock I can swap between a clean, ascetic digital life on the new machine and several years of decay and mess on the old machine by simply replugging a thunderbolt cable!

This is just my take and one size definitely doesn’t fit all. Do you like to keep all your options open and maximise choice? Do you hoard gear or are you ultra-disciplined? What about hardware? Do you still use any? Share your choices in the comments.