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Tripping over headphone wires


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Good evening. I'm new hear and have been reading some of your posts. Great place.

My question is regarding my headphone cords. I have my equipment in front of me and I also move around quite a bit 

getting to some of my gear. I have a problem with my headphone cords always in the way, or if I use longer cords, I am always stepping on them.

Has anyone here ever had this issue and if so how did you deal with it? 

*

By the way, I have several pair of phone at different locations (keyboards, computer and mixer) so that if I'm performing a certain task I have the 

correct set of phones for the purpose. 

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Greetings Chris and welcome to Music Player Network!!! You've found a good place to hang out, share your ideas and learn new things. 

I haven't been here long but I've picked up some awesome tips.

 

I'm more or less an "Army of One" but recently transitioning to tracking music for friends as well. Is you studio for you or do you also work with others?

 

I don't have any idea how your room is laid out but I can share how I've been going about this and what I am planning for the future. 

Currently I'm staying at a friend's vacant house while water damage (broken fire sprinkler on the 3rd floor dripped down to the 1st floor) in my condo is being repaired. 

I have a small studio rig on a card table, the one headphone out is just to my right, the left side is open space. 

 

I sing, play guitar and bass primarily. Sort of a "drum cobbler" at this point, working on improving all of my skills as noted by the results of recording. 

When I'm sitting at my screen/keyboard, the headphones just come from the right and I set them back there. If the cord hits the floor it is not where I will be standing or walking. 

 

When I am tracking vocals or guitar, I put a mic stand behind me on the left (open) side and facing towards the screen. I have my back turned to the headphone output when I use the mic, the headphones are put on from behind me so they are out of my way. 

 

I've got a bit more of a rig at home, when I can move back in I plan on running a cable and 5 channel headphone amp along the left wall and up about 4 feet. Any mic stands will be out away from that wall and aimed towards the headphone amp. Either myself or another artist will wear headphones that go with the cord going behind. That way headphone cords won't be underfoot for the most part. 

 

It's not perfect but it's easy to put the headphone cords behind you if you lay out your room for that idea. It's much better than having them underfoot. Hope this helps!!!

 

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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Thanks for an idea. I never thought about the possible use of a mic stand. I have

a couple that might just be the ticket. I'll give it a try and see. 

I attached a photo of my work space.

I do work alone. I have had a couple of musician friends work with me on a couple of different occasions

and there is an additional desk in the room. There is an additional computer and interface behind me. 

Most of my compositions are audio from the keyboards and some midi instrumentation added. I sequence some of my 

music. 

I don't (can't) sing but at one point I was a pretty fair violinist. 

studio pic.jpg

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OK, your photo and response tell a story that is quite different than mine. Just observation, not critique. 

I don't think what I've suggested above is useful for your workflow. 

 

That said, the two keyboards on the shelves on the left don't look like they are easy to play? My first thought is a keyboard stand for all 4 boards, getting them off the desk and along one wall. 

That doesn't mean I'm right. I've torn my studio apart and put it back together at least 7 times in the last 2-3 years. I've moved it from one room to another because it was quieter. 

I put up guitar hangers on one wall because there were too many guitar stands taking up space. That helped a great deal. 

It took a while to figure out how to have the headphones behind me instead of in front of me, that helped too. Little by little...

Each time, I've made some changes that made it easier to get work done. Evolutionary rather than revolutionary. 

 

Everybody is always welcome on all of the forums on MPN, there are lots of smart, experienced keyboard players in Keyboard Corner.

It is by far the busiest forum on MPN and I'm certain you can get some great advice there on putting a more efficient studio together. 

If you prefer to stay here and chat that's great too!!! Again, welcome to MPN, you found my favorite music forums by far. 

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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Thanks for answering some of my questions. The keyboards on the shelves don't get played. One of them is a 

Roland SH-201 synth, and the other is a Yamaha MM6. I just use the sound modules of each. They are connected

via midi cables and routed to my DAW through a mixer. The room is small but I have found a work flow that is not too

cumbersome. 

I had a thought of putting some hooks in the ceiling with small chains on them, too keep the phone wires out from under my feet. 

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Ceiling hooks is not a bad idea but you'll want wall hooks to hang the headphones out of your way too. That could keep things tidy and easy to use. 

 

Got it on the synths, long ago and far away I owned a keyboard or two. For how little I use them it wasn't worth having so much space taken up. 

I've got a couple of 25 key MDI controllers that I mostly don't use and for guitar a Fishman Triple Play wireless MIDI installed on a favorite guitar - I don't use it much either but it's fun.

All of my "sound modules" are plugins and quite a few of them were free. Since the Triple Play will run 4 sounds at once I have an infinite number of different sounds I can make. 

Of course, one can play a MIDI track using one synth, then copy the MIDI to another track and add another synth so it's pretty easy to get a wide variety of sounds. 

 

Mostly I gravitate towards guitars and basses, I've been playing them for decades, always fun. We are so lucky to live in a time when high quality home recording equipment is easily obtained. 

I remember well using 4 track cassette, not fondly but well. There was a certain discipline that I'm glad I got to understand but it's much better working on music today. I have more options and things are overall much easier and faster. 

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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  • 3 weeks later...

Thanks for the input Bill. I have a set of 5 in. studio monitors that I have used in the past for just this purpose.

The issue is that I live in an apartment and I do quite a bit of my listening at night. I can't get enough volume

out of the monitors to satisfy meaningful examination of the music without sound disturbing my neighbors. I'm afraid it's 

headphones for me, for the foreseeable future.

On Friday's and Saturdays I can crank up my 10 inch Mackie's. 

  

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By the way, the picture I posted is no longer relevant. 

My cat's were wrestling on the top shelves and knock them clean off the wall. They fell onto my monitors, breaking them both,

plus my new Motu interface. I had to buy a new keyboard controller and headphone amp., along with new monitors. 

My cats are "Turkish Van" and each one weighs in at 28 pounds. That's a lot of wrestling on a shelf that already has 

several pounds of equipment on it. 

 

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