How I transformed my attic into a home music studio

[Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so this is my studio it's called the cambium this is where westwood was born and where it's running from and it's the converted top of a house and i think all good studios should have a name even if they're tiny bedroom studios like this one it should have some kind of a name because you know it gives them a bit more of a character and a bit more of a personality and somewhere that you can be a bit more sort of like creative in as well and the cambium comes from it's the it's the name of the layer just beneath the bark of a tree or a plant where you know the plant and the tree are growing and becoming stronger and developing so i thought it was a good name for a studio but also a good name for where like a business is growing and developing as well so the cambium is what it's called so when we moved into this house like my second son was just due to be born i just started westwood so i just shoved everything into this space and just sort of didn't give too much of a thought about it because i had a nursery to paint and another human to get ready for coming into this house so you know and then the start of a business and the start of a new life and all those things got in the way and then obviously the pandemic hit and all those kind of things and it's only now really that like he's almost three my other son's five uh and you know the pandemic slowing down slowly in this country that i kind of had a couple of weeks off to kind of like you know think about this space and like turn it into something i could be proud of once i decided to do it i stripped out all of the the desk and everything that was in it and then like filled the holes in the wall and like you know painted it and then decided like what am i going to do with this space where stuff going to go where am i going to fit stuff where the monitor is going to be where am i going to be sat all those kind of things that you need to decide before you can even start sort of like thinking about furniture so the desk is probably the thing in my my old desk i got more questions about than anything else basically because you know people saw it and they were like where did you get that desk wrong because i have that cut out and everything and the keyboard looked like it was built in and it was like it was it was a really functional desk but if you'd looked from underneath it was an absolute mess it was basically like a yamaha keyboard bolted you know with wood and bolts to the bottom of this desk that i'd you know found from uh somewhere and then the top was this ikea sort of like piece of wood that my dad cut out the keyboard section four and it looked fine from the camera angles that you know i chose to shoot it from but from everywhere else in the studio it just looked like an absolute mess and it was kind of you know it sounds silly but it was getting me down that it was like just it just wasn't this thing that i was happy to sit at and i'm like a firm believer in your environment has to be inspirational to you so i came up with like six sort of like key things that the desk needed to be before like i went in to design it you know just to keep it on track and make sure that i hit these points and the first one was it just had to be ergonomic so like you know us composers we're in that conundrum of like you've got to have a full-size keyboard or some sort of keyboard and then access to the computer keyboard and the mouse at all times as well as other stuff that's on your desk so you're forever hit with this problem of like well how do i manage that and i was always having like back pain at the end of the day just even if you didn't need the keyboard it was still there but you didn't want to you know where where does it go so that was the first one and then the second one was sort of like some sort of like built-in rack space so like you know i've got rack gear that i didn't want the other side of the studio and obviously it makes it a lot easier for cabling if it's all just there and then the next thing it was like modular like you know getting it up into this place i knew i wasn't going to be able to get the full desk in at once being a composer's desk i needed it to fit a full size 88 key keyboard in it as well i didn't want a 61. i didn't want to compromise on that like you know i've been playing piano since i can remember and then the other thing was like some sort of cable management system built in as well so i didn't want to be gaffer taping like cables to the underside of the desk and then the last thing was it just needed to look good like you know i want to come to it every single morning and go like ah this is amazing what a lovely piece of furniture like i'm sat you spend so long sat at your desk and like touching it and being around it that you know he just needs to look good doesn't it so those were the six sort of like concepts for the desk so i started looking at loads of other people's desks just like going through youtube and like trolling other people's sort of like studio pictures just to get some inspiration like john mayer's uh desk setup that he's got where he's just built it himself was really really inspirational just like the whole idea of it and then paul thompson's as well his whole sort of like desk setup was a big sort of inspiration for this and like the first designs were kind of like the keyboards actually like built into the very top of the desk you know flush to the surface and anytime you want access to a full-sized keyboard it's just there but then the more and more thought about it the more i was like well actually how long do you actually you know spend at the desk using a keyboard compared to like a keyboard and mouse and it was probably only about 20 30 of the time i was thinking so anyway we came up with this idea where it's just basically a dry draw i didn't want it on like metal runners where it was going to be loose and every time i see those things it's kind of like you know you can see people playing it and it's moving at the same time i don't want that i want i want it to be solid so we came up with this idea and then you know i drew loads of sketches and kind of like gave him all the measurements for it and then basically just left him to it so the keyboard that's inside it is a doofer pk88 and i thought you know if it's good enough for hands it's good enough for me oh that's a bit of a dodgy question here and i i've played one a few times and i was like yeah it's a solid key bed i don't think it's the world's greatest keyboard but what it is is you can buy them without the uh the casing on them so like you know rather than rip apart an old keyboard or buy a keyboard and have to you know just remove everything else you can buy this one just the key bed on its own and just the pcb module to do exactly what i've done with this but the only problem is with that is there in there's only one place that does them and they're based in germany and at the time i ordered it the uk were in the eu and then i think it was about two months before like they're actually in stock and good to go and by that time the uk had left the eu so i was like right what extra red tape and taxes am i gonna have to pay on this i think it added like another two or three weeks for it to finally come through uh yes i paid the vat on it and then the import tax little bit of import tax and then some ups charges as well so it wasn't too bad but when it arrived like the bottom keys had smashed in transit the top part there was a bit that was missing at the top and i was just like great what we're going to do i phoned them up and they were fine about it sent it back they sent me another one had to pay the extra v80 on top vat twice and then more more duties and all that kind of thing which i'm still trying to sort out with you know with the tax man but you know we'll get there but anyway the the thing finally arrived and i was like yeah we can start going with this whole desk so it all came together the guide built the desk and it was really really good and he helped me kind of like put it into this space and and get it set up and then it was just a case of like you know screwing the keyboard in and the good thing about these as well is that they only use usb so usb for data and power so there's no it's just one cable basically into my computer and then and then that's sorted so the keyboard tray now is just like you know super solid slides away nice and easy when you don't need it and then when you do need it you can just pull it out and it's there ready to go yeah even though it was a long journey to get there like it worked out really good in the end with the acoustics of the room like when we moved in here thought about like you know actually like filling the cavities with like soundproofing and stuff but over the months it's kind of like you know it's quite a quiet neighborhood as it is you get the occasional lawnmower every now and again and but apart from that it's like a really quiet place anyway so i didn't feel the need to do any additional soundproofing in here i don't really do much recording in here so there's no soundproofing in there but with the acoustic treatment you know this room definitely isn't the greatest sounding room because it's an apex ceiling and i'm still working on it the panels behind the speakers are basically acoustic panels and they're really great really nice panels but what i wanted to do was kind of like carry on the wood theme from the desk onto those so i got some timber from like a local timber merch and i wanted to distress it even more i couldn't find any reclaimed wood that was going to do the job so i basically got this wood that was already like exterior treated but i got a hammer to it and a saw and like crowbar and just started smashing it to get that kind of like distressed look out of it and then i found this like jacoby and oak wood stain that had coated it with a couple of coats and then basically just screwed all of the panels to the outside to make it you know i think they look really good it just kind of like i like that frame around the acoustic panels and then i put this beam in over the top of the whole studio and and that's basically it's kind of like two reasons for that really and the first one is that like i need this camera to be over the desk so when i do tutorials and things and videos you can kind of see what's going on there and before i had this really like janky set up with kind of like this tripod and it was just terrible so i put this beam in and drilled loads of holes into it so like i could attach a ball and socket tripod head to it and just move it around depending on what position i wanted it in and now the camera's just permanently welded up there you just put a battery and an sd card hit record and it's set you know focus is set everything is basically good to go and then the second reason for this beam was to put like a cloud up there as well with the apex ceiling there was quite a lot of like fluttery echoes at the top because it was like bouncing off there and i was like i need to get something up there i can't really put anything on the on the sides of the walls because it's quite a tight space as it is and i didn't really want to put any additional treatment on there although i'm still thinking about it we'll still see what happens but this cloud is basically another acoustic panel that i've hung using like a bungee cord to get it really tight up to the ceiling on one side and then just some like paracord on the other side so the panel's kind of like angled away from the desk so anything that's kind of like bouncing off the desk out of the monitors and going up there is kind of like angled away from the listening position and it works really well like it solved quite a lot of issues so with the cabling in the studio obviously there's loads loads of cables in a studio and even though this isn't like the world's biggest studio at all it's really small there's not loads of components there's still like a significant amount of wiring in here and there's kind of like you know there's three types of cabling there's like power there's data and then there's your audio cables as well and obviously you want to try and keep your power away from your audio cables as much and then obviously just to try and make things everything in the studio i wanted to be able to just work with each other and then with all of the audio stuff i just soldered everything from scratch i think with audio cabling like you can solder really easily like i think it was like 12. i was like 12 when my brother taught me how to solder it was one summer and like i was like i want to make a guitar amp so like we found this like circuit design in the back of a magazine i spent all my pocket money on like the mosfet components and the pcbs all the resistors and those kind of stuff he taught me how to solder i found this massive 12-inch guitar speaker and i was like yes this is going to be the louds the world's loudest guitar amp and then like i basically ran out of pocket money to buy the transfer and the transformer was like so expensive i just couldn't couldn't afford it and then it got to the end of the summer and the guitar amp never got built uh it still sat somewhere but like you know at least i learned how to solder and that skill is something that like if you don't know how to do it it's really really simple to teach yourself how to do it and it just makes things easier like you know you can just buy like a bulk load of xlr uh jacks and trs jacks load of cable really really cheaply and then like whenever you need a cable you can just make that yourself or if there's a problem with a cable like you can fix it so i thoroughly recommend like figuring out how to solder because it's such a valuable skill [Music] even in a small home studio so kind of like i worked out exactly what cables needed to go where and then i just set about uh making them and making sure like you know i've got everything in the right place and then it came to actually like you know putting all the cables in and there's kind of like three things you need when it comes to like you know getting cables tidy and that's velcro that is zip ties and that is a label machine you know if you've got those three things you can pretty much get any cable anywhere you need it and and it's going to stay there and then the label machine is just like even like with the few amount of plugs i've got here it's so useful just to label your sockets and label your cables so if there's a problem or you just you're reaching around the back of your desk and you just need to pull something out you just know exactly you know what you are pulling out and you're not going to pull out your computer when you're meant to pull out something else and then i also found these cable trunking for the back of the desk which is really great because like you can put cables in anywhere along the trunking and then this lid snaps shut and everything just stays nice and tidy and then you know if you need to remove anything or change anything it's quite easy just to flip the cover off and just you know get access to it so a couple of other things about the desk is i've just got some hooks on the side uh there's one just for their headphones just they're right there to hand and you're not having to you know just leave them on the floor on the desk and they're getting kicked about and scuffed and then i've got a couple on the side as well for like sort of like patchbay cables xlr cables guitar jacks those kind of things just so you've always got the cables that you need you know just immediately to hand and you're not having to reach into a box to get them in terms of like gear in the studio the main thing is like the imac anything i throw at it it basically gives me back it's it's you know it's just solid timelines and video exports it just spits out really really quickly and never has an issue with those no glitches or anything like that and then in terms of like audio stuff like it's just you know i'm not i'm not the kind of person that writes you know 150 track sort of like symphonies like all of my typically most of my stuff comes in under 16 tracks but either way like you know it's still it still still does really good so tied to the imac is one of these blackmagic ssd docs which has i've got at the moment i've got three four terabyte drives in there one for everything logic so sort of like audio contact libraries uh any sort of like music projects that i'm working on i sat on there i think i might split those eventually so like contact libraries is on one and then audio and projects or on another but for the time being it's working it's working fine and then the other one is like live contact projects for westwood so everything that we've got on there that's live and we're working on currently is on one drive there and then everything the other drive is for media so like stuff like this photographs videos anything that i'm working on uh that's that they all get backed up to a qnap 24 terabyte server that's sat underneath there so the server's kind of like you know like the main archive that everything's on and then anything that i'm working on that's live is on the ssd drives so like if there is a problem that you're working on with one of the ssd drives you've still got sort of like that that redundant copy on the server and the the ssd ssd drives get backed up daily to the server and then overnight the server's backing up to the cloud as well so if this place ever got broken into or there's a fire then everything's you know safe on the cloud and i'm never going to be more than a day behind in terms of like what work has actually been done and then the the imac the ssd dock and the server are all plugged into a ups as well which is a universal power supply and basically in the event of a power failure it will all just switch over to this battery immediately and it'll run that thing will run like 30-40 minutes with everything connected the interface i've got is a apollo x8 and it's like a little bit overkill for this studio like there's you know more in it than i probably need but i kind of like quite having stuff that's future-proof and that like you know i'm going to grow into sort of thing so it's you know it's got four mic pres on there i typically use like two or three at once so i've got loads and then like there's loads of in out as well so just having stuff permanently plugged in to just use is is really really good that's connected to like all the audio stuffs is connected to like a power conditioner at the top so my monitors and everything on that side are just connected to this firm and power conditioner it's nice to have that safety that everything's surge protected and like you know you can turn on the whole rack i can turn on my monitors everything that's in the rack with one flick of a switch so that's that's really useful to have as well the monitors have got our barefoot footprint o2s and these were like a these were a decent investment i was working before on focal uh studio monitors which are okay they're like they sounded really good had this really annoying thing where they the power save just always was cutting out you know especially listening to it low volumes they would just cut out and then you would have to crank up the volume to kind of like kick them back into gear again but the main reason is these barefoots they do sound amazing like you know it feels like a wall of sound in front of you it doesn't sound like two separate monitors it just sounds like it just sounds like sound in front of you and you can kind of like hear everything whether that's a good thing or a bad thing like you know you can hear like everything that's going on in your mix and then in the sample libraries that we're making anyway and the other good thing really is that they sound the same regardless of what like level you're listening to so i listen to stuff at quite a low volume a lot of the time uh and they sound you know with the focals you were starting to lose detail when you would start to you know bring them down to a low level whereas these just it just sounds like everything's quieter which sounds silly but like that's the way monitors should be so like you know i think i'm going to be keeping these monitors for a long long time the monitor controller that i've got the heritage audio baby ram on top and it's like it's it looks like this thing from like some soviet nuclear power station it's like got this massive like knee inspired like knob on the front every single click is exactly the same it's like three decibels increase and it just it's like such a nice thing to use and you can switch like mono you can dim it sort of like you know if you just want to listen to things at a quiet volume and then back up again and then it's got this mute switch for like if you hear the front door going or like you know somebody's calling you you can just mute it really quickly that's just like a really nice thing to use so i'm really pleased with that the barefoots also come with this like little uh it's called like meme technology so you can switch them from sort of like you know the flat response that monitors should be at to sort of like a ns10 sort of like style sort of response and then all the way down to like the little cube speakers that some people use and then up to like a hi-fi speaker so like if you wanted to listen to what it would sound like on a really good hi-fi and that's so useful to not have to have a second pair of monsters here and then just to be able to flick really quickly to what it would sound like through sort of like small radio style speakers it's like been really really good uh to have just you know that on your desktop i've also got this uh corg nano control 2 which is absolute terrible like somebody needs to come up with some sort of like you know midi fader control surface that is just built for us sort of like media and sort of like film composers because this thing like yes it's cheap and yes it's got loads of knobs and sliders on but like it is dog it is absolutely like it works like in the middle like in the middle section of the travel it sort of works and then you get towards the end it's like okay i've got no more i'm pushing it but nothing more is happening and the same at the bottom like okay i'm still traveling down but like it's already at zero like so somebody come up with something good and you know i'm sure i'm sure i'll be the first on the list to buy it microphones i've got uh a neumann tlm 102 which i'm using for sort of like vocal mic on the not for singing i can't sing but for like vocal mic on like the videos and stuff but also it just sounds good on like guitar on piano and on all those kind of things there's no features on it it's sort of like cardioid pattern there's no sort of like pads or anything like that but it just sounds really crisp and really clear so i'm really pleased with that microphone obviously you've got an sm57 locked in your cupboard somewhere if you haven't got one of those just order one online immediately and get it because you'll use that thing forever and then the other two microphones i've got are the octaver mko12s which are like i i got tipped onto these from the recording studio that we use at the nave and these are like russian microphones they're really really low cost i think they're like less than 300 pounds for the pair of them and they just sound super clean like really really nice i can see me using those on lots and lots of things so also on the desk i've got these drawers on the right hand side which i'm really really pleased with i saw these on john meyer's studio walk through and i was like i've got to get me some of those because they look really really cool and they're really heavy they're like solid steel like drawers and i was like these are going to go through the floor they're that heavy but they're really solid and i've just got ones for like you know usb cables and stuff that you need all the time but you don't necessarily want to see and then like one for qatari bits like plectrums and those kind of things and then i've got another one which has got guitar pedals in so like all my most recent guitar pedals that i'm using you know the flavors of the moment are in there i've got a few tape decks in the studio as well like i've got this really old tascam it's really solid it's got line level balanced xlr inputs and outputs on the back as well it records at like two different speeds so you can you can do stuff that's really interesting like that i've got the the tape deck that we recorded all piano on some of the textures on there that's now died the last thing i ever recorded was old piano i don't think i want to fix it i think i just want to say that was the last thing that was recorded on there and and be done with it so now it's just a museum piece uh and then i've got like this uh library of congress c1 tape deck that's just bonkers like there's there's variable speeds on it it sounds like absolutely nuts it's got like a tiny little three and a half mil jack on the side so you've got to deal with that it's also 110 volts so you've got to plug it into this voltage converter to make it work but all that effort is definitely worth it and then i've got this sony reel-to-reel sat behind me as well which is also another nice thing that's got three different tape speeds on there so you can record stuff at full speed and then knock it down all the way really slowly to get some like really interesting textures and stuff so to have that plugged into the interface all the time just to take stuff out to tape and then back on again even if you just record it to tape at the same speed and then play it back in again it's still like still giving you something that plug-in doesn't so i'm really pleased to have that in the studio as well as a tape deck i've also got this boss doctor sample which is probably the whole reason i got into sampling as i bought this thing at university not knowing what it was i think i'd seen it in a like you know mixed mag magazine or something like people using i was like that sounds cool it takes 128 meg smart media card if you've ever seen one of those it's just like nothing else sounds like it's really really fun to play with and i'm going to be putting some samples through that soon i'm sure i've also got a for love or hate of it a clark technic 1176 style compressor and some people hate this thing and other people like you i've seen some tests where you cannot tell the difference between this and a real 1176. i don't know the real 1176 that well to tell you if it's any good or not it's fun to play with does it sound better than a plug-in i have no idea but it is it's great to use it's good on guitars so like i don't know whether it's the units that people have been getting or whether it's just you know they just don't like the brand because it's behringer behind there but for me it's like i don't really own much outboard but it's like a piece that i just wanted just to start playing and experimenting with it and to see if i'd like the idea and it's fun it's just like you know fun to turn knobs again and not have to you know use a mouse and those kind of things so love it or hate it like it's there to stay for a little bit longer the other thing that's in that rack and i was desperate to get this is just a front-facing extension cord because there's so many times you just want to be able to plug something in like you know maybe it's like a new piece of gear you've got or it's a light or it's a phone charger all those kind of things just having just like you know plug sockets available to hand and you don't have to take out an extension lead is really really useful guitar wise like you know i've got a few guitars i am definitely not a guitarist like i can i can hold my own and you know i'm way more comfortable on the piano than i'm a guitar but i like to own guitars so like my favorite is the i've got a fender stratocaster that all my family they all bought me it for my 40th birthday so i was really like i've always wanted like you know a real fender strat and they they all clubbed together and boarded me so that's going to stay like with me forever basically in position number five i only ever use the next position on a fender strat it's just like that is one of the most glorious sounds in the world yes that's definitely an heirloom that i'm going to pass down to my kids i've got a just a old yamaha acoustic that i've had for years and years and years and the mistake i made recently was changing the guitar strings because i like a dark sounding guitar and the strings needed changing just because they were so old they were starting to like you know get that fur on them and they were just nasty so i changed them and now it's now it sounds terrible now it sounds bright and nasty and clean and yeah i'm gonna have to figure if anybody knows how to sort of like dull guitar strings really rapidly uh then let me know i've also got this gretch gym dandy guitar which is like this really cheap guitar it's short scale it sounds dark out the box i've got it open tuned as well so you can just like you know pick it up and play it and just you know just while you're waiting for something to export on the computer you can just pick it up and just and play something cool for a guitar ramp i've got this black star ht5r mark ii i think it is and it's valves all the way through our tubes depending on where you live so it sounds really warm and really like crunchy and nice uh it's got these this really nice uh tone control on it as well i think you can take it from from more of this like fendery sound to more like a marshally sound and it's got this other great thing as well where you can just take a cab simulated di it into your interface it turns off the speaker so it uses all of the the preamp and the and the amp stage of the amp and so you're getting that valve sound but straight into your interface i am a big fan of guitar pedals and i've got a few the favorites are in the drawer at the moment where i keep them and the favorite at the moment i've got a couple which is this brown amplification t4 fuzz pedal i come from an era of bands that like fuzz pedals so like pixies uh sonic youth severedo pavement those kind of vans where it's just like fuzzes at the heart of the guitar signal and then the other one that i've got at the moment is this like uh dark star uh old blood noise endeavors dark star revo pedal you can't get this reverb sound in a plug-in and that's what i like guitar pedals to do really is to one it's it's just cool to be able to just you know experiment and to really quickly dial in sounds without having to use a mouse and get yourself away from the computer screen as well and then the other thing is you know you're getting sounds that you can't get on a computer so guitar pedals are really cool for that and not just for guitars either for like you know reamping stuff through you know strings and we've got this radial reamp box which is great for taking line level stuff out of a computer taking it back down to a guitar pedal sort of like level and then back up again there's this other area to the studio as well on the other side of the house conversion which is just sort of like uh you know where i keep all my camera gear where i do my charging keep lighting stands and microphone stands and loads of boxes with things like you know cables and plug adapters and usb banks and all sorts of old junk in there that you know you never know when you're gonna quite need it so keep it somewhere safe keep it labeled and then you'll have access to it you know whenever you need it i think that's it now with a studio there's not really much more i want to do with it like maybe some more acoustic treatment like when i start listening to these monitors and understanding what they're doing in the room a bit more than yeah some more acoustic treatment but it's a really inspirational place now i think before it was just a white box and it was getting me down because you know you'd come in and there was cables everywhere and it was a mess and it just felt like you know it didn't feel like a place you wanted to be in really it was just not very functional like the desk was shaking and like you know there was stuff everywhere it just wasn't functional was now like you know there's this stuff on silly things like i've got a piece of uh i framed a piece of felt the piece of felt that we used to record upright felt piano an old piano i've got a piece of that and i cut a piece out and stuck it in a frame and stuck it on the side and it's just to remind myself that there are thousands of people out there using this piano and using that sound and that sound that they're using has come from this piece of felt that sat on the side of my studio and it's just a reminder that you know this is the reason i'm doing what i'm doing is to create sound and to create music and to create you know things that other people can use and take into their own studios so that's what i want to do like you know fancy studio monitors and interfaces and stuff they're all cool and useful and nice to have around but i want to collect more memories i don't i'm going to collect guitar pedals you know no doubt about that there will be more gear in this studio but what i want to do is collect more memories and put those in the studio as well so that's it that's the inspiration uh that's it thanks for watching i'm gonna go and play guitar really badly now until my kids come home so i'll see you on the next one take care

Channel: Rob Hill

Views: 34,660

Rating: 4.9143467 out of 5

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Id: 9_ipyFGAxU4

Length: 29min 50sec (1790 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 28 2021