Shop Standing Desk and Music Organizer

Darren Wright

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Springfield, Missouri
So I was sitting and watching some TED talks the other day when I came across one of the subject of taking a walk for meeting. Lately I've been having more and more back pain and I'm finding it's due to mostly poor posture (slouching), but one of the points the speaker made was that "Sitting is our generation's new smoking". It was enough to get me motivated to try some changes. First most was to stop sitting so much, so I'm starting with my shop desk. A benefit of this is I'm getting my music equipment organized also.

So before the keyboard was on its own stand, my workspace was pretty much cluttered with computers. I use an all-in-one with a second monitor for the shop computer, the one on the left is my security camera monitor, the netbook I'm setting up for taking to the shooting range to snapshot my hits via a webcam on my spotting scope.
2013-12-29 19.31.26.jpg2013-12-29 19.58.33.jpg

I purchased 6 shelf rolling rack from Sams Club, seemed like a good deal ($100) for the size and the fact it had shelf liners to keep small stuff from falling through.
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I ended up cutting a piece of 1/2" MDF as a backer for the shelf holding my computer and extra monitor, I set the height of this shelf at 43" (credit to Brent, same height as his standing desk). The back side of my keyboard is pretty heavy, so I've found I can pull it out to over hang when I use it without it falling out, so this way I can view all of it's controls, then slide it back when not in use.
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Moving the computer and monitor alone cleared up quite a bit of workspace. I still need to organize, but happy with the improvement.
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Here is the new desk, still have a few more pieces of equipment to setup. Have a fatigue mat on order, should be in later this week.
2013-12-29 21.02.39.jpg2013-12-29 21.03.01.jpg

Also played around and did a video of my new Korg nanoKontrol2 midi controller. I'm using it to manage my tracks in my DAW software.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bJ6_X3FwOc
 
Nice setup. The MIDI controller looks like it'd be very handy, too. :thumb:

I've installed Reaper on my laptop, but so far I've not been able to actually record anything. I've not been able to wrap my mind around the audio routing within my laptop. Should be a pretty easy run from the M-Audio USB interface to Reaper, then from Reaper out to the laptop headphone jack (which has the M-Audio studio monitors plugged into it). But for some reason, I'm getting a feedback loop any time I arm a track in Reaper. It's as if Reaper's output is being sent back to the input by the sound card. I'm probably missing something simple, but I finally gave up on it and went the standalone digital multitracker route. I would still like to get Reaper working right, if for no other reason than building drum tracks to dump onto the Tascam.
 
Nice setup. The MIDI controller looks like it'd be very handy, too. :thumb:

I've installed Reaper on my laptop, but so far I've not been able to actually record anything. I've not been able to wrap my mind around the audio routing within my laptop. Should be a pretty easy run from the M-Audio USB interface to Reaper, then from Reaper out to the laptop headphone jack (which has the M-Audio studio monitors plugged into it). But for some reason, I'm getting a feedback loop any time I arm a track in Reaper. It's as if Reaper's output is being sent back to the input by the sound card. I'm probably missing something simple, but I finally gave up on it and went the standalone digital multitracker route. I would still like to get Reaper working right, if for no other reason than building drum tracks to dump onto the Tascam.

I was getting a feedback the other day. I think I had clicked the monitor button (or it was set to auto) and it was looping the audio causing the feedback. I turned off the monitoring and it stopped and I still heard the output through my monitor speakers. I think as far as sending audio to headphones, you may have to listen via the M-Audio's headphone port. I think you can load the Asio4all driver (http://www.asio4all.com/), within its settings (driver settings, not the selections in Reaper) you can specify one device's input and another device's output.

If that doesn't fix it, shoot me a screen shot of your audio settings and we can work it out.
 
I was getting a feedback the other day. I think I had clicked the monitor button (or it was set to auto) and it was looping the audio causing the feedback. I turned off the monitoring and it stopped and I still heard the output through my monitor speakers. I think as far as sending audio to headphones, you may have to listen via the M-Audio's headphone port. I think you can load the Asio4all driver (http://www.asio4all.com/), within its settings (driver settings, not the selections in Reaper) you can specify one device's input and another device's output.

If that doesn't fix it, shoot me a screen shot of your audio settings and we can work it out.

It seemed I was getting the feedback regardless of whether monitoring was on or off. The headpone jack is the only output on the laptop, so that's where I plug in the monitor speakers. I hadn't though about running the monitor speakers off the headphone jack on the M-Audio interface.

If I can't get it to work the next time I'm messing with it, maybe we can just do a TeamViewer remote session and let you poke around and see what I'm doing wrong. ;)
 
I wonder if you have your microphone open on your laptop causing the feedback?

Isn't there an output on your m-audio interface? Ideally, you'd only be using the plug in audio interface for all I/O, bypassing the laptops sound card completely.
 
Brent, the microphone is off. I think the source of my problem is that I've been trying (mistakenly, I'm sure) to use the sound card in the laptop. I need to try the single I/O interface idea. :thumb:

Ted has anyone ever told you you're a wise-ass? :D [fistbump]
 
Aw man, this would have been a perfect opportunity for a drunk octopus...

J7Qz3kL.jpg
 
Aw man, this would have been a perfect opportunity for a drunk octopus...

:rofl:

Well the fatigue mat came in today.
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Also decided to find a useful place to mount my desktop mic. This was a test fit right at face level, and more importantly, off my desktop.
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I've ordered a new shock mount for it as well as a right angle cord so it will fit once I had a solid shelf above.
shockmount.jpg

There will be some woodworking coming up on this project. I'm wanting to put the midi keyboard on a slide-out, thinking about a pull out table on the same unit for smaller devices or just extra work surface. I have screwed the top of the rack to the wall to keep it from toppling over too.
 
Today I've been drawing up a keyboard and work surface/mixer tray insert. My actual keyboard is older and taller, so have some tweaks to do. The rack is 18" wide, but will be using 16" 100lb glides.

Keyboard_Mixer_Pullout.jpgKeyboardPullout.jpgMixer_Pullout.jpg
 
Darren, I just saw the ad for this go by in my email...

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Korg-nanoKONTROL-MIDI-Controller-105154751-i1429426.gc

$9.97 for a $60 - $72 item. :thumb:

Wow, good price. That is the older version though, mine is the nanoKontrol2, but much of the same functionality. For reaper I used a plugin that someone wrote to map things correctly (https://bitbucket.org/Klinkenstecker/csurf_klinke_mcu/overview). I dunno if it will work for that one though. Most say you can use the Mackie controller plugin and it should work, it has quirks with more than one mixer slide being moved at the same time though.

One thing I'd like to change is to make the first slide a master. Currently there is no master control, the 8 sliders represent 8 tracks (if you have that many). If you have more than 8, you use the step button to jump to the next or previous 8. I'm not sure I could make it keep the first one a master and just having it jump 7 tracks with each step instead. I haven't looked at the code yet though.
 
Like the pull out keyboard :thumb:.......:lurk:

Thanks! Been doing some more measuring and I think I only "need" it to come out 12", but I already have some 16" glides, so 16" it will be. Will have to wait until I get a little more heat in the shop, not as cold as it is there, but cold enough to be allergic to it. :)

In the mean time I've been updating the drawing and trying to figure out homes for other pieces of equipment, ones I have and those I still want to buy.

Keyboard_Mixer_Pullout2.jpg
 
Thanks! Been doing some more measuring and I think I only "need" it to come out 12", but I already have some 16" glides, so 16" it will be. Will have to wait until I get a little more heat in the shop, not as cold as it is there, but cold enough to be allergic to it. :)

In the mean time I've been updating the drawing and trying to figure out homes for other pieces of equipment, ones I have and those I still want to buy.

View attachment 80138

Don't know about yours, but I had a Yamaha EX60 and all the jack ports were on the back side, those extra couple of inches might be quite handy.
 
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