Designing A Studio Desk

Dave's Desires

First off, I wanted to be able to hear monitors, any and all monitors that I might choose to test or use. So, no tall equipment racks. Except for the meter bridge, the highest level of the desk had to be thirty inches. I wanted all the rack-mount stuff to fit in the desk. I wanted the computers and drives enclosed so that I didn't have to listen to them whine their miserable little digital songs! I didn't want computer monitors to screw up visual sight lines. I wanted console and synth keyboard and computer keyboards/mice to all fall to hand while I was sitting on the median plane at the desk.

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Meanwhile, I wanted flat open work surfaces on which I could spread out paperwork, as well as the stray piece of extra gear on loan. I wanted to be able to see all the racks and easily get at them. I wanted also to be able to quickly and easily get at the back of everything, for maintenance, trouble-shooting, and the myriad adjustments that are always necessary.

Dave's Space (No Comments Needed)

In my case, I devoted substantial real estate to the control room (see Starting Over I and Starting Over II, March and April, 1994), so I ended up with a median plane about 26 feet long. Part of my plan was to have the control room stand in for a conventional home living room listening environment as much as possible, so no soffitted speakers, no trick diffusers or bass traps, nothing outside of standard well-executed residential home construction techniques.

However, even 26 feet turned out to not be very much, if I wanted to be able to use free-standing speakers. About 13 of the 26 feet are used up as open space (main monitors are currently about 5 1/2 feet out into the room, and the front of the main listening couch is about 10 1/2 feet out into the room. I also needed six feet out from the back wall to accommodate a writing desk and a second listening couch along the wall, plus a walk-through aisle. This left me with a physical depth available for the desk plus seating of about six feet. Fortunately, I had plenty of side room to play with, so I ended up making the whole thing about 12 feet wide (faithful and attentive readers will recall that there used to be a big wet bar in this room - my ex-wife June, with considerable merit, christened the studio desk "Bar II.")

Bar II Itself

I'm really proud of Bar II, but the real reason for describing it here is to give you ideas to use in solving your own layout problems. Enjoy!

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The desk itself is laid out in a fairly shallow U shape, and is actually three separate pieces. The center piece holds the console, the synth keyboard, computer keyboards and mice, power supply and power amp, plus the meter bridge (highest point - 38 inches). What I'm particularly happy about in this part of the design is the synth tray, a sliding glass shelf that is mounted just above the console control surface. With the synth on it I can easily get at the synth for playing, while still being able to get at console fader levels and panning, and with only a little trouble I can use the eq and master section. For mixdown, the whole thing comes out in about a minute. Underneath the console is a very shallow shelf that holds the mouse and computer keyboard, which in use I can either place on the console or in my lap (I usually prefer the latter). The mouse is both really handy and out of the way where it is.

The left hand wing includes a shallow, glass-covered bay that holds a turntable, portable DAT, and miscellaneous bits and pieces. The front of the bay is open for access, and the glass cover swings open and will drop down into a well, out of the way. Below the bay is a vertical rack that carries digital and MIDI interfaces, cassette and DAT recorders, plus a CD player. Wrapped around further to the left is another vertical 19" rack big enough to handle four (Yessss!) 8-track MDM recorders. The top of all of this is twenty gloriously open square feet of work surface. Inside the wing are several compartments with rear access doors. The diagonal interior compartment houses a Macintosh Quadra 650 with outboard hard drives. I am working on a hanger system to suspend these units in the bay with rubber hangers for acoustical isolation. To date, cooling has not been a problem. If and when it becomes one, I'll install forced, baffled cooling through the base of the desk.

The right hand wing is a mirror of the left hand wing, but with provision for outboard racks, test gear, and the patch bay and punch blocks. I'm particular proud of the implementation of the racks: the racks themselves are laid in on diagonal slopes, with removable glass covers set into the desk top above them. These leave another huge area of work surface, while still permitting me to see the racks and get at them easily. The setup has the added benefit of reducing the crud and dust ending up on the rack faces. The wiring harness (currently being built) will run to the front bottom of each rack assembly and then back to access ports between the bays at the back of the desk. Each rack is hinged at the bottom so that the entire rack can be pulled up (and even laid all the way over onto its face) for quick 'n easy access to the back. Hidden in the diagonal bay of this wing are the punch blocks for the wiring harness and an IBM PC clone which I use for TEF operations. All told, there is room for up to 29 single-rack-unit items. Enuf, I hope!

Oh, yes, the computer monitors. They are on adjustable swivel mounts (made by Rubbermaid) mounted to the back of the left and right wings. When I'm using one, I can pull it to where it is convenient. When it is not in use, I simply swing it back and out of the way. Neither monitor interferes with listening sight lines, nor takes up any desk real estate. Way cool.

Servicing The Hardware

All of the interior bays will be fitted with service lights and extensive power strips. The back of the center unit also opens for access to the patch bay of the console and the power amps. AC comes from a hatch in the floor (I've made provision for two 20 amp electrical service branches, one of which will be for computers 'n lights and the other for audio). Because all of the audio gear is running off a single branch and I'm out in the woods, I expect neither grounding nor RF problems. In support of this, my last measurement with the TEF showed hum and noise in the console to be more than 100 dB below clipping. Yessss!!

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