My Small Studio Tour - Music, Photography, Electronics, Art and YouTube
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ส.ค. 2024
- In this video I show you my very small studio that I used for making music, photography, electronics DIY, art and TH-cam. It's really small, but I even managed to fit a photographic darkroom in there! Don't expect pristine uncluttered minimalism, this is an honest tour of how I actually use the studio. It's a multi-function space that is less than ideal, but it can give you ideas about how to work with a small space yourself.
We're moving to a different place now, so I wanted to document the space to show you a behind-the-scenes view of how the space worked in which I made all my videos so far. Things are going to be very different in the new house!
0:00 Intro
1:29 Filming YT videos
3:02 What I have in my studio - overview
5:00 What I don’t have in my studio
5:56 Drawers everywhere
6:13 Essentials: The Sofa
7:20 My Ukuleles
8:01 My Guitars
8:39 Hackintosh
10:09 Mic and overhead filming
11:04 Outboard gear for music
12:36 DIY Modular Synthesiser
13:43 Music gear that doesn’t fit in the studio
14:51 Scanners and Copic markers - art supplies
15:58 Shelf for negatives and cameras
16:32 Tripods light stands and lights
17:56 The darkroom setup
19:23 The biggest problem
21:29 Working with a small studio
22:51 We’re moving - new studio sneak peek
23:00 Outro
Support me on Bandcamp or Ko-fi
If you enjoy what I do you can buy my music on bandcamp:
polarcoaster.bandcamp.com
Or you can support me on Ko-fi!
ko-fi.com/lillyschwartz
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Music
My own, which I make under the name Polarcoaster.
So, if you enjoy my music, subscribe to my music channel: / @polar-coaster
Oh, and let me know if it's getting too eerie 🙃
Recording Equipment
Canon EOS 750D (US) amzn.to/2I8wcxk
GoPro Hero 7 Black (US) amzn.to/2Zjn2EC
iPad Pro (US) amzn.to/2AMjCRl
iPhone 7 (US) amzn.to/2y2fLOs
Zhiyun Smooth 4 stabiliser (US) amzn.to/2QGqGWE
Gooseneck Tablet Holder (US) amzn.to/2ST7llp
ESDDI Ring Light (US) amzn.to/2VNUh2B
Focusrite Scarlett Solo Studio (US) amzn.to/2DagrVv
Rode Video Mic Pro (US) amzn.to/2XV4ijc
Rode VideoMicro (US) amzn.to/2XW9lQ5
✪ Many links I use are affiliate links, so you can support me at no extra cost to you! ✪
Connect with me
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Twitter: / lilschwartzart
Facebook: / lilschwartz - บันเทิง
My "workspace" is also my living room and bedroom! I think "cosy" is the word! 😉🤖🤖
That's exactly the word my husband suggested! I actually lived in dorm rooms that were marginally smaller than that studio! Didn't nearly have the same amount of stuff in them though 😅
This is making me feel a little better about my studio. When my wife comments on the mess, I reply that my ears are blind. I still use my Alesis Microverb III - it gets more use than my Lexicon because it sits better in a mix. The Lex is better as a "feature reverb".
😂 I’m glad it’s relatable. I think a studio that isn’t a mess isn’t really being used. If I start tidying during a project it usually means I’m procrastinating 😅 The Alesid stuff really fits so well into a mix, I love it. I have a Zoom 1201 now as well which I bought for the new studio, but haven’t finished anything with it yet.
I always thought I am a messie, but I see, I am not alone, and btw we are not messies we are only busy with all these toys that highlights our life! The chaos is normal, and dont care about it. As long as you manage the mess a littlebit it is enough. And keep in mind: the more space the possibilities, but also probably more mess possible and this can drive you crazy sometime and make you believe, somedays you hate it all, but next day, everything is fine again......thats live. We are not alone! I like your videos very much, they are outstanding. Keep it up, have fun in your new home. I wait for your new videos. Grüße aus Heidelberg
Definitely, the mess is just an expression of our creativity 😹 sometimes it drives me crazy when it’s too much, but most of the time I can live with it. And frankly I know people who are much worse at keeping order than I am. When I actually have the space to put things away I usually do it. It’s just that in the old studio it was too much hassle especially if I might have to pull the stuff out again 20 minutes later.
I’m glad you enjoy my videos! That’s always nice to hear. I’m already working on the next one!
I definitely identify with the struggles with your space...I just moved into a new place and got my new office/studio space mostly setup and it's amazing having things put away and organized. I still have a lot more to do, but having dedicated workspaces for my various hobbies is awesome. Can't wait to see what you do with yours!
The struggle is real with small spaces! And it makes such a great difference just to have the space to put things away. My new studio is so much better in that respect! It definitely looks less chaotic now 😅 I’ll show it in the next video, so that’s happening very soon. 🎉
As an absolute Messi, I have a pro tip for you. You can easily arrange your resistors, transistors or ceramic capacitors like I did in small plastic bags in a large plastic bag using the search principle. Or you get a folder with trading card inserts, of course only the one where the opening is at the top 😃. A small sticker with the value on it and you have your own component catalogue. Sometimes it can be so easy! It took me almost 45 years to do it like this and I wasted 3 years of searching 😃! As always, greetings from Germany and stay healthy.❤
I actually have a those plastic tray boxes with compartments for the different values. My resistors are all arranged by value, so I can flip through them easily. Just finding those plastic boxes in the drawers can be a tad challenging 😅 maybe I might try something else soon with some 3D printed inserts for one of those IKEA Moppe drawers sets. Still working it out. Maybe that’s why I like SMD soldering. I have a single folder for all my components, very handy.
Love the background music 🎹🙏🙏🙏💕
Oh, I’m glad you like it! If you want to listen to it without the talking, you can find it at polarcoaster.bandcamp.com 😀
@@LillySchwartz Thanks a lot💕
@@LillySchwartz Hi dear Lilly😃 I been to Bandcamp and listened, OMG what a beautiful production, love the tonal creativity, it resonated with my inner core, so much univeral love and light in your music, i bet you are a starseed dear Lilly,..i subscribed on your channel, can´t wait until you get into your new studio for new music to appear, wish you a good summer and health,..Thank´s a lot❤🙏🙏🙏
Thank you so much for your kind words! 🙏 I’m so glad you enjoyed my album! It’s always nice to hear when someone enjoys something I made. Not all of my music is as light hearted as that particular album, but I aim for this kind of feeling when I write new music. 😀
Yeah, that Midiverb is GORGEOUS... I've got a Microverb 2, which I managed to get after they were "cool" but before they were "vintage" and so, at a good price.
I managed to grab mine at a good price too! It’s such a lovely reverb! Sounds just right!
Oh my! So like mine! I have a spouse hunting me down. Clean your space!
Luckily my husband rarely complains unless it gets entirely too chaotic. He can’t really make too much of a fuss when he has piles of books scattered all over the place 😂
Thanks for sharing .. good luck with the new space 👍
Thank you! Much appreciated! 🙏
Hi Lilly, really great to see your studio and thanks for sharing your struggles. Makes me appreciate the fact that even though I'm short on space I don't think I have the same challenges that you face. Living in the middle of the countryside is certainly one great aspect - it's so peaceful here, unless I choose to make it otherwise!
I hope your new place solves many of your issues and that you're both happy there. Looking forward to seeing the updates!
Thanks James! Oh, living in the countryside must be nice! Even the new place is still in the city, but it’s a quiet neighbourhood at least, so it’s much more quiet than our old place. And of course, no upstairs neighbours anymore except the pigeons 😂 the new place definitely solved the space problem. You’ll see it soon, I actually edited this video in the new place already! So nice to finally have more peace and quiet. There is of course also construction noise here because they decided to redo all the sidewalks in the neighbourhood, but it’s far less noisy than having them drill into the adjacent wall! We’ll get to a properly quiet situation eventually!
And I thought I had too may creative interests to pursue! You're amazing Lilly so much talent with so many various aspects of creativity and technology... Good luck with your new home and home studio!
Aww, thank you for the kind word! I do have a few too many interests, I guess 😅 sometimes I spread myself too thin with all the stuff I do, but I enjoy all of it, so I’ll keep doing it! I probably should be careful about adding more creative pursuits though 🙃
@@LillySchwartz This may sound counter intuitive but if your sleeplessness is due in part or mostly to having too many worries, plans and productivity failures about your creative work sometime I find just taking a day or a whole weekend to let go of all these pursuits and just spend time in nature at the beach or in the mountains or even just my backyard just doing nothing and focusing on the joy of simply being feeling my connection and unity with all that is via a meditation or yoga practice or just literally doing nothing other than observing nature around me, helps to keep things in perspective--ultimately this is the true purpose of life and all the creative work that we often obsess over is just the passing afterglow of this truth. Paradoxically doing this often makes me MORE productive ultimately with my creative work.
I definitely can relate to that a lot. I do tend to go through bouts of insomnia when I’m especially creatively inspired. Sometimes I just want to keep on working through my projects and they keep me up at night, filling my head with interesting ideas. I tend to embrace it because then I’m at my most creative. I never found a reliable method to combat the insomnia either. Walking a lot for my photography or exercising or dancing, nature, nothing really helps. Over the last few years I’ve simply accepted it as part of my process. I don’t mind it anymore.
Ah, books and photography, two of the passions in my life! Your studio looks like mad chaos but I’m sure you know exactly where everything is 😊
Haha, I wish. When we packed all the boxes I found a Sega MegaDrive I had completely forgotten about 🤣 Books are wonderful. When I first moved out of my mum's house I wasn't really used to budgeting yet. I may have gone hungry a few times towards the end of the month because I bought far too many books. Now we practically live in a library, it's great. I'm actually thinking of making a Library Tour at some point. It will have to be several videos 😅
You've got an Agfa Clack!! Me too :)
Such a cute camera! I love the odd shape 😀
Interesting! Always fun to get into other people's business, haha. Looking forward to seeing what's ahead. Continued success!
Thanks Uli! I love watching studio tours because it has this Rear Window feel? Peeking into other people’s artistic practice is always fun. And there is always interesting stuff to see! I wanted to document the space too, so that I don’t forget how much better my new studio space is! I have no idea how all my stuff even fit into that tiny room, it’s one of those space bending situations.
Fly on the wall! But with a front row seat. I wish I was as brave/sharing/open. Catch y'all on the next one
I had some initial resistance to it as well, but you get used to sharing stuff on YT. I was already blogging with my cameras before, so it isn’t all that different, just that now the pictures move and I’m talking too 😀 and it’s rewarding! I have a really nice supportive community here. Thanks for watching!
Hi Lilly, it's good to see you back on TH-cam. I'm glad you are finally moving and I hope the new space fits you perfectly. I'm wondering, are you going to have a darkroom in the new space as well?
Hei Karin! The new space is really great, I’m very happy with it and will show it in a video very soon! And yes, there will be a dedicated darkroom! That room still needs a major overhaul though, so it will probably take a while until that’s done! I’m so much looking forward to that though!
@@LillySchwartz Such great news! I can't wait to see your future videos
It’s probably going to appear in the next video already 😀
Just found your channel. I'm also into building electronics and making music so my studio is very similar to yours
Electronics parts all over the place too then? It’s fun, but it gets out of hand quickly 😅
Love your space, and can’t wait to see your new studio once you move.
I work in a print studio, and agree that a good sRGB display is usually good enough for most. The trick is to accurately calibrate the monitor for 80nits brightness. This usually matches pretty well with our Epson inkjet printer.
Will you be setting up a darkroom space in your new abode?
The video is actually a tad misleading, since it was filmed before the move but then I couldn’t edit it because my studio was basically a construction zone for a few months. The new studio is really lovely, I have so much more space now. You’ll probably see a bit of it in the next video. And yes, there will be a dedicated darkroom eventually. That part of the house still needs some renovation though, so it’s probably going to take a while until I can show that part.
I’m really quite impressed with how accurate I can get that sRGB monitor, very close really. I’m glad I went with that one since I shoot primarily in black and white anyway.
I love to see you using an Alesis Midiverb. I owned one (Version II) since the beginning of my "homerecording-journey" in the 80s, but it had some technical problems in the end. When i listen to my old recordings i am always amazed, how good (or should i say "special"?) it sounded. Definitely a good choice! Luckily i kept my old EMU Sampler which i still use (more and more!). These machines also seem to rise in value. Have fun!
It does have such a special sound, there is just something about it! Strange how something a little bit more imperfect like an old reverb unit like that can really work out better in the end. Sits better in the mix too, I think. Good that you held onto your EMU sampler! I always hold onto everything because stuff usually gets more and more expensive to replace.
@@LillySchwartz Yes. Not everything "new" is also "better". By far not! Crazy times, we live in...
I could do without all that contemporary planned obsolescence stuff, that’s for sure. Current products probably won’t last 40 years! What a time to be alive.
nice
Slightly cramped, but I made a lot of cool stuff in my old studio!
Oh wow and I thought my studio is small...but yours is on another level. But mine is full of synthesizers AND books...unfortunately both are great hobbies of myself. 😉
It was just such a Tetris mess! I have books in the new studio now. The entire place is a library practically 😀
@@LillySchwartz Sounds great 😀
I’m not even exaggerating, there are more than 6000 books in this house. We have an upstairs library and a downstairs library and my photo books in my studio 😂 it’s fantastic!
Hi Lilly. Just wanted to say I HV been following your log on the old language forum. I really enjoyed your insights on language learning. Have you continued with your language learning journey or have you moved on from that now?Anyhows wish you all the best and especially with this channel too!
Oh hi Munhu! Wow, the old language learners forum, that brings back memories! I haven’t really kept up with it properly, although every now and then I watch something in French and I still live in Spain, so I get some natural practice, but I haven’t really pushed it any further recently. Right now I’m really pushing on the good old English though, reading loads of classics, writing poetry / lyrics, short stories and even a novel. I have stopped writing in German so that I don’t get so much interference while writing. Going quite deep now and I feel like all my reading has paid off. I guess since English is a second language for me it still counts as language learning? The channel pushes me beyond my comfort zone too, it’s done a thing or two for my pronunciation to edit myself speaking in front of the camera. Kinda Output challenge on steroids! Between that and all the other stuff I do, I barely have time to read or I’d keep up with the French and Spanish a bit better. What are you focusing on at the moment?
Poor launchpads! This dawless movement made them almost obsolete. Right now i look at the dusty shelf with my trusty Launchpad mini collecting dust... Poor little guy! Thanks Lilly, great video
I’m glad you enjoyed it! The Launchpad Pro Mk3 is actually one of my most used pieces of gear! I really like the sequencer in it, so I use it with everything, even the modular. It’s standalone so it works DAWless too. Only thing missing is MPE, so I’ll be all over the MK4 😀
@@LillySchwartz Pro is cool but in my area (Eastern Europe)they sell it for 4 hundreds with extra so it's too much. Still waiting on standalone Launchpad (4 grid Circuit is killing the workflow for me).
Well, now that the Ableton Push has MPE, Novation has to innovate and I bet they’re already working on that frantically anyway. And when the MK4 hits, the MK3s will be cheap and cheerful. Shame that they’re so expensive where you are. I got a lot of mileage out of mine, wrote two albums with it already.
@@LillySchwartz yup, and the prices are crazy, i can see overpricing and sometimes if i can say, underpricing, i bought Donner B-1 for a hundred... Also i still dreaming of a novation groovebox that operates just like a Launchpad with the 8by8 grid only! Let's hope we'll see it one day! When it comes to Push the pricetag of 2 grands is like WHY... Push is awesome but for 2 grands you can buy new laptop, DAW and analog synth like my beloved Minilogue. I know it's all-in-the-box thing but it's huge and take a lot of space. Needles to say i never liked Ableton VST sounds. Also also, will you make a video about your albums and how you made it?
Well, there is an entire computer in push, so it makes sense that it’s expensive. For me there are still some features missing. It’s not truly standalone if it doesn’t have an arranger view. It’s going in the right direction though, so I’m curious where it ends up. The controller version would be quite enough for me, I don’t really do the whole groove box thing. It’s either DAW stuff or all done in the modular. Ableton is definitely the DAW workflow I prefer. I like some of the synth engines, others leave me underwhelmed, but there are always plugins too.
I actually already made one video about how I wrote my first album, Endless Nights? The two albums I wrote with the Launchpad aren’t mixed and mastered yet and I’m not quite done promoting my last album either. I will definitely make some videos about those albums when they come out though! That being said, there will be a bit of a look into my writing process in one of the next videos! That section is already planned and filmed, so I hope it will be ready soon.
Your studio looks like mine.
3D tetris and way too small? 😅
I have the same problem but i have books as well as music gear. Its deciding where to move to before they set out the 15 minute city's
I have a lot of books too, but I purposely kept them out of the studio or I would have ended up with no space for my cameras 😅 finding the right place for us took us many years too, it was really difficult because house prices are so insane around here.
@@LillySchwartz Yes today driving prices up creating debt everywhere. I have even looked at living on a boat, the same a Pink Floyd studio
That's how this entire society is financed, it's insane! I've been brought up never to make any debt, so having a mortgage is really weird for me. Rent is equally insane around here though, so owning makes a lot more financial sense. Did the boat idea work out? I get motion sickness, so boats are a big no for me.
@@LillySchwartz I had a boat in Manchester but it was vandalised. Then I had a small boat on the Island but that was to small. If I did a boat studio i think I would do it on the Norfolk Broads. Like Dave Gilmour's Astoria Recording Studio
Vandalised? That really sucks. I think unless you live there too you’d probably be scared of losing all your gear like that.
Old hipster
🤣 Sure. In the era of selling poverty as minimalism my messy hoarder studio is hip AF.
'Advanced Tetris'...love it, ..my space is sprawling Tetris
Sprawling Tetris sounds like you have a decent amount of space though, that’s great!
@@LillySchwartz the whole flat is the space , that my problem, similarly I haven’t Learned how to put things back so I can actually work…. I like you create artwork, but if I don’t clear the space I can’t paint…😩
@@LillySchwartz hopefully you and your husband will create a workshop in the future in a secure space dedicated to your library and equipment 👾📽️🎥📷📸🎞️📹📼💾🎛️🎚️🎛️🎛️🎛️🎚️📻📹📗📘📙📚📕📚📖📚🗞️📔
Relatable! Luckily there is lots of desk space in the new studio, so I don’t have to put everything away all the time. It’s so much more comfortable!
@@LillySchwartz NICEEEE....hey Lilly, I just saw Suzzane Ciani perform live at Kingsplace, London... amazing, plus we were all were invited to take a picture of her set up, very minimal but intense like a bonsai tree....you would have loved it...great to experience immersive surround sound... plus I got a photo with her , woohooo