Studio wiring spreadsheets have saved my life. Also, mark your cables with numbers or symbols and put that in the spreadsheet too. I may have a rat's nest of cables, but I know what plugs into what and how. :)
the worst part is I have proper labeling tape and everything but I switched around my studio so often that I end up using longer cables in longer places in shorter cables and shorter places which means I need to relabel stuff and eventually end up getting lazy Iol
@@RickyTinez That's why symbols are useful. I don't label according to instrument. I use symbols and then if I rewire, I change in the spreadsheet, not on the cable.
Omg, I'm laughing so hard! I thought I was crazy, this is exactly me when redoing the studio..."Why was this plugged into an out??? Wait a minute these connections are not right....did I change this? Wtf did I do...how was this even working before???" Great vid man!
@@RickyTinez Glad I'm not the only one who finds random "midi to output" or "midi to nowhere" cables in my setup. Sometimes making even simple changes can end up somewhere between a wiring diagram and an archeological dig.
I’ve redone my studio so many times! I admit this is part of the pleasure to own a home studio, because redoing/replugging is also rethinking the workflow.
Cable Gnomes man, they come out when no one is about and they love to tangle up neatly laid out wiring and when they get really mischievous they unplug shit and plug in somewhere else... little bastards they are... Damn Cable Gnomes 🖖
Honestly watching your frustration with the MIDI situation grow was catharsis I didn’t know I needed. Worth it at the end though. That jam is exactly how i’d like to get ideas out.
I knew it'd be beneficial leaving it all in there. And u still cut sooner or too haha. It's been a work in progress for about 3 years! There's no such thing as a perfect setup
Real and inspiring..... makes me realize this is just what it takes to leverage a decent personal setup… Put in the time and commit to setup choices and channels. Now to get all my stuff plugged in and turned on ... oh boy. Cheers!
This is awesome, i actually sat through the entire video because i can relate to the tangled web of wires. It's like a mini game during a loading screen before the real fun begins. 😊
Oh shit I met this guy when he was doing a small set at my homie's party years and years ago. Long before I started making music and even longer before my synth obsession. I remember tripping out on all his gear and he was super cool and gave me his Facebook info. This is great to see. Fuckin SUBSCRIBED
I don't even use hardware and watched this video all the way to the end. It's amazing seeing how everyone really have different ways of creating and becoming inspired. This is dope! Got a new subscriber.
Tre! thank you! I love seeing others setups too. In the world of music there's seriously a million ways to get to the one thing we're all trying to do which is make music..
This reminds me of my old setup with all hardware from 1996 to the early 2000's. I feel your pain when dealing with midi . My old setup was MPC 1000xl, Juno 106, Yamaha DJX, Roland Sound Canvass, Roland R5, Yamaha RY30.
I have about a million questions to ask you about the way you did this set up, but I’ll ask Only one here. Where did you get the white shelf that is the right side of your studio? The rest will be more technical, so I may save that for when I’m out for the NAMM show, well, after the show.
And I thought my midi dilema was bad..geez..what a nightmare..but the end result was worth it...everything instantly routed to its own channel..nice. I bet the spiders fell over laughing.
It is oddly satisfying seeing someone else go through the same experience I’ve dealt with in the past. Only because you figured it all out and got it working ;) Nice studio! Glad you’re digging the Pyramid. As you mentioned, once you get into instrument definitions, it’s wonderful to use the five Pyramid encoders to send MIDI cc’s to get more expressive. And that they can change per channel is awesome
Check on the forum under Pyramid definition files. There's already one for Peak as well as tons of others. I put up some for Circuit and Mono Station in case you bring those into the mix as well. Could save that time for more creating!@@RickyTinez
I tend to plan how I want to connect gear on long drives. I'll reason it through aloud to myself. People must think I'm crazy (and they're probably right). Btw I like the sweeping camera at 7:50 haha
Thanks for shooting and posting this! I'm feeling inspired now to configure audio and MIDI for the "orchestra" of synths, controllers and FX sitting around in my space. Just need to cultivate a vision for the music-making capacity of the finished setup, then stoke the intention and start diagramming and cabling...it's do-able, it's do-able, I know it's do-able! I'd definitely be interested in some workflow video. Thanks again!
So much gear I want to try! I've got everything labeled and yet somehow it still gets mixed up. I'm an artist for my day job and the same OCD applies. Painters will clean the studio, rearrange shit, ANYTHING but actually paint. I'm glad I'm not the only one, thanks for sharing your mess.
After being an OTB hardware guy for 15-20 years, I finally gave in and got a really nice computer and am selling off loads of my hardware. I just can’t take all the cables and plugs anymore. Your video made me realize I made the right decision. Lol. (I am keeping my Digitakt and SE-02 and a handful of small things like the PO32 and PO33, and of course guitars and bass, for days I don’t feel like messing with computers).
It's nice to know I'm not alone in the frustration that is setting up a musical environment. Nice vid/studio. I subscribed and look forward to seeing more.
I really appreciate the candidness of this vid. I'm considering options for how to connect a Eurorack and a handful of synths. Considering the SSL Six into my audio interface vs a setup like yours. Trying to avoid the computer as much as possible and want the setup to be something I can use live. Maybe its not a vs, but two ways I may enjoy based on what instruments I use in a mix and where I play them.
so sick enrique! I think a great way to make this better to understand for novices like myself is a signal path diagram that shows all the MIDI In/Out/Thru combinations in a visual aid. I'm definitely going to do this on my own time once I re-watch this, but it would be great to have a diagram that pops up in your videos in-between each step so we can more easily visualize in our heads and follow along. I know that probably takes a bit more editing time but maybe having a B Roll pre/post-filmed where it's just you and a piece of paper could make it easier. (Then just quick-cut between the videos with overlapping audio?) Just a suggestion since you asked at the end haha. Another inspiring studio sesh nonetheless!!!
Hey my new friend! :) .... I would like to ask you about the quality of the audio when you play a session back into your computer with this setup.... Do you adjust the gain/volume of each instrument on the hardware or on the Ableton Software for example? ....I have a similar situation in my studio, where I have quite a few Synthesizer sources all MIDi conected, so controlling isn't the issue, the problem is in the audio quality that I get back from these devices' outs into the PC Audio Interface INS'... Would you know, how to ensure that the audio the computer is receiving is true to device quality and not downsampled or turns out to record poorer quality than expected. My friend, any ideas or hints on how to handle the sound coming into my PC and DAW so that it records without loss in quality....? ...I would greatly respect your reply Ricky. ...As I am struggling to keep my gears noise floor low enough and audio on par with the gear output on the recording in my DAW, Reason BTW. :) ....Ohhh and I like your channel a lot my friend, Thank You.
I want to know more about the shelves you use for your drum machines... those forward tilting shelves! I just spent 2hours in Ikea trying to find anything like it, and the only things I found were display shelves full of strip outlets, but the shelves weren’t for sale! (General retail shelving)
I feel your pain!! I've had to resort to 2 MIDI mergers, an 8 port MIDI thru box and a 2 port MIDI FILTER to integrate my MIDI rig and still be able to play and clock correctly with my equipment. One thing that has really helped me is a detailed Visio diagram PRIOR to changing stuff. The other thing other than not including a THRU port that rags me the most is equipment that is missing the feature/option to DISABLE the retransmission of clock.
Hi Enrique!Great vidéo !We all once face that situation!!! However ,with my little experience,may I suggest you labeled all your cables...it will make your life really...really easier! On amazon,I bought labels done for cables,really useful... If I send you a pix of my studio,you will see that yours is a piece of cake!😄😄😄 I did the same as you for each instrument,channel audio(vintages gears don’t have midi)so I create a template to record them on the fly...that’s pity we CANNOT create an audio customized channel and being able to recall them via the Push during the project...I love your smile when all is working!I got the same!😉
Awesome! thanks for the input. I usually have all my cables labeled, but i haven't redone my studio in ages so from this point on they're ALL going to be labeled lol
Hey Ricky, Maybe this is a dumb question but what person better than you to ask. How do you manage to connect unbalanced outputs , say some synths, into balanced inputs (a mixer, or perhaps an interface)? Is it enough to buy TRS to TS cables or do you need something else in the chain? I’d greatly appreciate your answer as I’m trying to connect some hardware and just found myself in this dilemma. Thanking you in advance!
I was always told that you should try and avoid connecting more than two devices via MIDI Thru...but seems like you got it working without crazy latency. I picked up a used MIO10 for cheap and couldn't be happier.
Yo!!! That is one of the dopest setups Ive ever seen. At the end when all the tracks meters started bouncing...I'm not gonna lie dude I was turned on. LOL! Thanks for all the info
A few observations/recommendations: 1) You're going to want a traditional keyboard controller nearby. I recommend a small synth with a decent octave range such as a Minilogue. It really makes programming the Squarp a LOT quicker and more natural. Sometimes it's faster to just play things in live as well. 2) Get a Midiman 3x8 for $30 on ebay. It's just like that thru box but with 8 outs. 3) If you have midi channels to spare, send as many as you can to the TX.
DWCastillo Good idea. A word to the wise - I wouldn't use a Minilogue for that task, unless Korg has provided an ML firmware update that allows you to disable output of MIDI CC messages, or Squarp provides a per-channel setting to ignore CCs. ML's non-standard CC implementation will drive you crazy a lot faster than brown spider poison. 😱
This is the video i needed. I'm building y setup currently around a Digitakt, & UVI Flacon as a multimbral polysynth on the PC... planning to add some hardware in the future
I enjoyed the entire video and subscribed :) yep , the pyramid has been an amazing investment. After two decades somehow enjoying making music even more :)
ugh midi out to midi out, i always seem to do that somehow. it took me over a year to get the guts to reorganise my studio with the pyramid. i’ve been thinking of doing a similar tour of my technical set up. but i’m not excited to have everyone critiquing my choices! i just think this stuff is useful for people new to it. your journey definitely reminds me of mine... though i had a lot of fretting and yelling on msg boards trying to get the pyramid to behave as expected. yes having everything play and record in its own channel is the bomb, i’m much happier now with the pyramid as my one central sequencer.
Thanks for sharing, im still struggling on trying to figure out if i want to use the seqeuncer on some synths over the pyramid, or just have the pyramid sequence those too.. It's all fine and dandy until i go to sequence mode and im trying to remember what which patterns align with the others haha
I used to use my MPC1000 in the same way as the Pyramid here. But now swopped to Ableton and using the MPC just for live midi and sample playback. The Pyramid looks really nice
poor Orbit gets no love. that was one of the first pieces I bought and sold. Ricky wanna hook it up to the elektrons and see if you can show us any new life with that old dog, or maybe show us why you keep it?
Three quck Q's: Room treatment? Thoughts on power conditioners?? And where the Vinyl at?? I know you got a madd stash somewhere.. Keep up the great work your an inspiration!
I use moving blankets and sounds panels I made awhile back. Power conditioners are s good safety for older gear. Most new gear should be safe! Vinyl is in the other room :)
There’s a certain type of joy from finding you have extra cables spare 😂 also would be curious to see a video on separate channel latency adjustment etc and how you handle it?
I'm just finally watching this now. I love this its so relatable. Do you suppose I could do the same thing with the Digitakt that you are using the Pyramid for? Making it my main sequencer / clock for all hardware?
Here’s my two cents - only use one MIDI thru in a single midi daisy chain. By the time you’re on device 3 or 4 your sync might now be as tight. Daisy chain latency is real.
I loved this video especially with the trial and errors....it makes it that much more authentic! Hey ricky, is your furniture custom made or did you buy most of it from IKEA? I think that would make for a great video for people like myself who live in confined spaces! Awesome video, brother!👍👍🙏
Yes it's the old closet shoe rack thing I forget the name. But I think the newer version is not as wide. Glad you enjoyed watching me go through hell and back lol
hello, very nic self-workshop haha. i have only one question. What is the white stand with tables, is it something customized or is it being sold somewhere? i desperately need something like this! love, thanks.
Do you have your Ableton recording the midi coming from the pyramid or is it all just going to the instruments? I am considering getting a Pyramid but i want to know how I can have my midi backed up in ableton in case I get rid of the pyramid later. Maybe I missed the part where you explained it. Sorry.
So for something like that setup is totally doable. You can have Ableton act as a filter and you can catch the midi before it goes to the instruments! My setup is pyramid straight to synth, and audio straight to Ableton
I suggest doing 'stations' - meaning a rack or a shelf is almost self sufficient system. Everything is connected to patchbay all the time, but you'll have some flexibility to connect into or out. Leave some connection for ins and outs, leave a small empty space to put some ? gear there. For example you could develop a system with 4 track, a patchbay and an assortment of stuff around that shelf. I think I would go with everything that has clock in/out for tape stuff. It could be volcas, Ops, etc. But still I might leave some space for ? piece like lead synth ( BS2 or similar ), a stompbox or whatever. You can mount Patchbays like this : || SYN SYN SYN 4 TR || ______________________________________________ 000pBaySystem000||00pBayRec/Proccess00 || ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- || SYN ???? ????? FX || Hope you can decipher the diagram. Rec/Process goes into main system if need be. On the other hand, you might just use Push2 and ableton
Yo' I don't know if you mentioned it because I was cleaning my room while watching this but what power conditioner or how do you have all your stuff plugged to the electricity? I used to have a Furman but someone at a studio told me that the furman "that's just a fancy power strip."
Isn't that essentially what most power conditioners are? Some of the higher furman stuff should be okay. Honestly for the longest time I ran everything off of two power strips that were Daisy Chained and I never had an issue. But in the case of my studio now I have a generic Guitar Center brand power conditioner.
@@RickyTinez Yeah, that's what I told him but he said some things about "na, the component regulates with a big ass coil that blah blah blah, no noise, no static, no floor, I don't know man. I have my stuff plugged to a blocky thing with a antother blocky thing.
@@RickyTinez Right? I was just cleaning and re-arranging the studio this weekend and found all kinds of questionable cabling choices. It's almost like it's a reflection on my life! :P
Awesome setup for sure, but I would rack my brain over the connections. I couldn't be efficient in making tracks with so many choices. Regardless of that, you have some excellent gear man!
Great set up though i still wondering how you get just right the latency of all your machines i have a few machines set up my self and cna never get them perfectly synced up with eachother using the ableton delay track time... they are almost perfectly aligned but not exactly... wondering if your set up is exactly on the grid in ableton as well?? and how you go about with it'?
I can align it to the grid, all i'd need to do is adjust the latency for the pyramid's clock and all should fall relatively into place. I'm not the biggest snob on needing to have everything within a nano second on/off but i don't mind it being that way either lol
@@RickyTinez yeah mine is aligned too between the machines their clocked pretty good not exactly on the dot but they are in sync its in ableton that they aren't on the grid at all... sux cuz it means i can't sync maybe a sample from ableton or something like that plus to get the sends from ableton to my hardware its a bitch if i want to patch up with the patch bay a distortion or something and have it on a send/return on ableton so i can choose what synths and drum machines to send to the same distortion from ableton its not in sync and i can't seem to get that to sync with the rest :(...
i acquired all the hardware by waiting for deals and only spending money on what i need. I do work in the music industry to but that has been little to no help haha.
Love it. The real life world of midi hell we all go through....ha. As a keyboard player, I am really curious if you could play in chords using a midi keyboard connected to the Squarp and/or the Digitakt and record sequences: avoiding step or note input? Always loved having not perfectly quantized melodies; keeping it loose. Thx!!
You can record chords into both easily! The down side if the digitakt is that it can only support 4 notes per step.. the pyramid is essentially endless polyphony. Both can be unquantized
@@RickyTinez Thanks!! I just received my Digitakt today and will hook up my keystep to it.....will be fun to sequence various HW synths i have. I can see a Squarp in my future.
Yo, peace love the channel question..I have A few things like volca, a pocket operator and kaossilator which has midi along with my midi controller mpk 49. I bought a interface (scarlett 2i2) but know there aren't enough inputs for all. (Also having a dj set up, with a rane 62 mixer) I do have ableton. I just don't know where to go from here, and would using the interface along with a splitter something that works together? Or could be enough.dont know if a small mixer or a patchbay would be where to go next. Cant find anything on this. Any help is appreciated. Thanks
Don't get me wrong: I think having all this gear and making it all work together is totally rad, and I'm glad someone in the world works this way. That being said, I pray my setup never looks like this. I've got my laptop, my interface, and my Push and I'm set. This is so cool though.
iPad Pro and hardware. The Auxy app does midi out on multiple channels to hardware so just do a midi chain thru with pyramid with a drum machine and a couple of synths ...Peace Christo 👽🐕🎶
@@RickyTinez I'm really curious how you use compression in your workflow. Because, when you buy a daw-less setup (let's say, digitakt/digitone) it will sound great in your headphones... BUT,... once you try to record, everything ends up being muddy. This aspect, compression and mixing is something that I think would be super interesting for a new video... thanks!
#Inspired #needmoreinput 😅I want to get away from the computer can you set this up using a mpc2000xl or 2500 as master /master sequencer ? I don’t have the money for a pyramid. I want to use what I have , thoughts 💭?
Very cool setup, I was wondering what you would do with something like a monostation or circuit where the midi channel is fixed, how do you overcome that? Or would you just receive clock on them and use the sequencer.
But for argument sake let's say it was locked. You could have the Circuit on Output A and CMS on Output B for midi messages. Or they even sell channel switchers and routers which can get expensive also. But your best bet if you have a laptop would to Send them Midi over USB from ableton, which you can grab for other midi channels on the pyramid or any other sequencer. it'd look like this. Pyramid Midi out A channel 5 --> Ableton track 1 | midi from pyramid channel 5 | midi to Circuit USB channel 1 Pyramid Midi out A channel 6 --> Ableton track 2 | midi from pyramid channel 6 | midi to Circuit USB channel 2 Pyramid Midi out A channel 7 --> Ableton track 3 | midi from pyramid channel 7 | midi to CMS USB channel 1 Pyramid Midi out A channel 8 --> Ableton track 4 | midi from pyramid channel 8 | midi to Circuit USB channel 2 Does that make sense?
Cheers to you both for the info yes it makes sense I've used the midi routing ableton still trying to get my head around that when playing with soft synths. I'll give it ago tonight
At the end when all the audio is coming into the computer. How is that happening? Followed the whole midi setup. Just missed how the audio is coming into the computer. Going to go watch that pyramid video now you mentioned at the start of this one.
What's up Royal, All audio is ran into a Clarett 8Pre and a Octopre Dynamic which gives me 16 mono inputs or 8 stereo inputs. Those are all routed into their own channels within Ableton.
