Recording Studio Furniture

The standard 19-inch recording studio rack has been a main feature of recording studio furniture for years, but they’re gradually disappearing as software takes over duties for compression and effects units.

If you want a standard rack, these can be purchased quite easily, but I favour building them into a custom desk so that they’re more integrated with the look of the studio and sit nicely next to the mixing console. To achieve this, you just need to buy the rack brackets from a hardware store, making sure they’re the correct dimensions, and sit them 19 inches apart in a structure that’s capable of handling probably around 20-30kg of force.

One item that people often forget about, though, is getting rid of the heat. Don’t enclose your rack, and definitely get some silent fans to vent the air away. There are computer-style fans you can mount in the back to suck air across the units. A bit of DIY skills goes a long way for making racks.

Speaker stands

Monitor stands, on the other hand, are something you should not scrimp on. If you can soffit-mount your monitors in the wall, you might not need monitor stands, but that’s not always possible in small recording studios and home recording studios. When you purchase speaker stands get ones that will decouple the vibration from the speakers and the floor as much as possible.

Other stands

It’s always useful to have a couple of guitar stands available, and spare microphone stands.

Housing the mixing console

If you have a big studio, you’ll probably have a big mixing console such as a Neve, SSL or Euphonix, and it’ll either come with it’s own stand or you’ll go to the expense of making some custom furniture for it. If you have a smaller mixing console then you can either rest it on an existing desk, or you can flush-mount it somehow. Bear in mind you will need some space for a keyboard if you are using software such as Logic or Pro Tools. As with all recording studio equipment and furniture, rattles are extremely annoying so don’t buy cheap furniture that will work itself loose and fall apart.

Generally, one or more monitors will need to sit above the mixing console. There are so many ways to deal with this, it’s impossible to give you a definitive method because it depends on your mixing desk, and budget. So, here’s what to look out for:

If you use one monitor, site it centrally; if you use two, space them equidistance from the mid-point of your near field monitors (you don’t want a monitor off to one side interfering with your stereo perception).

Doing your research

Look at existing recording studio pictures, and online furniture stores. You might find eclectic items of furnishing that can be easily modified to fit your requirements, which then give your studio a little creative edge.