After a week of vacation and a couple days of unhappy sickness, I am aching to get back to the studio. My basics are in place and I’m ready to start laying the groundwork for a project or two. A lot of the early work has been setup, especially figuring out how to get the multitracker and mixer – the ersatz heart of the operation – in a prominent position. See, everything has to plug into the heart, and lead out to microphones, amplifiers, or direct to certain instruments. In between there are various bits and pieces of equipment. A little tube emulator, a hum canceller, a compressor, a general digital effects box, and assorted other nonsense. Then there are two sets of monitors and a few other pieces that need to be nearby for output like a cassette deck and a DAT recorder. And don’t forget the headphones. All this is next to my big ol’ PC.

The big problem is that all these connections have to pass right through the “living space” of the studio…and we’re talking a lot of cables. So I’ve come up with a system for suspending cables using some chain usually used to hang planters, some lamp chain, some plastic circles from scarves and another from a kid’s magic trick, aluminum hangers, rubber-coated steel screw hooks, smaller, uncoated screw hooks, wood screws, bent forks, garden twine, eye hooks, magnets, shower curtain clips, push pins, and a chunk of wood from an old mass market retail wine display.