Oh shit, Sam Ash music stores are all closing. Literally the end of an era; they've been around for 100 years!
Most of us who've been doing this music thing for years have bought something from a Sam Ash store in person or online at some point. Pore one out, I guess...
Studio Update: A few weeks ago I was soliciting opinions about whether or not to get a Mac Mini to replace my ailing, nearly decade-old PC.
Opinions differed, leaning toward "yes but get more RAM than base model" and I had just about decided not to do it when I stumbled on a good video from a music tech vlogger I really like (video here: https://youtu.be/obkCMxaIIFM) who did exactly what I was thinking and had great results.
My collection of mostly crappy pedals! Nothing too exciting here, mostly stuff I bought because it was cheap. A few classics (Boss DS1 distortion, original Korg KAOSS Pad), some home studio workhorses (Alesis NanoCompressor, Zoom MS-70CDR), one boutique pedal (Catalinbread Echorec), and a couple weird old junky pedals from the dawn of the digital age (Zoom 505 Guitar, Yamaha GW-10).
Spent 8+ hours today putting my studio together (haven't had time to work on it for weeks) and I've got it like 85% of the way finished. The only substantial task that's left is figuring out the MIDI routing; apart from that is just a little cleanup and organization, which will probably be an ongoing task for a while.
Today was all about hooking up my patchbays, which was A LOT. 5 synthesizers, 1 drum machine, the modular, 4 vintage FX units, and 5 tape machines are now all wired up.
There's still a fair bit that isn't wired in, including the 0-Coast, Strega and Terra. Those are all either small enough or weird enough or both that, in my mind, it makes more sense to just plug them into the front of the patch bay as needed. I have enough slots left that I could hook them into the back but it just doesn't feel worth the effort. If I change my mind, I'll have some hours of crawling around on the floor and cursing in my future 😅
I've also got 2 more drum machines, a half dozen effects pedals, a 4-track cassette recorder, an 8-track recorder (which may not even work but it sure looks cool in any case 😅) and a bunch of other weird shit but again, it's easy enough to just grab those things and plug them into the front of the patchbays as needed. Otherwise I'd need at least one more patchbay and another $200 worth of cables and a lot more patience...
MIDI routing should be relatively simple. I'll probably just plug everything in via USB (via a hub) and call it good, but I might end up hooking up at least some via traditional 5 pin MIDI if any of them act up while hooked up via USB MIDI. Guess we'll see.
If I wasn't a dirtbag who was inhumanly comfortable living amid utter chaos, I'd spend a day doing cable management. But doing that would be worse for my sanity than just ignoring it, so no.