u/shogunattila

I’ve had a few studios over the years and even built a floating room-in-a-room once. Now I’m setting up a new space and want to make acoustic panels and bass traps.
While browsing YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok, I noticed a lot of people using recycled denim insulation instead of rockwool. Got me thinking , would it work to just roll up old clothes and stuff them into a frame instead?
I live in Jamaica, where denim insulation and typical acoustic materials are hard to come by, so I’m looking for alternatives. Any constructive ideas or experience with DIY/recycled fill materials would be appreciated.

I found out on my Yamaha reface CP has a hidden trick: if you power it on while the sound selector is sitting between the two first positions, it boots into a piano sound. Feels like a secret menu on a video game console.
Got me wondering what other “cheat codes” are out there on synths, pedals, and other electronic instruments?
Stuff like:
Weird boot-up key combos that unlock hidden modes
Secret factory test screens
Undocumented button holds that reveal extra parameters or voices
Glitches that turned into “features” people use on purpose.
If you’ve got a synth, drum machine, pedal, or module with a hidden trick like this, drop it below. Bonus points if you know why it works (firmware leftover, hardware quirk, etc).

My little collection of hand percussion has quietly taken over my studio. It started with a tambourine and shaker, and now I’ve got claves, agogo bell, a cabasa, shakers, guiro, vibraslap.. and they’re all just piled in a milk crate in the corner. Finding the right one mid-session is a nightmare, and honestly they deserve better than getting crushed under each other.

Here’s what I’ve been looking into, curious what’s actually worked for other people:

Wall-mounted options
• Pegboard with hooks: cheap, flexible, easy to rearrange as the collection grows. Works great for tambourines, shakers with handles, and anything with a natural hanging point.
• French cleat wall panels: more of a woodworking project but you can build custom holders shaped for oddly-sized stuff like agogo bells or guiros.
• Guitar wall hangers repurposed for shakers a lot of people use the soft-grip guitar hangers for maraca-style shakers since the necks fit the same slots.
Shelving/cubby options
• Cubby shelving (like small cube storage units) so each instrument gets its own slot, good if you want a “display wall” look rather than function purely.
• Velvet-lined drawers or foam-cut cases (like pedalboard cases) if you’re precious about the finish on wood instruments like claves or a nice agogo.
Rolling/mobile options
• A rolling cart with small bins, useful if your percussion needs to move between the live room and control room a lot.
• Utility totes with dividers, the kind photographers use for lenses.
Random tips I’ve seen floating around:
• Group by “type of sound” rather than instrument type (shakers together, metal together, wood together) so you can grab-and-go by texture during a session.
• Small instruments like egg shakers and claves tend to vanish into drawers, a shallow open tray keeps them visible.
• If display matters to you (teaching studio, rehearsal space people see), a pegboard with painted silhouettes behind each hook looks great and doubles as an inventory check.
What’s actually working in your space?

Bonus points if you have pics, always curious how other people solve this.

Been obsessing over a very specific aesthetic lately gear that sounds incredible but also just looks like it means something. Here's my current list:

EP-40 Riddim n' Ting by Teenage Engineering at their most ridiculous and brilliant. A reggae sampler the size of a clipboard packed with sounds from iconic producers. Looks like it was designed by NASA for a sound system in Kingston. Absolutely no reason it should exist and I'm so glad it does.

Auratone SC Monitors the ugliest most beautiful little cubes in recording history. Every hit record from the 70s and 80s was checked on these. One 4.5 inch driver, no tweeter, brutal honesty. They look like something your grandfather would use as a paperweight. They will expose every lie in your mix.

Yamaha NS-10M the white woofer. The monitor that made engineers nervous for 40 years. Harsh, unforgiving, legendary. On a console bridge they look like a statement of intent.

Roland TR-808 doesn't need an introduction. That faded cream chassis, the color-coded pads, the handwriting font on the panel. It's a painting that makes music.

Yamaha CS-01 tiny, weird, beautiful. A monophonic synth small enough to wear around your neck with a built-in speaker and a ribbon controller. Looks like a toy, sounds like the future, costs almost nothing vintage.

VU Meters possibly the most satisfying thing to watch in any studio. That needle swinging in real time, warm backlit amber glow, mechanical and alive. Doesn't matter if it's on a vintage console, a standalone unit or a cheap rack piece VU meters make everything feel more real. Analog in the most physical sense. Music you can see.

Lava Lamp non-negotiable. Every serious studio has one. No explanation required.

What's on your dream small studio shelf? The stuff that sounds great but also just belongs in the room.

I have about 5TB of movies and want to watch them on my projector without hooking up my laptop every time. I’ve seen people mention the Xiaomi TV Box paired with a USB-powered hard drive hub as one option but is there something better suited for this?

Also I don’t really want a NAS

Been using the Artlist AI Toolkit for a while now and honestly just camp out on Nano Banana 2 for image editing and Kling 3.0 for video. Between those two I can pretty much handle everything I need.

The toolkit has a ton of other stuff: Veo 3.1, Flux 2.0, GPT Image 1.5, Sora 2, but I haven't felt a strong enough reason to branch out yet.

Curious if anyone's actually putting the other models to work or if most people find their two or three go-tos and just stay there.

Is Veo 3.1 actually worth trying alongside Kling? And does anyone use the voiceover tools or is that still rough around the edges?

Been using the Artlist AI Toolkit for a while now and honestly just camp out on Nano Banana 2 for image editing and Kling 3.0 for video. Between those two I can pretty much handle everything I need.

The toolkit has a ton of other stuff: Veo 3.1, Flux 2.0, GPT Image 1.5, Sora 2, but I haven't felt a strong enough reason to branch out yet.

Curious if anyone's actually putting the other models to work or if most people find their two or three go-tos and just stay there.

Is Veo 3.1 actually worth trying alongside Kling? And does anyone use the voiceover tools or is that still rough around the edges?

Been using the Artlist AI Toolkit for a while now and honestly just camp out on Nano Banana 2 for image editing and Kling 3.0 for video. Between those two I can pretty much handle everything I need.

The toolkit has a ton of other stuff: Veo 3.1, Flux 2.0, GPT Image 1.5, Sora 2, but I haven't felt a strong enough reason to branch out yet.

Curious if anyone's actually putting the other models to work or if most people find their two or three go-tos and just stay there.

Is Veo 3.1 actually worth trying alongside Kling? And does anyone use the voiceover tools or is that still rough around the edges?