From Looking Good to Working Well: Redesigning for Usability

When I originally set up my studio, I focused almost entirely on how it looked. Visually, I liked it—but in practice, it was nearly unusable.

As I mentioned in the previous post, part of the problem was that I didn’t yet understand the best way to actually use the gear I had. As a result, instruments ended up scattered throughout the room in places that made very little sense from a workflow standpoint.

At one point, I had the Maschine+ on the far-left back shelf, the Komplete Kontrol keyboard on a middle shelf along the center of the back wall, and the Maschine Jam on the far-right shelving. These three pieces of gear are designed to work together—yet to use them, I had to walk around a drum set just to move from one to the other. It wasn’t practical, and it certainly wasn’t encouraging me to sit down and work.

Shifting the Focus to Function

When I redesigned the studio, I made a conscious decision to focus on usability first.

I moved my Native Instruments setup to my main desk, reorganized the shelves with space and workflow in mind, and made sure everything was properly lit. It made no sense to me to place synthesizers full of sliders and knobs on dark shelves tucked away in shadow—especially knowing that, realistically, I wouldn’t be able to read anything on them.

This second redesign wasn’t quick, and it definitely wasn’t perfect. I made plenty of decisions that didn’t work as intended and had to be corrected as the studio continued to evolve. But this time around, the guiding principle wasn’t aesthetics—it was function.

Redesign Takes Time—Sometimes Years

The main bulk of this redesign happened between 2022 and 2023, with additional changes on and off during 2025. I’m fairly certain there will still be finishing touches happening in 2026.

That timeline might sound long, but it reflects something important: organizing, planning, and executing a studio redesign—especially one built around unfamiliar gear—takes time.

What I learned is that you don’t really understand how a studio should be laid out until you live in it.

Living With the Gear Teaches You How You Work

It’s only through daily use—teaching, recording, programming, experimenting—that you begin to understand how you naturally interact with your tools. That understanding is what ultimately tells you where things should live in the studio.

This isn’t a new idea. Everyone knows this in theory. But this was the first time I truly saw it play out in practice.

Much of the gear I was working with was still relatively new to me. I simply hadn’t lived with it long enough to make wise layout decisions right from the start. All I knew during the redesign was that I wanted to prioritize productivity instead of just stacking gear neatly on shelves.

Three Ways to Think About Studio Layout

During this process, I also became more aware of a broader design question that many studio owners face:

Do you want an “instant-on” studio, or a selective-use studio?

• Instant-on studios are fully connected setups where everything is ready to go at the flip of a power switch.
  
• Selective-use studios involve choosing one piece of gear at a time, setting it up, and focusing solely on that instrument.
  
• A hybrid approach combines both—some gear is always connected and ready, while other instruments are stored and brought out as needed.
  

There’s a lot of validity to the second approach. It often means less cabling, fewer technical issues, and more focus because you’re not surrounded by every option at once.

Looking back, a hybrid setup would have solved many of the problems I was running into early on.

Choosing Fun Over Efficiency (For Now)

That said, I’ve been—and still am—drawn to the instant-on approach, where everything is connected and ready to go. I can’t honestly say it’s more productive, but it is a lot of fun.

And ultimately, that’s been a recurring theme throughout this series: the studio doesn’t just exist to be efficient—it exists to invite you in, keep you engaged, and make you want to create.

For me, this redesign marked the point where the studio stopped being something that merely looked good and started becoming a space that truly worked.