Planning, Not Planning, and Everything in Between
In earlier posts, I’ve talked about the importance of having a plan when designing a studio. In others, I’ve suggested that sometimes plans don’t work out—or that not having a plan at all can lead to good results too. I realize that sounds like a mixed bag of advice, so I want to take a moment to explain what I mean by that, based on my own experience.
When you’re first looking at an empty room and imagining it as your future studio, planning feels natural. You start visualizing desks here, instruments there, shelves along one wall, maybe a mixing console in a corner. You grab a pen and paper, sketch out the room, measure dimensions, and start placing things where you think they’ll work best.
That’s exactly how I started.
When Planning Works
In my case, that initial planning stage was essential. It’s how I figured out where the piano would go, where my two production desks would live, and where the drum set made the most sense. I looked at the room, thought about how much space each area would need, measured everything carefully, and adjusted the layout on paper until I found something that felt right.
That part of the process worked very well for me. It gave the studio a foundation and helped me make sense of the room before a single piece of gear was moved in.
When Plans Change
I’ve also talked about how my original idea for the synth wall was to build a large modular system. That plan was based on inspiration—modular looked fun in the videos I was watching, and honestly, that’s not a bad reason to be interested in something creative.
But fairly quickly, that plan started to fall apart.
I picked up other instruments that didn’t really fit into that modular-focused idea, and suddenly the original plan didn’t make much sense anymore. That’s when I had to change direction. Sometimes plans don’t fail because they’re bad—they fail because circumstances change.
When Not Having a Plan Becomes the Plan
The third phase—and the most surprising one for me—was when I stopped planning certain parts altogether.
I knew where the piano, desks, and drum set would go, and that was enough to get things started. But beyond that, especially with the synth wall, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I had a shelving system on the back wall and a growing collection of gear, but no clear idea how it would all fit together.
That lack of planning led to a lot of hands-on experimentation:
- Shelves were moved repeatedly
- Rack units were built, discarded, and rebuilt
- Lighting was adjusted and readjusted
- Layouts that seemed “okay” were eventually replaced by ones that felt right
Some of the best results came from things that didn’t work the first—or even second—time.
Learning Through Doing
Looking back, many of the decisions that shaped my studio came from trial and error rather than careful design. Building three rack units I never ended up using directly led to the final rack unit that I now love. An awkward mixer placement—caused simply because I couldn’t find the right TRS snake at the time—eventually led me to discover and adopt a patchbay, which turned out to be one of the best workflow decisions I’ve made.
Those solutions didn’t come from planning. They came from living in the space and working through problems as they appeared.
Constraints Shape Creativity
Another important factor was limitation. During the pandemic, certain gear and even basic studio supplies like cables were either unavailable or too expensive. That forced compromises. Some ideas had to wait. Others were rethought entirely.
Later on, when resources became available again, those postponed ideas could finally be explored. By that point, though, I had more experience—and that experience shaped how the studio evolved.
A Blend That Worked for Me
In the end, my studio came together through a combination of three things:
- Initial planning that established the core layout
- Changing plans as new gear and new realities entered the picture
- Hands-on experimentation that revealed what actually worked in practice
That combination is what led me to a studio that, at this point, feels very close to my ideal setup.
Still a Work in Progress
That said, the studio isn’t “finished.” There’s still work to be done in 2026, and some areas aren’t fully resolved yet—partly because new gear will be arriving. When that happens, things will shift again, probably like a game of Tetris, until everything finds its place.
And honestly, I’m looking forward to that.
Planning vs. Experience
If there’s a takeaway here, it’s this: you can plan a lot of your studio with pen and paper, and you probably should. But there are aspects of studio design that only reveal themselves through hands-on experience.
That approach won’t work for everyone—but it worked for me. I needed to touch things, move them, try ideas that failed, and discover what felt right through use. A purely academic approach, in my case, wouldn’t have led to the same result.
For me, it was the mix of planning and exploration that made all the difference.
