Mobile Setup

In early 2020 with the emergence of the coronavirus, all of our lives were thrown for a loop. I had month’s worth of recording sessions canceled on me almost overnight. I remember leaving my phone in another room and going back to it every few hours to find texts and emails postponing or canceling all the work that I had lined up for the next several months. At first, I started to panic. I took an inventory of all my gear and I was fully prepared to start taking photos to try and sell it all off to pay my bills. A few weeks into the shutdown more and more people started to make music at their homes. With no work and with stimulus and unemployment checks starting to roll out musicians started to be very productive and I got asked to do more and more to do remote mixing and mastering work.

This turned out to be a blessing and was also the spark for my move out here to Portland. I realized I no longer needed to be tied down in one place anymore as long as I could comfortably produce work that was of the same quality as I could at my studio. At the start of the pandemic, it was unclear if I would be able to get into the building that my studio was in so I took a few pieces of gear home with me so I would be able to have a workspace in my apartment. I was able to get to a place where I could mix at home and only go into the studio one or two days a week to check my work on my speakers before sending things off. Now that Im living out here in Portland I still travel every few months to do some recording elsewhere. Just because im not in my studio doesn’t mean all my work has to come to a standstill until I get back.

I put together a solid and reliable mobile rig that works very well for me. I got a pelican 1510 case that fits everything I need in it, the case is small enough for me to bring on flights as a carry on but im still able to get everything I need in it. In my case are my Audeze LCD X headphones which are the best headphones I’ve ever worked on. I’ve had a pretty hard time over the years being able to reliably mix on headphones but these Audeze headphones are amazing, they translate really well and I rely heavily on them whether I’m traveling or not. Next, I have my SSL 2 interface, it’s a small 2x2 bus-powered interface that sounds great. It’s super affordable and suits my travel needs perfectly. At my home mix room in Portland and my overdub studio at 37ft in Boston, I have Universal Audio interfaces but I also have a UAD DSP accelerator that I bring with me when I travel. This allows me to run my beloved UAD plugins no matter where I am and also takes the load off my 2015 MacBook pro that still works great when I’m on the road. Every once in a while ill also bring my IK Multimedia iLoud Micro Monitors These speakers are amazing and I’m seeing them more and more at studios as a second or third set of speakers. I’ve got them set up in my mix room and for the price you really cant beat how good they sound.

I love that technology has afforded us the ability to be able to still be productive while traveling. The power that these inexpensive tools has is unbelievable and i’m still in awe that I can put together a mobile setup for under $5000 that would have rivaled any $250,000+ studio just 15 or 20 years ago.