When I was at Europadisk I came into a studio whose layout had been designed by the previous engineer (who had to make compromises to what he actually wanted due to budget constraints) - with a tall desk (you needed to either stand or use a chair with the same height of a bar stool) that only had room for a couple computer monitors (one of them fitting in a sunken well) and a Neve DTC. So the only controls for monitoring directly in front of you were on 16bit digital attenuators. There were a few pieces of rack gear in a tall rack the back of the room, and a Neumann analog transfer console (with lathe controls, analog monitoring controls and a few processors in it) to the right.
I hated the ergonomics there - it was awkward and required a good bit of moving around to do nearly anything. I ended up moving one of the computer monitors (that had just tied to the office database and wasn't actually necessary for mastering) off the desk and put a small rack there with a few analog processors and a simple Coleman monitor controller - helped a lot. But when I moved into my own room I wanted things directly in front of me as much as possible without having a big ol' desk between me and the speakers.
I had seen pics of Ed Littman's and Dave McNair's old studios where they had used a simple 14 space slanted rack by Quiklok for "front and center" and liked the fact that it was both minimalist and inexpensive. Considering my budget at the time I was opening my own place didn't have room to include something like a Sterling Modular desk - and that the size of my room made me want to keep the size of any "desk" smaller as well - made me go with this solution. Since then I've added another lower 10 space rack again by Quiklok to the right to accommodate some additional processors.
Here's a fairly recent shot of me at work:
I just replaced my clunky old DAW desk (to the left) with a sleek minimalist design by Versatables. It's similar to other minimalist DAW stands by Sterling Modular and Sound Anchors - but at half the price and with more off the shelf options. Really nice build quality and quick shipping as well (I got it a week and a half after I placed the order online). I'll try and get some shots of this posted sometime soon.
http://www.versatables.com/pages/products/spacesaver/dfc1103 .php
Anyway - I don't think my desk-less setup is for everyone. Bob Weston (of Chicago Mastering Service) stopped by one day and asked me whether I got a back ache leaning forward to tweak processors - which I don't (with a good bit of thanks to the Aeron chair for this) - but at 5'7" I'm relatively short, I'm skinny, and I tend to be "squirmy," often still sitting like a kid would. I think someone with a bigger frame would often prefer a desk over a setup like mine.
Sometimes I think of changing to a desk myself (I know both Ed Littman and Dave McNair are using Sterling Modular desks now instead of the Quiklok) - but I do in fact like the transparency of the setup (i.e. changing my DAW desk recently to something with a smaller footprint did in fact make a noticeable improvement in my monitoring) - while it still lets me have things in front of me where I want them to be - although admittedly there are times when I have to lean a little further forward to tweak my Sontec (at the top of the center rack) than I would prefer. For now though the money that would possibly go for a custom desk is ear marked for an analog insert controller - which at this time is a much bigger priority - and for now I'm happy with my setup as it is.
Best regards,
Steve Berson