Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Bender Mastering]

Hello everyone, I've got a quick question for all of you who have your studios at your home/house.

I finally have the chance to move to a new room on my house, specially built for this purpose.

My question is related to working at home, is it hard? Don't you get tired being all day at home? How have you dealt with this issue in the beginning? And what about the distractions?

Please share your experiences...

[MoreSpaceEcho]

my studio's in my loft. i love it. i roll out of bed, walk into the studio, turn everything on and go make coffee. do some surfing/emails over breakfast and then go to work.

being home all day doesn't bother me at all...if you're the type who gets a little stir crazy you can always go for a walk or something.

[Thomas W. Bethel]

Working at home sure beats the alternatives like driving in rush hour traffic, paying high prices for lunch and dinner out at a restaurant, spending more time commuting than working....etc. etc.

I have been doing the working at home gig for 15 going on 16 years. I would not trade if for the rat race of driving into the city everyday.

I have four interns working here so it is never dull.

Do it you will not be disappointed.

[carlsaff]

For me, for now, it's the only way to fly, and no regrets. I have a son with autism, and being able to spend more time at home (versus potentially hours of commuting time each week, which is how I spent the first 5 years of his life) has really made a significant difference in my family's happiness and well-being.

True, I have to shut my family out to an extent to get work done... but as soon as I am done, I'm right there with them. It's the best.

[Macc]

MoreSpaceEcho wrote on Wed, 08 December 2010 18:37

my studio's in my loft. i love it. i roll out of bed, walk into the studio, turn everything on and go make coffee. do some surfing/emails over breakfast and then go to work. being home all day doesn't bother me at all...if you're the type who gets a little stir crazy you can always go for a walk or something.

I could have written that

My studio is in a sort-of-separate building at the back, so it takes me three seconds to get to work - but once I am in there I am in 'work mode'. No TV/internet/etc. I keep the Blackberry with me so I can catch and answer urgent mails, but that's it.

I live by myself which on the one hand makes it easier to get stuff done, and on the other makes it harder to be strict about having proper weekends/days off etc. But I wouldn't change anything... after pretty much a year of it I am totally and utterly happy with life at the moment

[jdg]

i've done both and like both. (right now, studio is offsite)

best would be a detached studio on property.

[Jerry Tubb]

Naturally having the studio at home would certainly cut waaay down on the overhead costs.

Another biggy is "how many of your sessions are attended?"
Do you really enjoy having clients at your home much of the day and into the night.

The nice thing about having them separate is:

"when you're at studio, you're working. when you're at home, you're relaxing."

Cheers, JT

[Silvertone]

Jerry Tubb wrote on Wed, 08 December 2010 21:06

Naturally having the studio at home would certainly cut waaay down on the overhead costs. Another biggy is "how many of your sessions are attended?" Do you really enjoy having clients at your home much of the day and into the night. The nice thing about having them separate is: "when you're at studio, you're working. when you're at home, you're relaxing." Cheers, JT

Agreed.  I can get a bit stir buggy working from home.  And when my wife has friends at the pool it can get a little "man I want to be out there, not in here".  But the best part is when it's 10 degrees below zero with 3 feet of snow, I know I only have to walk 40 feet to get to work! Or if I'm getting a bit stressed I can take the dog to the ADK trail down the street and hike the mountains a bit.

As for attended... I keep bankers hours and don't work into the night.  That's my time, as are the weekends.  Now if I choose to go back up to the studio and record that's my choice, on my time, for fun.

Clients love coming here by the way... if my wife is home they'll get lunch and sometimes dinner!

I went the way of low overhead to no overhead 10 years ago as I knew it would be one way to help survive in an otherwise shrinking industry (budget wise that is). Sold my Neve BCM10 to pay off the building.  While I miss the Neve greatly, I don't miss the second mortgage payment! Now I only pay for light and heat... oh and Silvertone pays me rent on the building!

[Silvertone]

Jerry Tubb wrote on Wed, 08 December 2010 21:06

Naturally having the studio at home would certainly cut waaay down on the overhead costs. Another biggy is "how many of your sessions are attended?" Do you really enjoy having clients at your home much of the day and into the night. The nice thing about having them separate is: "when you're at studio, you're working. when you're at home, you're relaxing." Cheers, JT

Agreed.  I can get a bit stir buggy working from home.  And when my wife has friends at the pool it can get a little "man I want to be out there, not in here".  But the best part is when it's 10 degrees below zero with 3 feet of snow, I know I only have to walk 40 feet to get to work! Or if I'm getting a bit stressed I can take the dog to the ADK trail down the street and hike the mountains a bit.

As for attended... I keep bankers hours and don't work into the night.  That's my time, as are the weekends.  Now if I choose to go back up to the studio and record that's my choice, on my time, for fun.

Clients love coming here by the way... if my wife is home they'll get lunch and sometimes dinner!

I went the way of low overhead to no overhead 10 years ago as I knew it would be one way to help survive in an otherwise shrinking industry (budget wise that is). Sold my Neve BCM10 to pay off the building.  While I miss the Neve greatly, I don't miss the second mortgage payment! Now I only pay for light and heat... oh and Silvertone pays me rent on the building!

[lowland]

I'm a working-from-home enthusiast, having been doing it for ten years now. With mastering it never made sense to me paying somebody else for the privilege of using their premises and being at the mercy of rent rises etc. - Alchemy was sad proof of that at its former Centre Point base. The overheads thing can be important too: I recently got a gig in preference to a well-known London facility, the thing that swung it being cost (they charge 2-3 times what I do) as the customer considered the quality of work comparable.

Downsides? Well, the fridge calls to me at various points during the day, but other than that, not a lot.

[Ed Littman]

 I like being on the same property as the house. For me, I would not like to be in the house.
I have the ultamate man cave just 50 ft from the family!

Ed

[Silvertone]

Ed Littman wrote on Thu, 09 December 2010 07:39

I like being on the same property as the house. For me, I would not like to be in the house. I have the ultamate man cave just 50 ft from the family! Ed

Yep, my wife and I call it key to a perfect marriage... "his and hers housing".

She can never "throw me out" and most of the time has to call me to get me back in the house at night.  That said, her house is bigger and worth more... just how it would be decided/divided if we ever got divorced!

[OTR-jkl]

I've done both and right now my gear is in someone else's studio. The drawbacks are that now I have to pay for room use and I have to drive 20-25 min to the studio and I'm farther away for when its my turn to p/u the kids. Also, I can't just pop into the studio whenever I get an idea.

The upsides are I have no clients in my house, I have to "go to work" so there's more incentive plus I tend to spend my time more wisely when I only have so much time to be there which limits any excessive tweaking on projects.

[Waltz Mastering]

My studio is located a mile and a half from my house, but  I've been thinking recently about building a room in the house in the next couple years.

About 30% of my sessions are attended, so I would have to swing that over to no attended sessions.  Although I like having the separate facility, I would also like to cut the overhead to zero.

Having a detached building on the property like Larry, Jaakko or Ed seems like the ideal situation.  

[Bender Mastering]

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

I've moved today and this is my first day in the new room, at home.

It feels good and as someone said before I already noticed that "the fridge has been calling me"... And also the Nespresso machine!

Other than that everything has been "normal" with the exception of me wearing slippers instead of shoes/sneakers.