John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Just reading the recent thread about controlling your daw with xp pro.
I am in the process of construction of my studio. The end result will leave me with control room, live room, drum booth, vocal booth.

My plan was to have a display, mouse and keyboard in each of the rooms.
I have some spare displays hanging around and I like the idea of allowing the musician seeing the display for cue's and such but mainly I need control for when I am working alone.

So that is my plan but is it possible?

I run pro tools. Currently I have a duel head graphics on my PC which allows two displays, one for edit window, one for mix window.
Is it possible to add another graphics card to feed the displays in the live, drum & vocal rooms? I would really only need to display the edit window of pro tools.
How far can you run display cables (I forget the correct term but the standard monitor out of any PC). I guess my furthest point would be around 12 meters. The same for USB and keyboard.
Can you get a distribution device to handle all this?
Is this a wise idea?

You can get KVM switches or distro amps that will do all of that, however they're expensive.

Belkin makes a KVM extender for about $300 that will extend keyboard, monitor and mouse several hundred feet using Cat5 cable; one of these pairs of "black boxes" and a small cat5 patch bay in each room would do it, if you use something like a "large remote" stand on wheels, you could move the remote setup to the room you need control from. A second screen would require another extender for VGA, I think they're also available from Belkin and others.

More elegant would be a Pocket PC with Bluetooth ability, and using Remote Desktop in XP pro - only the DAW would need XP Pro, and only the DAW would need the power to run your DAW app. This will work with ANY application, you're basically just "remote viewing" and "remote controlling" your DESKTOP with the remote, NOT running the actual software. John mentioned even using a cel phone (newer ones) to control this way.

One advantage of the Bluetooth approach is not having to change patches or move a KVM setup between rooms.

You would still need to run audio lines to the rooms for headphone checks, etc.... Steve

The bluetooth/wireless remote sounds like a good solution, but I'm always a bit nervous about completely removing an analog volume control in the equation. If you've ever had software freeze or a driver hang on your DAW and had massive amounts of signal moving through your system with no way to control it, you'll be this way too. So if you plan on remote controlling your system, I'd also suggest some passive pots installed at all of your monitoring locations, just in case.

Not as big of an issue with headphones I guess, but still you don't want to ruin a good set of cans even if you can pull them off your ears.

VERY good point Sam; at the very least, maybe a DIY Stereo version of the "cough drop" box to run phones thru;

Same thing in my "day job" field of industrial automation/control - it isn't even LEGAL to implement an Emergency Stop switch in "software", it is MANDATORY that this be done with a real, BIG RED SWITCH specially made for the function... Steve

One thing that needs to be pointed out is that a standard KVM is not what you need here. Those allow you to control more than one computer with one keyboard/mouse. What you want as a reverse KVM, which will let you control one computer from more than one keyboard / mouse. Another thing to consider ist that while it is neat to have video monitors for cues and such, you generally don't need to have control over the DAW from EVERY room in the studio. I find that to have control from the main live room and / or vocal booth (for those of you who have more than one rsuch room) is enough, especially when I am recording alone in an open situation. For the rest of the facility, simple video splitting is cheaper and sufficient. A good R-KVM can be had for USD 100, and active video splitting for four monitors should not be more than USD 50. As long as you don't have to too far with your lines (most home studios don't) this is a cheap and simple solution. You can double your fun with a dual head graphic card (maatrox). The wireless laptop solution only works if your laptop is dead quiet, which mine is certainly not.

Best,


John Donovan
Megaton Sound

All good points John, except I was referring to a KVM extender - two boxes, plug keyboard monitor and mouse into one, cat 5 cable for up to 300 feet or so, second box, hooks up to computer. A RJ-45 patch bay in the CR with lines to whatever rooms you want to set up, and then the second "box" along with keyboard/monitor/mouse just plugs into the cat 5 plug in whatever room you want to be control.

Both my laptops are too noisy for this too; I think maybe a Pocket PC with bluetooth might be best, no wires or plugs or large KVM thingies to wheel around... Steve

I've just come across a wireless solution to DAW control. I've not got one myself but I hear other people singing it's praises.

http://www.frontierdesign.com/Products/TranzPort

looks like a neat solution to me.

If you have more than one computer, you can use one to "remote control" like you would for network situations.

An example would be: http://www.dameware.com

Or use Terminal Services??

Just an idea...

Windows XP pro comes with remote desktop connection.
There are also free alternatives such as:

http://www.tightvnc.com/

Just install it onto both PCs, have the host running the server and have the client connect to it. I've used it with both wired and wireless networks without too much hassle.

Ditto the TightVNC recommendation. I too use that on a couple of machines at home and it's great.