The Home Tech Setup

Ken McGuire's Home Setup

After the arrival of a few extra bit today I’ve had a few people ask about my home setup… so here you go, in photographic detail. Apologies for cutting off the top of the photo…

  1. My PC. This one was custom made by myself back in Fenruary of this year. Holds two 200GB Maxtor hard drives and dual boots Windows XP Pro (SP2) and Windows Vista Beta 2. P4 3.0Ghz chip, 2mb cache, 1GB of ram at present backing it. Front bays currently holding a 52x CDRW drive and a 16x dual-layer dvd-rw drive, along with a media card reader bay with additional USB / Firewire / Audio ports. Graphics driven by a GeForce 6500 @ 256mb, shifted up to 512mb in the OS.
  2. Monitos. Dual 19″ LG Flatron L1917S setup, delivered a fortnight ago from Komplett.
  3. Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard, Comfort 4000 model in black, along with Comfort 3000 optical mouse, both of which were picked up off eBay in the US for under 60 bucks including the shipping. Trés comfortable.
  4. Creative Audigy 2ZS Platinum Pro, front box seated under the monitors, firewire in, optical in/out, 3 line connections, phono / midi and more… tasty
  5. The trusty bottle of Stella, nice sipping during an evening’s recording…
  6. The new desk… Allen & Heath PA28 shipped just today from Thomann Musikhaus in Germany. A pleasure to work with so far…
  7. Takamine EN-10. Sounds like heaven when its played, and its been played now for well over a decade. Favourite of my acoustic collection and my choice guitar for live performances
  8. Leather chair for under €35 from Viking Direct. God bless those special offers. Leans all the way back too!
  9. 200GB Maxtor external harddrive, USB2 for when you need the extra hard drive muscle (when 400GB isn’t enough), though mainly used for backups and portability. Should really bring it back to the office…
  10. Shure SM58. Fantastic vocal mic that is pretty much the defacto when it comes to vocal performance on stage. Never leave home without one.

And thats about it. Looks a lot smaller in the photo than it is up front!

5 Comments

  1. Sean June 21, 2006 at 11:29 am

    Nice.. somehow i thought your desk would be tider though, like your desktop.. 😉

  2. Ken McGuire June 21, 2006 at 11:54 am

    contents of desk include (L-R) picture frame, remote, my phone, tv remote, bundle of stereo patch leads, warranty card for desk…. under the desk itself is a bit of a disaster, i’ve got cables running EVERYWHERE. I blame the flash for highlighting them all…

  3. Sean June 21, 2006 at 6:27 pm

    Yeah blame the flash! 🙂 Sure why not!! 😉

  4. Pavlos June 22, 2006 at 10:25 am

    Wow! Only thing missing is a chair with a built in chemical toilet, LOL. I guess the phone is used to order food. Impressive. Never let a puppy in there though! 😀

    PS: where’s your podcast?

  5. Ken McGuire June 22, 2006 at 2:05 pm

    All in good time Pavlos, all in good time. Not too fond of the chemical toilets. Or at least cleaning them out… too many years travelling around europe in a camper van! The pizza is on speed dial…. 😉

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