Welcome to my audio/music production studio set-up. I used to have a lot more gear that included plenty of analogue devices, I lately decided to try a new setup that would incorporate a DAW, although to date the vast majority of my music was written without one, directly on a synthesizer and using an incorporated sequencer. I wrote my first works for string instruments when I was 6 (1978) and continued to do so until I started playing the piano (1987). After that, it was my instrument of choice for composing, for quite a few years (1987-1991). During that time, I wrote many solo pieces for piano and also my first theatre play soundtrack (1989). In 1991 my best friend was gifted a Casio CT 470 for his birthday and, on that keyboard, I wrote my first electronic music album and my first electronic soundtrack for a theatre play (The Fisher King) performed by the Thespis Theatre in Timisoara (1992). I could not afford a synthesizer at that time, even less a workstation, so I wrote a few more complex works on a another friend’s keyboard (Korg X3), a birthday gift as well. Since my birthday gift never came in the form of a synth, I sold everything I had and I purchased my first workstation, Roland XP-80, a masterpiece that was never really dethroned by any other instrument in its class and it can still be relevant today in a budget studio set-up. It took a few years before I mastered that instrument but it was well worth it as during that time I wrote countless hours of music in many genres and styles starting from classical-orchestral, film and theatre to pop, jazz, rock, ethno and fusion. For a short while I used a Korg X5 for some of its founds in theatre music. I always wanted the best possible money could buy, so I got my Fantom X8 and VS 2480 DVD in 2005 and never looked back ever since. That was my portable studio that I needed for my projects then. However, during that time I started writing more and more music for acoustic instruments and since 2006 I did mostly that until recently, although all the film and all  of the commercial music I still wrote on the Fantom X8. Now I decided to return to my studio music so I was quite excited to learn that Roland was putting out on the market a new incarnation of it, the Fantom 8. To my utter disappointment, this was mostly skillful but false advertising and after Roland Europe said they have no intention of adding back the features they made vanish for no good reason, I decided to move to Korg Kronos, the absolutely ONLY other workstation on the market that could rival Fantom 8, although it is technology almost a decade old. I also got the Roland Integra 7 for those unbelievably excellent sounds so I could have a hybrid that closely matches what I need in conjunction with Presonus Studio One. I kept my MXL mics so far and got a new Presonus mic in the studio kit that came with the AudioBox 96 USB. Now I am transitioning to a DAW-centered solution although I still love what my VS2480 can do.