Cheap Home Recording Desk

When I have any spare time, I not only build synthesizers and guitars (more or less artfully) but I also use these devices to make — and hopefully publish someday — my own music. In addition to the DIY gear, I also have a Yamaha MOX6 music production synthesizer, a light version of Steinberg's Cubase DAW that came free with the MOX, a set of studio monitors, and a small Behringer mixing console. All of that constitutes a fairly complete albeit very simple home recording studio. What was missing so far is a desk where I can bring all this to life. Buying a professional desk is, of course, completely out of the question, but on IKEA Hackers you can find desks like this one that may not look like a lot but apparently serve their purpose well.

There's an IKEA store a few kilometers from where I live, so why not go there and look what's on offer? I did, and here's the result of my endeavour: a cheap home recording desk that looks far better that I deserve for my stinginess.

Recording desk, assembled.

It is not the most robust desk, but at least I've got one now. I can always improve stability, for example by adding another shelf console, or a trestle on one side of the desk. In its current state the desk consists of the following standard IKEA items:

Qty.	Article	Article no.	Unit price	Sum
1	LINNMON table top	002.513.43	CHF 29.95	CHF 29.95
4	ADILS table leg	702.179.73	CHF 5.00	CHF 20.00
1	EKBY JÄRPEN shelf	200.943.47	CHF 14.95	CHF 14.95
2	EKBY TÖRE console	502.510.29	CHF 7.50	CHF 15.00
			Total	CHF 79.90

All together a tad below CHF 80. That's EUR 65.87 / USD 83.20 / GBP 51.76. I challenge anyone to beat that!

Recording desk with tentatively placed monitors and keyboard.

Nice!