Author: keyjfreely

…an upgrade for the cans! 

Posted on keyjfreelyLeave a commentPosted in Hardware, keyj freely, Latest News, Studio

So, if you are wondering what cans has to do with music / audio production the term basically means headphones.

A couple of years ago I upgraded my headphones to the fantastic ATH-M50x Studio Headphones to compliment my ageing (and flakey ear pad material) Sennheiser HD380Pro Studio Headphones.  Unfortunately, the material they use for both my headphones is known as pleather.  Pleather flakes over time- BIG TIME! Yuk.

Introducing the velour replacement pads for the ATH-M50x!  Ooooooo… Ahhhhhh

I jumped on a recent drop (internet based group buy) over at MassDrop.  I realise that changing the material of the ear pads will inherently alter the frequency response (i.e the sound) of the headphones but it’s a balancing act. FLAKE vs COMFORT vs SLIGHT CHANGE IN SOUND.  I wear studio cans a lot so for me it’s a no-brainer NO FLAKE + COMFORT ftw!

I will update once I have recieved the new pads… (Oh yeah freely-music blogger and admin @imjustpickle got some too!)

Dell Inspiron 1525 SSD Upgrade

Posted on keyjfreelyLeave a commentPosted in Hardware, keyj freely, Studio

I had a spare 120gig Samsung 850 Evo mSATA SSD removed from a decomissioned Video Workstation (setup as a page file / cache / scratch disk for Windows and various Adobe software) which I wanted to repurpose and actually make use of it.


I have a bit of a budget audio setup at the moment- the laptop I am using as my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) is a slightly ageing but awesome Dell Inspiron 1525 from 2009.  I have maxed out the memory, upgraded to Windows 10 Pro and tweaked it for audio.  I had also upgraded the HDD a few years ago to a Seagate Momentus 7200RPM but lately it was really struggling… showing the usual signs of failure: slow performance, loud persistent clicking sounds and constant HDD activity.  It was time to be replaced!

Enter this little peice of genius hardware:


This is an mSATA to 2.5″ HDD Adapter for use as an internal laptop HDD replacement.  So I installed the spare mSATA drive into it and swapped out the failing 7200RPM mechanical drive for this.  The verdict?  Absolutely amazing!  It has literally brought this laptop back to life and into the game.  Boot times, app load times, overall system performance and especially sample loading in Ableton Live 9 is top notch!

Highly reccomend anyone looking to squeeze a bit more life out of their old laptop to get yourself an SSD and also upgrade to Windows 10 (Yes, I know there are mixed reviews about Microsoft’s latest OS but after installing it on atleast 7 devices- I can tell you right now, it is 100% worth it!)

keyj freely’s here!

Posted on keyjfreelyPosted in keyj freely, Latest News

I am excited to now be a content contributer for freely-music and I will be posting all sorts of cool stuff about my personal musical journey… from techy bits’n’bobs to new tracks.

I also look forward to sharing my many years of music production experience and showing off my home studio as it evolves…

peace.love

The Amiga Years

Posted on keyjfreelyPosted in keyj freely, Latest News

The Commodore Amiga changed the way computers could be used in a creative studio environment as well as making it affordable to the masses. The A500 (and later the CD32 and A1200) gave me the tools to create music with no musical training and inspired me on my entire creative journey!
I reccomend you check out this documentary film called The Amiga Years on Vimeo. It gives a great insight into the roots of all creative technologies (both software and hardware) that we all pretty much take for granted today!
Enjoy 🙂