Small Music Room in Norway

Name: Joakim Nilsen

Location: Northern Norway

Occupation: Bowling Alley Manager

Room size: 7,5 m² (80,7 ft²)

Cost of the setup: ~$6K including PC and studio equipment

Website: Memz on SoundCloud

Hey, Joakim! Tell us a bit about yourself

Hey! My name is Joakim (artist name Memz), and I reside in the cold north of Norway.

I'm an electronic musician who focuses primarily on instrumental storytelling and experimentation.

My music is heavily inspired by the environments I grew up in and I aim to make music that bridges the gap between organic nature and the rigid digital realm.

I became interested in music-making and, more specifically, weird sounds at a very young age.

I nearly drove my parents insane making sounds and music out of anything that could produce audible frequencies.

I don't make enough money off of my music to support myself (yet), so I work as a manager for a small bowling alley in my hometown to make sure I have a roof over my head and food in my belly.

It is a fun and rewarding job but my passion and future lie somewhere in the music-making realm.

I know this because I have never been interested in doing anything else.

In addition to my solo projects, I have made music and sound design for several small independent animations, short films, video games, and other small projects.

I also express myself creatively in a multitude of different ways like painting, writing, and acting in/producing short films.

Can you describe your home setup?

My current workspace came to be when I realised we had an extra unused storage room in our house. You see, I live with two other creative people and we all used to share a workspace.

This worked fairly well, but because of my introvertedness, I struggle to fully immerse myself and reach a state of flow if there are other people present; no matter who they are.

I have always been like this, so I realised I needed to design a space where I didn’t feel like there was anyone else nearby. This is what prompted me to do a complete makeover of our little basement storage room.

The process of converting a dusty, mouldy, and rotten old room into a liveable space (where I could spend hours working on music) actually took less time than expected.

All in all, me and my girlfriend worked on it for about seven days — a couple of hours of work a day with breaks in-between. The renovation cost us about $2000+ — though this included buying tools.

The room is very small. Too small even. Acoustically it is better sounding than my last workspace but far from optimal.