ULTIMATE Maximalist Setup Deep-dive | SetupReacts

So this first setup is an interesting one. It’s a bit of an older setup. I think it’s from like 2001. Well, you’ll see what I’m talking about as we go on. But yeah, his first video is from 2001.

It’s from a creator called KJ Lynn, who I think I saw, I might have. So I remember I was on Reddit and I saw the setup which had these two sort of of like ultra wide monitors which were set up vertically next to a very large 4K monitor. So they on either side. It’s in like a Star Fighter, a Star Wars Starfighter layout. And it looked very interesting.

Looks a bit kind of like overwhelming. And I think it was kind of the first. The first time I sort of seen something. This whole concept of sort of maximalism. He kind of introduced me to it, if you want to put it that way.

And it’s interesting. I actually went to his YoYouTube channel. I found a video where he actually talks about his maximalist setup. It’s kind of interesting. He talks about the maximalism concept.

I didn’t really. I didn’t actually realize this is kind of like a. An interior design sort of concept. Maximalism, I guess kind of makes sense, right? The opposite of minimalism.

So yeah, we’re going to watch a bit of his video and see what he has to say and also see the sound so up. Super interesting. All right, let’s see. See what happens here.

Hey guys, welcome back. I’m going to talk today about my work from home office setup. This took a lot of months.

I spend more than 40% of my life on my desk. So this is important for. And that’s why I talk about this. I’m a person that is typically modern and minimalist. Minimalism has been popular because it tends to offend no one.

It’s simple, economical and essential. But the more I did it, the more fake I felt. Another YoYouTuber named Matiavella just spoke about the decline of minimalism and I think he’s onto something. When I started building this office desk, I started thinking, was that the wrong solution for me? Was there something better that I could use to kind of use as a philosophy?

Look at this trend for maximalism, the opposite of minimalism.

During the outbreak and the increasing acceptance of work from home, I saw society and myself going through a transformation this year. I felt my desk needed to be every complicated thing I needed to do just plain plop everything onto the desk environment so I have it at any time. The nice thing about maximalism is. Nothing is off the table. According to Pinterest data, people are searching for maximalism decor five times more now than they were over.

It’s kind of like a slightly weird way to look at it, right? It’s like maximalism being just plop everything on a desk until it’s all. All there in front of you. I don’t really know if that’s. I don’t know.

I mean, this early on in the video, I don’t really know if that’s like a correct take. I don’t know if it’s a case of like, just have everything possible out and sort of just right there so you can just grab it. That just seems like chaos to me. It seems like maximalism is actually kind of like a. Like a curated.

Curated overwhelm. That’s how I’d put it. Where essentially, you know, you’re. Yes, you have a lot of things and you’re cramming a lot of like, visual elements into a space, but there’s still supposed to be like an element of design to it. You know, it’s still supposed to seem like, wow, there’s a lot here.

This is overwhelming, but, man, it’s. It’s displayed, so it’s displayed nicely. There’s something pleasant about, you know, a space which is filled with color and sort of like dynamic elements. And then, yeah, it’s still sort of, wow, this, this kind of fits, you know, it’s the same kind of thing. When you go to museum, you’re looking at art pictures.

Yeah, you’re. You’re some pictures, you’ll look like, wow, that’s. That’s. There’s just a lot going on there, but. But something still appealing about it.

It’s kind of hard to put into words, but yeah, I want to see what he has to. What else he has to say about this. Here we go. It’s rising. During the outbreak, the mantra of it is more is more.

Maximalism is a path that highlights who you are. It prioritize things that are comforting to you, demonstrates who you are uniquely and in all of its complexity, sometimes with very, very bold colors and a strong sense of curiosity. Curated consumerism.

Such a strange concept, right? Curated consumerism. I mean, this is consumerism. Is consumerism, right? Yeah.

Shouldn’t it be? Isn’t the curation in the actual purchasing? I’m overthinking this. Surely this is demonstrated that people were collecting items that were resonating with them in their outside lives. Hobbies, needs and passions were being reconsidered and being brought back in, bringing the outside in not by reduction, but by addition.

Nvidia GTX 390s constantly out of stock for gamers, sold out pelotons for all those Soul Cycle fans.

This idea can easily become negatively associated with excess, spending more and messiness. But also, it’s not a requirement. And really, it’s not the core. At its core, it’s about focusing on the things you love in a tasteful way. I mean, IKEA is even getting on this bandwagon.

I mean, look at these new patterns that they have.

Mark Twain once said, I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead of it’s easy to interpret this as short is better the modern and minimalist approach. But what if you just didn’t have the time and it wasn’t a priority? You got the job done. So you know, why waste time and just do something more meaningful? I’m starting to realize that the surprising waste of time and effort and maintenance required to keep things simple, minimal and elegant in places like my home or Pinterest board was actually not that productive.

Article I read from Apartment Therapy mentioned that maximalism is often more practical for people in their day to day lives than minimalism.

To be a maximalist office. I summed up the Anyone else spot the the there’s just a random clip of him apparently spray painting his sun his glasses that just me and I feel like there was like a little Easter egg there. Three rules. Number one Be bold and loud about the things you love. Number two Curate.

Don’t clutter. Number three Represent who you are. It’s time to show you through these rules. My Marie Kondo nightmare and spark my own joy. So number one Be bold about the things you love.

The the thing about complicated desks is that if you know what’s on it by heart, it’s okay because it works for you. Einstein would agree with his messy desk.

And also Casey Neistat with his all functioning studio. When you want to be a maximalist, you raise the volume on your interest. It’s not always about high fashion, couture, crazy colors or cheetah prints. Hiding away things in minimalism is also like hiding away the doing. And ironically, things get more complicated because you have to take more steps to start something.

I want to film something. Would I have to look in another shelf and pull something out again and again and again? How much time does that take? Why not just have everything out? Why not just have it out the whole time?

I much prefer an office Setup about doing. Because that’s me. Execution, execution, Execution.

Number two, Curate. Don’t clutter. See, right. Just, just seeing that set up there really quickly, that just seemed like a, like a highly functional setup, you know, like he literally has what appears to be quite a sort of upscale video setup. I noticed like a shotgun microphone.

He has blankets. Sometimes it can be for audio, sometimes for lighting as well. You can bounce light off of blankets like that up in the background. A bunch of, a bunch of lights sort of coming off the table and bunch of frames. So it’s like, it’s not really cluttered, you know.

Again, I don’t know, is that maximalist or is that just, you know, having a lot of tools out to do your job? It’s interesting when he mentioned Casey Neistat. I think Casey Neistat’s a perfect example of someone who seems more. They’re trying to add like a design, a theme, a philosophy to have it to how they lay out a lot of stuff, you know, like it’s not just, okay, I have a wall full of, let’s say small shelves to hold different size screws that I’m going to need throughout the day. It’s.

I have this wall and it’s laid out in a certain way, but there’s a design element to it. You know, it’s like they use certain types of wood and they write, you know, they write the contents of each item in the same very specific way.

There is oftentimes like a design philosophy that goes behind it. It’s not just lots of tools that would just be mess, that would be clutter. I love high end tech. So, so great. Oh God, yeah.

At my fingertips, every knob, button and control was going to make this battle station a reality. I curated all sorts of tech that had meaning, utility and history. For me, this is the heart. A gaming creator grade laptop with superior connectivity to devices. The Asus Zenbook Pro Duo.

It was the first of its kind to have two monitors on a single laptop. And so I have a switch that can actually cover over 10 camera angles. I don’t have 10 at the moment, but, you know, maybe the future. The recording eyes of this setup are all Sony. My history with Sony goes back to when I was a budding filmmaker with the BX2000 and the PD100.

I have a 4K Sony A7 III for this filming, you know, this particular angle, zoom calls where I don’t have to look at the monitor. I’m not looking down at the monitor, but directly at people or things. I’M talking about. There’s an overhead cam above for any showcase of items on the table. Now this is probably my most favorite camera at the moment.

Probably the best vlogging camera that I think is on the market at the moment. And an editing setup in my main office. And a gear wall of my dreams.

Audio and audio recording of this setup. This podcast style microphone. The legendary SM7B part of the SM7 series that Michael Jackson used.

Legendary industry standard boom mic overhead the Sennheiser MKH416. I was taught to appreciate the power of sound and story by the person who invented the sound standard known as thx. I had to get something THX certified a high end. That was George Lucas, right? George George Lucas in invented thx, I think.

Yeah. I mean didn’t he have a film called. It was called thx. I think it was one of his first films. I think it was like a.

It wasn’t quite like a student film, but it was one of his first sort of like budget releases. It’s supposed to be really good. I think. I think I’ve got a copy of it I need to actually see. I’m watching Monolith DAC to power my Sony signature top end headphone and Sennheiser 1800s headphones for studio work and monitoring.

Rodecaster Pro for mixing and casting and also conference calls as my main interface for audio. Great audio engine speakers just for enjoyment. I want to create the right lighting style for my setup which would include lighting that can fit a frontal shot right here and also an overhead shot coming down. I want to do something a little non conventional. I use the Roger Deakin style cove lighting as filled using stand up bounce boards to create an overall atmosphere of softened natural light.

And then a quad monitor setup to view everything. I have a 10G connection here with this device and then also 10G enterprise switch. For the sake of 10G transfer speeds to my 10G NAS, I can seamlessly edit between two. I actually just set this up myself. I have this old.

Oh, it’s not old. It’s actually relatively recent. About two years ago I purchased this. It was a switch, a network switch from AliExpress which has two 10 gigabytes per second SFP plus slots on it as well as four 2.5 gig slots. So my idea was to have a NAS which stores all my video files which I use for this channel and other channels as well as like all of my work stuff, essentially backups of my work stuff.

So that’s all stored on a NAS as well. As a bunch of Linux ISOs. And I wanted a 10G connection, so I only needed two. So I needed my main computer, which is my MacBook Air. Actually, at the moment, I wanted a 10G connection on that and everything else could be 2.5 gig.

And it worked. However, I did have to use a. I was using. So in my NAS, I have an ethernet 10 gigabyte per second card from actually from Synology. And so I had to essentially convert that into SFP so it could connect to the switch. So I had this decoder, which was a bit flaky, and then it just kind of stopped working at one point.

And it actually turns out that I put in upside down, so that’s why I stopped working. So I purchased this new switch last week. I just installed it a couple days ago. And it has a ethernet 10 gigabit per second port as well as one SFP port. And I actually connect that to my old switch now.

So now I have a bunch of 2.5 gig and 10 gigabyte per second port here in my office. And I’m trying to go, the goal is to make everything 10G, but for the moment, important stuff on 10 gigabytes per second. Everything else on 2.5. And yeah, everything’s noticeably faster. You know, you hook it straight up, it’s like, oh, this is faster.

I can. Before, I couldn’t really play files. Like, I couldn’t play a video file that’s stored on my nas on one of the solids, on one of the spinning rust hard drives, you know, 3.5-inch hard drives. It would just. It would.

It would sort of lag or it has to load. It would have to buffer quite a bit of the file before it would play. On my. On my MacBooks, I’m playing. I’m trying to play a video file over the network.

That wouldn’t work. However, now with the 10, with the 10G connection to the NAS 2.5 gig connection to their laptop, it’s working smoothly. And I’m sure it would be even better if I can get a 1010 gig connection on my MacBook Air, which I will be doing soon. Peters, whether in my garage or my main office. Really awesome Seat by Logitech and Herman Miller.

I’ve always been a huge fan of them. And I have cable management that started out okay, but just evolved into a jungle. So I just let that be number three, represent who I am now. I can. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

You know, you’re not getting away with. Did you. I Got go back. That was horrible. Huge fan of them.

And I have cable management that started out okay but just evolved into a jungle. So I just. That started out okay. I don’t believe you. I have kind of like more cable mess than I like on, on the table I’m using right now, on the desk I’m using right now.

And it bugs me. This, this is just, you know, and it’s just, hey man, this is. Let me, let me, let me, let me disconnect this cable which I set up a year ago and just reconnect it, you know, just, just make sure something’s not running right. Try and do it with this. That’s like a two hour job.

You got to untangle everything just to get to one cable. It’s not worth it, just a little bit. Two hours of effort just to straighten everything out, get some clips. If you can get a few of those, you can purchase these like kind of like T slots. Not T slots, they’re kind of like plastic like under, under desk mounts just for running cables.

They’re just called these long channels which have a hole in one side. Purchase one of those or just purchase one of the. They have these wire slots where it’s like, it’s a two part thing and it’s like you attach one to the desk, you can screw it in or just use double sided tape and it kind of has a plastic thing which you clip on top and you can kind of just shove all the cables inside it. But it looks super neat. Or if you have like a 3D printer you can look into.

There’s a project called Underwear which I actually have set up on my, my main work desk here. Yeah, you can 3D print all these sort of like cable management tools. Just do something. A little bit of work. This goes a long way.

I’ve done a little bit on this table and it’s better than it was before. And yeah, it just makes things so much easier when you need to find cables. That’s the real reason to cable manage is just so, oh, let me, let me change this USB to this USB device. And you have to go and follow the cable path through a tangle like this. Forget about it.

You’re just not going to do it. You’d be like, ah, I’ll just buy a new cable. And it just adds to the mess. Yeah, not worth it. That people.

Number three represent who I am. Now. I can be a video creator who could film from three angles, frontal top and dynamic shots into my computer or directly into the cameras. Number two I can be a professional who does conference calls worldwide with investors, partners, colleagues, business people, and can look good doing it with the best source of audio, lighting and video equipment. Number three, a gamer who has fast equipment, tactile and awesome visual feedback.

Number four, a day trader who could use four monitors to observe the market, buy the dip and make a little money. Thanks lks. And a foodie and otaku that just had a little more space to eat and watch anime and possibly film a mukbang asmr in his garage. Accepting my differing and conflicting Personas easily through this desk was my goal. A do everything machine that basically I don’t like to see people eating, man.

Like when people do mukbangs, I just don’t understand the concept. I don’t like seeing myself eating. It’s like uncomfortable. If I catch myself in the mirror eating, like just look away. I. I don’t know.

Maybe it’s just me. Comment below, Comment below. Do you like seeing people eat on. On YoYouTube or. Yeah, in.

In video format? Is that appealing or does it not bother. Does it not bother other people? Like it does me? Maybe it’s just me.

That’s highly likely. It’s just me. I’m complicated and I don’t want to dress up, so I’m just gonna bear it all. So this is my maximalist self in a nutshell. The 2020s are starting to rear itself as a maximalist explosion.

All right. I think he goes into a little bit of like, see, it will skip past that. But what I want to quickly show you is that. So, yeah, the setup he showed there, I wouldn’t really call that maximalist. I’d call that more just, you know, lots of high end tools.

Very high end tools, by the way. Like two extremely high end headphones seems just like overkill to me. So what I want to do is I want to show you his updated setup that he actually created after this one.

Two vertical. I think those are 49 inch, 49 inch ultra wide monitors. Just insane. It’s kind of like you’re not going to be looking up almost like a 90 degree angle upwards in order to see the contents of the screen up there. It’s purely for the flex.

I respect the flex, don’t get me wrong. But it’s a flex. So I don’t know. When I saw that, I was like, whoa, that’s. That’s hardcore.

That’s a decision. But, you know, it earned him a level of fame that I think it was worth it. It was like an experiment. He tried something. It worked.

It was interesting. So, yeah, kudos to him.

The part of this setup that actually I really love is. Is on the walls. He seems to have this kind of like, I don’t know, like these large, like, white panels, but they’re kind of like in these blocks, but they seem to have like a 3D effect. I really like those. Those look really cool to me.

Sort of like a. An under. Under. Highlighted detail there. I don’t know, it just.

It makes the room kind of look like this. It’s kind of clinical, but at the same time, it kind of has, like its own. It has. Has a design to it. It has.

Yeah. Something cool about it. It’s.

That was impressive. That was impressive. I’ve got a static picture of this setup. Let me see.

The Reddit post is called I’m an ultra wide fan, but in a different way. And he’s not lying. Yeah, that is crazy.

Look at that little PS5 just kind of hidden in the corner. But, yeah, you see what I’m saying about these. These wall panels? So super interesting. Not sure how.

It’s not tile, obviously. Maybe it’s just. I don’t think it’s foam, but it seems like this sort of like. I don’t know if it’s plastic. It seems to have a texture to it.

Yeah, I like that. It’s a nice design touch. Cheeky. I think this is in Asia. Yeah.

He has a AC over here. Yes. Just well done. Again, don’t know if I call any of this maximalist. It’s definitely over the top, but in a good way, in a respectable way.

It’s a kind of over the top that we like here at setup reacts. So good job.