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Switching to one massive screen?

2 displays can be nice, but for me i much prefer to be able to look straight ahead for the majority of my computer work. With a dual-display setup, I'm always looking off to either side, which can cause some neck strain after a while. Unless you align your chair with one of the screens, of course.
Another reason why i avoid "studio desks" and stick to standard flat-top large desks. Much easier to get the display configuration you want without getting in the way of other things like rack gear and/or speakers.

Hah. You haven't seen my flat-top large desks. :)

The screen is in the middle just like on a regular one.
 
I've seen the curved ones work for EDM guys (1 for on a laptop). Some mixers use one screen (protools edit window). But most composers I've visited had more screens (at least one extra for the film). I myself used one for mixing and used the desktop function on Mac Os to swipe between applications (like calender). For composing I have two one for the sequencing and one for the VePro running on the master. I think I would recommend more smaller monitors than one big one.
 
^ Batzdorf is a slut.

I went to a 43" screen and really like it. I'm not sure what the exact resolution numbers I have it set at, but on a Mac, it's the middle setting. Probably about 50% more than 1920x1080. It doesn't maximize the amount that goes on the screen, but it's easier for my elderly eyes to read than full-on 3840x2160.

The biggest advantage for me with this, as opposed to side by side 27" screens, is the height. With coding, for instance, I can see a lot of lines with less scrolling.

Specs:

The aspect ratio on today's monitors is 16:9. That's become the standard over the past few years, but it wasn't always.

Dot pitch - meaning the physical size of the images on your screen, the actual number of dots per inch - is as central to the issue as the size of the monitor and your distance from it.

For me the 30" .25mm dot pitch monitor two feet from my eyes is just right. A 40" 4K monitor (3840 x 2160) is very close (.23) - so of course you're displaying more picture at the same distance, and the picture is wider.

If you move the screen back and lower the dot pitch (i.e. make the picture bigger), you're narrowing the image but making the picture smaller.

Stating the bleedin' obvious, all these factors are interactive.
 
I went to a 43" screen and really like it. I'm not sure what the exact resolution numbers I have it set at, but on a Mac, it's the middle setting. Probably about 50% more than 1920x1080. It doesn't maximize the amount that goes on the screen, but it's easier for my elderly eyes to read than full-on 3840x2160.
I do this exactly as well. It's the Goldilocks setting where I can still see a ton of tracks, but the words aren't so small that I can't read them. On my 43" screen I permanently have the project window up (in Cubase), and if I need to see the Mixer window, I hit the X button and it pops up and takes up the entire top half of my screen. Hit X again and it disappears. Super easy, super convenient, super large. Same thing with my Piano Roll Editor: I hit Z and it pops up, but on the lower half of the screen.

At one point back in the day I think I had 4 screens: one for the project, one for the mixer, one for the video, and one for my PC Slave. I'm 100% satisfied with this single-screen setup, with the caveat that I have a second screen set off to the side just for video, if I'm working to picture.
 
Sorry for the offtopic but, Which are those very low profile keyboards?

Those 2 low profile keyboards are Fatar SL880 (weighted) & TMK88 (non-weighted) taken out of their casing.

You save a lot of space this way, but have to be a bit creative with the separate modwheel and pitchbend assembly. Having said that, these needed to be taken out anyway to fix the annoying problem of flooding CC messages due to the lousy potentiometers in these Fatar keyboards. A bit of contact spray (K60) every now and then does the trick though.

I'm also using the pitchbender (left/right stick) taken out of an old Roland PC 200 MK2 keyboard. Always nice to have a choice :)

Yeah those keyboards look sweet. :)
Although I can't really say that having a 55" that close is good for the eyes...

Yes, there are pro's and con's.

When using <50" 4k screen at native resolution, everything really gets too small for my eyes. But with a 55" screen, you get the pixel size and real estate of roughly four 27" monitors. Less need for scrolling or zooming. And you decide yourself how close you are, a comfy chair + good mouse or trackball is here also an advantage. But as said earlier, it's workable when you place the screen as low as possible and not too close.
 
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Anybody here using a single large monitor to work with notated scores at 11x17 / A3 and larger? It is comfortable to have two full score pages open? Better than rotated monitors in portrait / vertical orientation?
 
I wish we would have better multi desktop utilities in Win10. Working in vfx we usually use linux / CentOS which has very robust multi desktop setups. So by Ctrl/Alt and left/right arrow clicking I can switch between 4 or even 8 independant desktops - very robust. Don't know if thats available in Win.

Well .. I wish there would be Cubase etc. for linux anyway .. but thats another topic :)

For music I'm quite happy with 2 screens (30" as main and 24" on the side for extras)
 
Anybody here using a single large monitor to work with notated scores at 11x17 / A3 and larger? It is comfortable to have two full score pages open? Better than rotated monitors in portrait / vertical orientation?
That was one of the reasons I went 43" 4k. I find it quite comfortable to see 2 and a bit of A3 score when fullscreen. You could easily reserve Sibelius/Finale to one half of the screen and have a DAW on the other half. Personally I've been orienting them in landscape, Cubase piano roll taking up the bottom third of the screen, Sibelius the top two thirds. (Cubase project window on a different screen)

So by Ctrl/Alt and left/right arrow clicking I can switch between 4 or even 8 independant desktops - very robust. Don't know if thats available in Win.

Yes this is available in Win10 via "Task view". No limit to the number of desktops.
 
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More physical light pointed directly at your eyes. Each pixel is emitting its own burst of like hence LED - Light Emitting Diode......at least I think thats right.

And it covers more of your field of view, which tires more of your eye. Think of looking at the sun, because its far away you only get a spot in your vision, now imagine if the sun took up your whole field of view and looked at it, your eye would strain much faster. Extreme example but similar principle I think.
I don't know, I'm certainly no expert on this. But assuming the monitor brightness is not different from the brightness of the real world in the daytime, I can't follow your point. I know that the closer the monitor is, the more your pupils need to move around which might put a strain on your eyes. At the same time, I have exactly this big screen / close distance setup for about 2 years and I would never like to go back. My screen is setup neither really bright nor super high in contrast. I found that the most relaxing setting when you work for hours.
 
From what I've learned long ago, the main cause of eye strain is when the eye muscles have to remain contracted for long periods of time. This muscle contraction changes the shape of the lens to focus on closer objects. When the eye muscles are relaxed, it corresponds to the focusing quite far away, "focusing at infinity" for good vision. So the general rule is that being able to focus your eyes further away will reduce a lot of eye strain.

Reading glasses are interesting to consider. They make your vision more nearsighted, i.e. the region of focus when eyes are relaxed gets closer. So for people who cannot physically focus their eyes at close things, or people that want to avoid the strain of focusing up close, that's why reading glasses help. And interestingly reading glasses usually have a convenient side effect of magnifying things too.

I think that super bright screens might have negative effects that are not necessarily called "eye strain". And the chore of moving eyes around or turning head also might not really "strain your eyes" even if they are certainly fatiguing in other ways.
 
I don't know, I'm certainly no expert on this. But assuming the monitor brightness is not different from the brightness of the real world in the daytime, I can't follow your point. I know that the closer the monitor is, the more your pupils need to move around which might put a strain on your eyes. At the same time, I have exactly this big screen / close distance setup for about 2 years and I would never like to go back. My screen is setup neither really bright nor super high in contrast. I found that the most relaxing setting when you work for hours.
Fair enough.
 
From what I've learned long ago, the main cause of eye strain is when the eye muscles have to remain contracted for long periods of time.

Well yeah.

This muscle contraction changes the shape of the lens to focus on closer objects. When the eye muscles are relaxed, it corresponds to the focusing quite far away, "focusing at infinity" for good vision. So the general rule is that being able to focus your eyes further away will reduce a lot of eye strain.

I'm not a Professor of Ocularology, but lots of things can cause eye strain - including the monitor being the wrong distance for your eyes, too small, bright, dim, lousy, off-center, whatever.

Our eyes aren't all the same. Some people strain to see distance, some to see close-up, some both, some neither, some are sensitive to light, and on and on.

And interestingly reading glasses usually have a convenient side effect of magnifying things too.

They *are* magnifying glasses.

And the chore of moving eyes around or turning head also might not really "strain your eyes" even if they are certainly fatiguing in other ways.

My guess is that it's all tied together - your eyes strain, you tense up somewhere else, etc.

I personally didn't have any actual physical strain when I experimented with the 40" monitor, I just didn't like the hassle.
 
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Very good point to say everyone is different and can feel strain in different ways. I didn't mean otherwise, I see how I accidentally came across that way though.
 
Anybody here using a single large monitor to work with notated scores at 11x17 / A3 and larger? It is comfortable to have two full score pages open? Better than rotated monitors in portrait / vertical orientation?
yes and yes.
 
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People at work (engineering company) have them, also have spend my working life in front of screens. I'm not fond of the format, and find it doesn't really give me much more information. Humans are nor normally getting dense information from poster sized sheets. What we do instead is have multiple smaller format information sources (e.g. a couple books out on the table).

For most work I find triple monitor the best. General software development is best done with the Eizo EV2730Q which is a perfectly square monitor. Three of these is perfect because for this kind of work you need different applications simultaneously, and the square aspect ratio maximizes the pixels for text.

Other types of work have applications that assume a landscape monitor. Game development IDE's (e.g. Unity) typically are like this, and the example here of DAW's (e.g. Logic) also are hardcoded for landscape. But with a twist! Logic undock windows.

With logic I find that multiple monitors still works best. A central landscape with more square or 4:3 'side cars'.
 
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This my current set 42" multitouch screen with the 27" 4k above which is usually taken away during mixing. My last eye exam in August, my eyes actually got better to the point I had to get new glasses. But I don't wear glasses when working here. The multitouch is particularly convenient when drawing in automation.
 
The multitouch is particularly convenient when drawing in automation.

I've been dreaming about getting a second monitor as a touch screen for MIDI CC and automation editing. Some magic day when I have more space and more money. Can you please elaborate a bit more about it? Some specific questions:
- do you feel it requires "multitouch" or just "touch" to be useful for drawing automation?
- do you feel like automation drawing would work well for a smaller touch screen, like a 24" monitor or even a tablet? (I've read that mac users have screen cloning apps that work well for tablets, I don't know if windows/android have anything like that though)
- Is there special software on your 42" multitouch? Does effective automation drawing require the special software?
- Have you had any frustrations about a secondary monitor being touch and the primary not being touch?



Cheers!
 
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