Have you ever thought about how crucial your studio chair is for your creative workflow? Perhaps a better question would be asking, “Does your back ache after long mixing sessions?” If so, fear not, we’re here to help. This guide is your no-nonsense exploration of the best studio chairs for musicians and producers, breaking down the jargon to ensure your creative space is equipped for optimal performance.
A quality studio chair is more than just a piece of furniture. The best studio chairs are a reliable companion, ensuring comfort during those extended studio sessions. To help, we’ve rounded up a selection of top-notch chairs tailored for music studios, where practicality meets creative efficiency. Our choices are based on real-world experience and endless hours working in a range of studio situations.
We've included some in-depth buying advice at the end of this guide, so if you'd like to read more about the best studio chairs, then click the link. If you'd rather get to the products, then keep scrolling.
Product guide
Materials: Steel base, wood frame and fabric-covered foam seat
+ Endlessly tweakable
+ Superb lower back support
- Removable arms are a bit flimsy
As purveyors of affordable, stylish furniture, we’re all familiar with Ikea. Yet with the Ikea Jarvfjallet office chair, we believe we’ve found the ideal studio chair for most people. Equipped with or without arms, this chair offers the perfect blend of comfort and practicality. With individual control over height, incline, lumbar support and headrest height, the Jarvfjallet can be made to fit any user.
The choices of fabrics and materials are well considered to balance price and longevity, and we believe it’s a great choice for the studio environment.
Materials: Steel base, mesh back and foam seat
+ Looks great
+ Versatile
- May not rise high enough for everybody
If your studio is on the smaller side, you perhaps want a studio chair which doesn’t dominate the room in the same way some of the others on this list would. If that sounds familiar, the Hbada Office Task chair may be just the ticket.
It features foldable arms, so it can be tucked under a desk neatly, while the inclusion of a breathable mesh back is a great choice, and we found the nylon wheels to be relatively quiet buzzing all over a wooden floor. All told, a great value chair for any home studio.
Materials: Steel base, mesh back and seat
+ Vastly customisable
+ Solidly built
+ Foot-rest!
- Pricey
The Hinomi H1 Pro V2 has you covered, no matter your physical proportions. The amount of customisation on offer is mind-blowing. Pretty much everything can be tweaked to your heart’s content, while the mesh material used on the seat and back ensures plenty of ventilation so you don’t get too hot while using it.
And then there’s the extendable footrest, which tucks away under the seat when not in use, and is a nice bonus when listening back to our mixes. The fact that you can fold it up and store it when it’s not in use means it doesn't have to dominate the room either.
Materials: Steel frame, mesh back and mesh-covered foam seat
+ Sturdy as they come
+ Supports movement
- Certainly not cheap
Working in a studio, you do a lot of leaning: leaning to the desk to fiddle with faders; leaning to your amps to fiddle with the EQ; leaning to the coffee machine to collect your tenth double espresso. It’d help to have a chair that leaned with you, offering support to your back and neck. The Crown Seating Stealth Standard may just be the perfect studio chair for those of us who love to lean.
It is certainly not a cheap chair, let’s address that straight away, but as a solid, well-made tool that will support you - literally - for years to come, it’s certainly worth considering.
Materials: Nylon base, steel frame and foam-filled fabric seat
+ Adjustable footrest
+ Good price
- No reclining
We mentioned about the importance of having somewhere to put your feet. Often, when we’re sat in one place, the temptation is to tuck our feet under the chair, which isn’t always good news for our backs. The Office Star Deluxe Mesh drafting chair solves this by including an adjustable footrest, which serves the dual purpose of raising our leg high enough to rest a guitar on it.
This is a taller chair than the others on the list, and as such won’t suit every studio arrangement, but for anyone with a raised or standing desk it is a great choice.
Materials: Steel base, wood frame, foam-filled vinyl covering
+ Luxurious
+ Extra leg support
- You may not love the gaming aesthetic
Whatever you think of video gamers, one thing is for certain; they know how to set up a desk environment. This extends to chairs, where you can find some of the most padded, adjustable seating arrangements on the market. A quick look online will reveal there to be near-infinite options, but we were particularly drawn to the Respawn Omega-Xi. It is relatively restrained in the aesthetic department, but we loved the retractable leg rest, and separate cushions for lower back and head, which we found to be ideal for those long listening sessions.
Buying advice
How to choose the best studio chair for you
MusicRadar's got your back Our team of expert musicians and producers spends hours testing products to help you choose the best music-making gear for you. Find out more about how we test.
When you’re looking for a studio chair, your goal is to discover a perfect blend of comfort and practicality. The significance of comfort is obvious, however this doesn't mean choosing the most reclinable or abundantly cushioned option. Why? Because much of your studio endeavours involve maintaining an upright posture before a computer monitor or laptop screen. Although the allure of reclining for extended periods is tempting, it may not be the most beneficial decision for your spinal health. Trust us, we’ve learned that the hard way.
Instead, comfort translates into a chair that provides a spectrum of options to fine-tune the seat according to the specific ways you intend to use it. This means features like lumbar support, headrests, armrests and diverse seating positions. The trick is to see your ideal studio chair not as an indifferent piece of furniture, but as a versatile tool that collaborates with your needs.
What will you be using the chair for?
Considering practicality, think about how you will engage with the chair. While a significant portion of your time may be spent in a relatively static posture, there are instances when you might need to pivot to connect or disconnect cables, support a guitar on your legs, or engage in other activities requiring a certain level of freedom from the chair. Think about your feet as well; your natural inclination involves numerous subtle movements, often without conscious awareness. Do you prefer having your feet planted on the ground or elevated on a platform connected to the chair? Before making a purchase, try and mentally be aware of your movements and interactions with your current chair during a session. This will help in guiding you toward the most fitting option for your requirements.
Look, we know picking a studio chair isn’t as exciting as choosing your next reverb pedal or Eurorack module. But if you have ever experienced the persistent, dull back pain resulting from slouching at a desk, you'll know that it is a discomfort worth evading. Choose wisely; your neck, back and shoulders will thank you for it.
How we choose products
Here at MusicRadar, we are experts in our field, with many years of playing, creating and product testing between us. We live and breathe everything music gear related, and we draw on this knowledge and experience of using products in live, recording and rehearsal scenarios when selecting the products for our guides.
When choosing what we believe to be the best studio chairs available right now, we combine our hands-on experience, user reviews and testimonies and engage in lengthy discussions with our editorial colleagues to reach a consensus about the top products in any given category.
First and foremost, we are musicians, and we want other players to find the right product for them. So we take into careful consideration everything from budget to feature set, ease of use and durability to come up with a list of what we can safely say are the best studio chairs on the market right now.
Find out more about how we test music gear and services at MusicRadar.
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