During the winter, indoor heated spaces can become very dry.  And when you live in the Southwest desert area, like me, things can get really dry in indoor heated spaces.  Like indoor humidity is about 25%, maybe even less depending on the gauge I read.
 
My studio (if you even want to call it that) is located in a spare bedroom, with carpeting.  Though static electricity is usually mild in the studio, I always try to discharge myself on the metal desk parts before I touch a keyboard or rack-synth.  However, I did have a close call with a discharge to my Virus TI2 the other night.  It was quite the zap indeed, but thankfully it was to the metal case!  So that got me thinking: what can be done to help protect the equipment?  Yes, the carpet is a big culprit, but removing it is not an option right now.  Maybe it could eventually be converted to hardwood floors in the future, but that's a ways off.
 
First, a humidifier can be added, either whole house, or a small one just in the room.  Lately, my contacts have been kicking the crap out of me with dryness, so I'm definitely going this route...at least until I get more acclimated to the weather in these parts.  Second, I was thinking about adding a grounding wire that shorts the metal parts of my desk to earth ground on the outlet, or power strip.  This could help dissipate any charge built up on the desk.  Would it be any better than how it is now?  Probably not by much.
 
Most of the big boy toys, like the Andromeda and the V-Synth have beastly/hulking metal cases and a real, three-pronged 120VAC power cords going to them.  And the cases are indeed grounded--I checked with a multi-meter!  So these machines don't worry me as much when it comes to zaps, though I still exercise caution.  The equipment that worries me the most are the synths and devices with no earth ground.  These are the devices that just have a wall-wart power supply and a barrel connector, or a simple, two-pronged female cord.  For example, the Virus TI2, the Q, and the Bass Station II, all have wall-warts and two-prong cords with no separate earth ground.  So what can be done to better protect these devices?
 
For the wall-warted and two-pronged-corded synths with metal cases (the Virus TI2 and Q respectively), I was thinking about adding a grounding wire.  However, will this cause an audio problem, or a ground loop issue?  Both of these synths have balanced TRS audio outs/cables that go to the Alesis Ai3 and/or the Focusrite interface.  Some of the devices also connect via USB and Firewire cables, so those are grounded connections as well.  Therefore, I certainly don't want to create a looped path and risk audio hum, let alone serious damage to any internal components!  The Bass Station II has a plastic case, so I don't think there's much that can be done about that one.
 
I was also thinking about putting a static mat underneath all of the synths, but that can get awkward and expensive.  One other thought was wearing a static strap around the wrist or ankle.
 
Am I overthinking this and going off into the deep end?  Let me know your thoughts.  Thanks!

My job, until I retired, was as a LAN/WAN Network manager supporting field offices including the Southwest (my area was basically everything west of the Mississippi to the Rockies, and North Dakota to Texas). Many of these had carpeting and experienced static electricity problems.  It can't be totally eliminated.  Grounded static mats (ones that have an AC power ground connector) were the biggest help at the workstations (PC's).  Spraying Downy fabric softener on the carpet was a temporary solution (help) but not a permanent answer to the problem.  Grounding wrist straps will help but its sort of limited because of the length of the ground wire.
 
Clothing can be an issue.  Many synthetic fabrics can cause static electricity.  Not your problem, but we found a big problem with women who wore hose as that caused static electricity.

2:43AM
... 
First, a humidifier can be added, either whole house, or a small one just in the room.  Lately, my contacts have been kicking the crap out of me with dryness, so I'm definitely going this route...at least until I get more acclimated to the weather in these parts.  Second, I was thinking about adding a grounding wire that shorts the metal parts of my desk to earth ground on the outlet, or power strip.  This could help dissipate any charge built up on the desk.  Would it be any better than how it is now?  Probably not by much.
...

First, here's a good note from Rane on grounding: http://www.rane.com/note110.html
 
Second, I can vouch for whole-house humidifiers. They're not cheap (close to $2K) and you do need a water supply at your furnace, but they beat the bejesus out of any other method.
 
I've also got a room humidifier (with 2 water chambers, so you can fill one without having to shut the thing down). It's pretty quiet (until the water chambers get empty and they start vibrating against each other (took me awhile to figure that out)) and pretty effective. If you decide to go down that route, PM me and I'll get you the details for the room unit. It's a good one.
 
If you go down the whole-house route, be aware that you'll need to have it configured with the "Arizona option" where it ignores outside temps. I had one in my former place up by Boulder, CO that worked great, so I put one in my place here in Flagstaff when I moved up from Scottsdale. I couldn't get it to turn on initially, and then found that the installer (unfamiliar with Trane, but forced on me by the builder) had followed the basic instructions and installed an outdoor temp sensor and wired it into the unit. The idea is to disable the humidifier when the outside temp is above a certain temp. Well, up here, we can get 10% and even 5% humidity levels at temps above the threshold, so the installer had to come back, disconnect the sensor and reconfigure the humidifier controller.
 
Maroon.

2:43AM
During the winter, indoor heated spaces can become very dry.  And when you live in the Southwest desert area, like me, things can get really dry in indoor heated spaces.  Like indoor humidity is about 25%, maybe even less depending on the gauge I read.
 
My studio (if you even want to call it that) is located in a spare bedroom, with carpeting.  Though static electricity is usually mild in the studio, I always try to discharge myself on the metal desk parts before I touch a keyboard or rack-synth.  However, I did have a close call with a discharge to my Virus TI2 the other night.  It was quite the zap indeed, but thankfully it was to the metal case!  So that got me thinking: what can be done to help protect the equipment?  Yes, the carpet is a big culprit, but removing it is not an option right now.  Maybe it could eventually be converted to hardwood floors in the future, but that's a ways off.
 
First, a humidifier can be added, either whole house, or a small one just in the room.  Lately, my contacts have been kicking the crap out of me with dryness, so I'm definitely going this route...at least until I get more acclimated to the weather in these parts.  Second, I was thinking about adding a grounding wire that shorts the metal parts of my desk to earth ground on the outlet, or power strip.  This could help dissipate any charge built up on the desk.  Would it be any better than how it is now?  Probably not by much.
 
Most of the big boy toys, like the Andromeda and the V-Synth have beastly/hulking metal cases and a real, three-pronged 120VAC power cords going to them.  And the cases are indeed grounded--I checked with a multi-meter!  So these machines don't worry me as much when it comes to zaps, though I still exercise caution.  The equipment that worries me the most are the synths and devices with no earth ground.  These are the devices that just have a wall-wart power supply and a barrel connector, or a simple, two-pronged female cord.  For example, the Virus TI2, the Q, and the Bass Station II, all have wall-warts and two-prong cords with no separate earth ground.  So what can be done to better protect these devices?
 
For the wall-warted and two-pronged-corded synths with metal cases (the Virus TI2 and Q respectively), I was thinking about adding a grounding wire.  However, will this cause an audio problem, or a ground loop issue?  Both of these synths have balanced TRS audio outs/cables that go to the Alesis Ai3 and/or the Focusrite interface.  Some of the devices also connect via USB and Firewire cables, so those are grounded connections as well.  Therefore, I certainly don't want to create a looped path and risk audio hum, let alone serious damage to any internal components!  The Bass Station II has a plastic case, so I don't think there's much that can be done about that one.
 
I was also thinking about putting a static mat underneath all of the synths, but that can get awkward and expensive.  One other thought was wearing a static strap around the wrist or ankle.
 
Am I overthinking this and going off into the deep end?  Let me know your thoughts.  Thanks!

 Ditch the carpet.  Yes you are overthinking.  I live in the same climate and had the same concerns. I haven't lost anything to static.  Many devices have protection against static electricity. 

kitekrazy1
 
Ditch the carpet.  Yes you are overthinking.  I live in the same climate and had the same concerns. I haven't lost anything to static.  Many devices have protection against static electricity. 

Gonna have to disagree with you on this one, KK1.
 
I HAVE lost something to static (one of the Line Out drivers on a DJ CD player). Which of your devices (of the "many") are protected, and which aren't? Do you even know? And for the ones that claim protection, what's the quality of that protection? Many have ground loops built into them by design (not on purpose, either; just poor engineering).
 
Transient protection on outlet strips is a joke. The best, albeit most expensive, solution includes an audio quality UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). Using an antistatic, cabled chair mat helps (I don't have one, and wish I did; I have an entire "discharge" protocol I follow when I sit down to work). Even with humidification, I get the occasional zap when I'm not careful. My display blanks and then recovers. Really exciting. For a 4-year-old.
 
I need to think through the carpet thing more. Cheap, synthetic fiber carpet is an ESD s**tstorm waiting to happen. But... I have a room set aside for a studio that I left the closet out of and had a tile floor installed (vs. carpeting the rest of the house). Methinks it's still going to need rugs, etc. to soften it, so care will still need to be exercised.

The static mat should not be necessary. Where that comes into play is when you're working on a piece of gear that isn't grounded, e.g. you're inside it making a repair and it's not plugged in. As long as you're not defeating the 3-prong plug with an adapter, and that 3-prong plug is actually connected to a properly-grounded source, you should be OK even if you see an arc when you touch the case.
 

kitekrazy1Ditch the carpet.  Yes you are overthinking.  I live in the same climate and had the same concerns. I haven't lost anything to static.

 
I'm sure I am overthinking, but the OP said that I wasn't going to rip the carpet out, at least not in the immediate future.  Shoot, I even get zapped in other rooms with ceramic tile.  It just happens regardless.
 

kitekrazy1Many devices have protection against static electricity.

 
 
 

2:43AM
The equipment that worries me the most are the synths and devices with no earth ground.  These are the devices that just have a wall-wart power supply and a barrel connector, or a simple, two-pronged female cord.  For example, the Virus TI2, the Q, and the Bass Station II, all have wall-warts and two-prong cords with no separate earth ground.  So what can be done to better protect these devices?

TheMaartian

kitekrazy1
 
Ditch the carpet.  Yes you are overthinking.  I live in the same climate and had the same concerns. I haven't lost anything to static.  Many devices have protection against static electricity. 

Gonna have to disagree with you on this one, KK1.
 
I HAVE lost something to static (one of the Line Out drivers on a DJ CD player). Which of your devices (of the "many") are protected, and which aren't? Do you even know? And for the ones that claim protection, what's the quality of that protection? Many have ground loops built into them by design (not on purpose, either; just poor engineering).
 
Transient protection on outlet strips is a joke. The best, albeit most expensive, solution includes an audio quality UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). Using an antistatic, cabled chair mat helps (I don't have one, and wish I did; I have an entire "discharge" protocol I follow when I sit down to work). Even with humidification, I get the occasional zap when I'm not careful. My display blanks and then recovers. Really exciting. For a 4-year-old.
 
I need to think through the carpet thing more. Cheap, synthetic fiber carpet is an ESD s**tstorm waiting to happen. But... I have a room set aside for a studio that I left the closet out of and had a tile floor installed (vs. carpeting the rest of the house). Methinks it's still going to need rugs, etc. to soften it, so care will still need to be exercised.

 Oh so you are in Flagstaff.  I was thinking in the desert area.  It's a big difference. I don't like carpet for health reasons.  I thought I might have had valley fever last year since I was averaging a cold a month and it was in classrooms with carpet and no windows.
 As for static protection I'm thinking of computers. Some of the motherboards I've installed have static protection.
 I would get a small humidifier then.  My concern would be the computers.  I'd also test the room with a wet towel and see how long it takes to dry.
 Cold and dry seems to produce the most static charges. I assume this is something you have to deal with for a few months.  I would research this as much as I could. I know I've given off enough static electricity where I could light a city block.
 

Pot plants. As in houseplants in pots. Type doesn't matter so long as they're not cacti. They can work wonders at humidifying dry atmospheres and are far cheaper than air conditioners. Look better as well.

Working barefoot may help, static voltage building up in humans is usually down to a combination of the carpet, footwear and/or clothes. I once worked in an office where the filing cabinets at one end of the room were on a different strip of carpet to the rest of the room. Walking six feet across that carpet was enough to ensure a zap when you touched the cabinets standing on it. Everyone got zapped every time unless wearing leather soled shoes.

A discharge between you and the external casing of equipment is very unlikely to damage anything so long as the equipment is correctly earthed or double-insulated because the casing should disipate the charge before it gets to anything sensitive inside. That's why leaving the power cable plugged in (though switched off at the wall and at the switch on the back of the PC psu) and touching the metal of an open PC case before reaching inside to work on it is a safe way to get you and the PC to the same electrical potential. Any discharge through the case metalwork direct to ground won't do any damage, while a discharge to ground via the microelectronics is usually lethal to some component or another.

The grounded static mats did help our installations.  ALL the equipment was properly grounded and in fact we used Hubbell IG5262 "isolated ground" (orange color) AC power receptacles.  The isolated ground system uses ground wiring that is directly connected to the power panel ground and the IG5262 receptacle.  This is more expensive but was done to help eliminate AC power and grounding problems.  As these are US Federal Government installations, the specifications included wire size and maximum allowable resistance of each wire from the power panel to the receptacle and tested to meet all spec's before acceptance from the electrical contractors at the sites.  
 
The isolated ground system is costly, but if I ever had a studio built it would include the IG5262 isolated ground receptacles for all AC power receptacles. This also helps to minimize any power line noise.