Recording - August 2010 - 12

PreSonus Studio One

record pass that can be spread out to tracks into Studio One, and the program makes a of their own for manual comping. fair guess at how to use it. Drop an audio loop Edit: Expanding the Edit Window gives into a new Track, and Studio One will adjust you a comprehensive set of MIDI editing tools its tempo to match that of the song; drop a virlike velocity scaling, quantization, length and tual instrument into the Track list, and a new transposition adjustment, etc. Automation can channel appears on the Console to match the be displayed in a Track’s data lane or on a new Track with the virtual instrument you separate track of its own (that’s how non-input selected. A wide variety of file types are suptracks like Aux returns are automated). ported—linear audio up to 32/192, MP3, By clicking on various buttons, you can FLAC, and OGG files, even Apple Loops! collapse and expand information windows As of version 1.5, the Browser can act as on track automation, tempo mapping, gen- a destination as well as a source of media, eral track data, and so on. There are a selec- so you can store parts of your work as selftion of tool cursors you can choose for track contained items for use in other songs. If and event editing; you can then hide or you’ve created a particular effects chain show the Info View, a context-sensitive “tuto- you really like, you can pop up a menu to rial” display that tells you everything the tool give it a special name and save it, but you you’ve selected can do based on where it’s can also quickly save the settings of a paraimed at any given moment. For example, if ticular effects plug-in just by dragging it you choose the Arrow Tool and hover it over a Track, the Info View tells you that you can select with the tool as is, Shiftclick to toggle selection, Shift-doubleclick to select the entire Track, or hold down the Command key to change to the Range Tool momentarily. Console: The Console (mixer view) has everything you’d expect, but is unique in its ability to quickly collapse or hide anything you don’t want in your face at any given moment. Console channels can be hidden or exposed with a click, and set up in a compact Small Mode for use on laptops, where a button makes them expand sideways to expose insert and send effects, which themselves can be collapsed for compactness or expanded for a thumbnail overview... or fully expanded into popup windows of their own. If you’re working with a plug-in instrument with Bundled plug-ins Room Reverb and Mojito multiple output channel capability, you can selectively hide and show each set of from the Mixer to the Browser. This makes it very easy to build up a library of your outputs as needed. Every channel has its own level meter with own tools in addition to the ones Studio peak hold, and you can add larger meters One gives you. One thing I loved about the Song Page is for input channels while you’re tracking. Lots of DAWs offer the option of showing or hid- that very little, if anything, was done strictly ing information in their Mixers, but I’m not for the sake of uniqueness. Pretty much every aware of one that’s as elegant as Studio function that has a common analogy in other One’s. If you get lost or confused easily in a DAWs looked and worked as you’d expect standard DAW mixer, Studio One’s layout it to, including arming tracks for recording, setting up a loop region for auditions and could be a huge win for you. The Browser: One of the unsung heroes of overdubs, punching, editing events, setting Studio One is the Browser, a large and con- up insert effects, configuring the metronome figurable window that lets you look up all and preroll, etc. Anyone who’s ever worked kinds of audio content: loops, audio files, with a DAW before will find Studio One a instruments, plug-ins, and effects settings. It’s refreshingly non-stupid experience! Studio One has its share of unique function a catchall library for everything you might icons. I’m a fairly visual person, so once I need to make a Song or Project. The Browser in Studio One lets you do a lot learned what a particular icon meant, it tendof things by simple drag-and-drop. Almost any ed to stick in my mind—one example is the kind of file can be dragged from the Browser tiny icon on Sends to indicate if they’re pre- or
12
RECORDING AUGUST 2010

post-fader. But for the beginner, there’s a comprehensive “tool tips” feature; just hold the mouse over anything you don’t recognize, and after a few moments a small information block will pop up to explain what it is, sometimes with added instructions like “hold down mouse to do A, double click to do B”. Effects plug-ins and virtual instruments The conventional wisdom that “plug-ins included with a DAW aren’t up to real-world challenges” takes a beating in Studio One. Its effects are really solid, sound great, and are easy to use, with big easy-to-read displays, clearly labeled parameters, and lots of cool sonic choices. Studio One Artist can’t use third-party plug-ins, but they may well not be missed! From the Ampire amp modeler to the XTrem tremolo and all the letters of the alphabet in between, you’re given all kinds of cool effects. My personal favorites in the bunch are the MixVerb reverb, which has a nice dense sound with very little CPU impact, and the Analog Delay, which has a lovely tone. More tweaky users will like the powerful Multiband Dynamics, 7-band Pro EQ, psychedelic Groove Delay, and the highly configurable Room Reverb, and useful tools like the Phase Meter, Spectrum Meter, and Mixtool (which helps you fix phase and channel inversion problems and decode Mid-Side recordings). Studio One comes with four virtual instruments, three of which are samplebased. There’s Impact, a drum pad instrument that lets you create kits of 16 pads with mute groups (so a closed hi-hat chokes an open one), individual tweaks to tuning and frequency, velocity layering, and so forth. Presence is a sample player with hundreds of useful presets. It can play standard SoundFont files as well as PreSonus’s native SoundSets; it has basic synthesizer soundshaping tools and excellent built-in audio effects. Finally, SampleOne is a more tweaky sampler/ sample player that allows you to load many individual sounds and create your own keymaps and loops, turning any audio content into a playable instrument. In addition to the three sample-based instruments there’s Mojito, a simple but tasty-sounding one-oscillator modeled analog synthesizer that excels at basses, leads, and blippy timbres. While hardcore synth enthusiasts will want to add their own plug-ins, this collection of sound sources will let users create beautiful music in a wide variety of genres with no add-ons required. And if you like hands-on control, PreSonus makes it easy with a quick and effective MIDI Learn function that lets you map controls on your controller of choice to particular parameters on effects and instruments, or globally so they always control the same thing (like master volume). There’s about 14 GB of bundled content with the full install of Studio One Pro 1.5, including a new 400 MB Piano for Presence,

Recording - August 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - August 2010