PreSonus Blog

Monthly Archives: March 2012


Preparing for Musikmesse

So it’s just about a week to go before Frankfurt Musikmesse, and we’re starting to get down to the wire on the stage demos. Looks like we’re going to have a lot of demos of a lot of different facets of Studio One, with (as usual) some really great musicians. This time I’ll be working with at least three different sets of musicians, which means a lot of preparation and figuring out how to best play to the strengths of each one. And what features we really have concentrate on, because with a program this size there’s no way you can cover even 10% of it properly in a half hour demo.

But most importantly, getting the music right. Because at the end of the day, it’s about all about the music. That’s the end result, and something I have to keep in my mind all the time: the technology is only a means to that end, and no matter how cool the tech may be, the music is what counts. Luckily I think we’ll have some pretty good music for you next week… 🙂

Monday morning blues

Well, it appears that one of my previous posts caused a bit of a storm in the media. While it’s nice to get attention I guess, I’ve taken down the post because it got perceived as being some kind of marketing blurb, when it wasn’t supposed to be. Yeah it’s true that I do marketing for PreSonus, but this isn’t the place for it. This is really just me talking about what I personally get up to with Studio One, not some kind of advertising spam. That’s why I started doing the Freebie Friday posts for example – those are plugins that I actually personally like and use to make music with – PreSonus doesn’t get anything out of me telling people about free stuff. My posts here are just me talking about the things I do and like, and that I think might be interesting for you guys too.

So my apologies to anyone that I might have offended with a previous post, but don’t blame PreSonus for it. Anything appearing in this blog under my name is my personal opinion only (that’s why it’s got my name on it) and certainly not some kind of company policy. So blame me, not them.

I got into this business because I love to make music, and I love technology, and even after many many years of doing it I still love it and get very enthusiastic about it. And I guess most of the people reading this feel the same way, so if I sometimes go a little overboard, I hope you guys can understand. I’m a musician first, and a marketing guy second, and it should stay that way. Thanks for listening.

Freebie Friday – Toneboosters

It’s Freebie Friday again, and this week it’s the turn of the mighty Toneboosters.

The man behind Toneboosters is the remarkably talented and knowledgeable Jeroen Breebaart who is a scientist and engineer working in the field of audio processing, and who moonlights making incredible VST plugins in his spare time.

 

Most of the Toneboosters plugins are commercial, but Jeroen offers them at great prices, and they are well worth investing in. But some of them are free, and very much worth the download. My favourite of the freebies is TB IsoneSurround which allows virtual room monitoring even when using headphones! If you are living in a house with other people and you can only mix late a night in headphones, then you absolutely need this plugin. The virtual room simulation is much better than most commercial offerings costing three figur

e sums! The big brother version TB Isone is even better, so if you like the free one, I definitely recommend upgrading.

 

TB OmniSone also uses some of Jeroen’s spatial processing tricks, this time to play with the perceived stereo placement and width of a sound signal – it’s pretty wacky, but I think you should try it, you can do some amazing things with it.

And for those who find seven band parametric EQs a little bit daunting, I have to recommend TB EZQ. Want your track to sound brighter? Well… make it sound brighter 🙂

 

 

Some kind words from Frog Leap Studios in Norway

I recently received a kind e-mail from Leo in Norway, sharing his StudioLive experience with us. I found it shareworthy.

“Hey PreSonus! I’m Leo, and I run Frog Leap Studios on the westside of Norway. We use the Presonus Live 16.4.2. I am very pleased with the PreSonus mixer, I like the built in effects a lot. I used the compressor on a few metal vocalists. I was formerly running the compressor pre-recording, but soon found out that hitting the Post button was a very wise choice. I tried to capture the same sound later in the mixing stage as when we recorded, but found out that it was the built-in compressor that had done the trick!
Recalling a scene is also very valuable for me to get my workflow on. Now I can simply hit a button, and all the settings for my cool drum sounds instantly arrive. I’ve also brought the mixer to a few live gigs, running it with Studio One. It’s very simple to set up and captures great sound that can be manipulated in greater detail later at the studio.