PreSonus Blog

Earlier this year I invited National Audio to be a part of the Desert Feet Tour’s work bringing musical inspiration, education and opportunities to some of the most remote Indigenous communities in Australia. In particular we sought a mixing desk that allowed us to multi-track record and mix down. This recording system is the backbone of our live shows allowing us to give outback musicians a recording of themselves—a unique opportunity most would never have!

On tour storage space is very limited. We often have little time to set up our concerts under the stars. An added challenge is the inevitable army of little hands that descend, attached to kids offering to help with the set-up, plugging leads in wherever they fit, asking questions about everything we have, pushing every button and sliding every fader!

So how has the addition of the Presonus StudioLive 24.4.2 come to be so valued?

It has saved us the space of carrying all the usual rack gear – compressors, EQs, effects units, gates – all of these are contained within the amazing Fat Channel, which is available on all 24 channels! I now have 24 compressors, 24 gates, 24 limiters, 24 EQs and a multi-effects unit, all in the same space as my old analog mixing desk. We used to have to carry an additional 10RU road case of processing gear, plus a box of patch leads; this itself would generally take 30 minutes to set up. Now we have only the one road case containing the precious StudioLive, and it takes me only the time to plug in the input multicore leads to set up. Truly amazing.

Furthermore it is extremely easy to get a great sound. I often don’t have the time to fine-tune or do much of a sound check between arrival and setup, so to be able to just drag-and-drop presets using Universal Control, with further tweaking effects shown graphically right in front of me is invaluable. And then to be able to copy these presets between channels – incredible.

Compare this to my previous regime; I would need to patch my mixing desk Direct Outs to a recording interface which was plugged into my computer. From here I would need to take the outputs from the interface back into my mixer.

Now I just plug in a single firewire cable and BAM: I have all the ins and outs that I need! I open up the Capture software and simply hit record – and every channel is recorded perfectly every time.

So, my friends at NAS, the point of all this is to express how very impressed I am with the service and support from National Audio Systems and Presonus in supplying us with this desk. The StudioLive is faultless, performing flawlessly in the very dusty conditions we subject our gear to. Its features are truly impressive. The dynamics, effects processors and EQs are all excellent, the software is intuitive, easy to use, highly functional and worked seamlessly with my MacBook Pro. The few technical queries I did have were answered on the Presonus forums. All-round excellent stuff.

I’ve attached some photos of the old and the new gear in use – please feel free to use these however you wish, as well as this letter itself, to promote your fantastic service and brilliant product.

Yours sincerely,
Ewan Buckley

Sound Engineer on the Desert Feet Tour
Desert Feet Inc.

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