PreSonus Blog

Monthly Archives: December 2012


Sweet Project Studio Mastering Master Masters Project in-Studio, in Studio One’s Mastering Project Suite

[This just in from Graham Cochrane, Grand Mixologist and WhizAdult over at The Recording Revolution. He put Studio One 2.5 Professional’s mastering features into an opinion toaster, and a few minutes later this tasty, crispy review video popped out. Dig in, but bacon is extra.]

Hey PreSonus…

Hope you are well. Just a heads up that I posted a video review of mastering in Studio One with the Project Page. Enjoy! Really enjoying working with S1 for mastering. You all have done an excellent job with this! Hope to see some of you at NAMM.

Merry Christmas,

 

A Great Video for a Great Cause: Free Your Mind

[This just in from Marcus Marshall, production wünderkind with a heart of gold.]

Hey PreSonus!

I wanted to tell you about this video we’re proud of.  This year a partner and I produced a song for Grammy-nominated artist Carolyn Malachi. The song is titled “Free Your Mind,” and it’s fully produced and recorded in Studio One.

FYM 1400

The track is gaining momentum! It’s currently available on Google play, and will hit iTunes and Amazon in a couple of weeks.

We have been getting a lot of attention from the song because of what it is doing for other people. Carolyn just debuted the Music video for it at the US Chamber of Commerce BCLC’s 2012 Corporate Citizenship Awards here in Washington, DC. Companies such as Google, NFL, DOW, IBM, and many others were in attendance. Link here about the awards here.
The video is important because Carolyn has teamed up with a Company called the Theschoolfund.org for the #IAM campaign. With the video we plan to raise money for children in East Africa to attend school. The campaign runs for six months and we plan on raise 10,000 school hours per month. We have been able to secure corporate sponsors that have committed to our support our efforts. For every click of the music video our corporate sponsors will donate 19 cents, which equals one hour of school for a child. 10,000 hours costs $1900.

 

Here is an article about it in the Huffington Post.
Below are some links to other works produced with PreSonus Gear and software.
Miguel—Kaleidoscope Dreams Listening event and interview. Event using StudioLive 24.4.2, recorded in Capture, mixed in Studio One.
Brandy—Diary. Audio restoration and mixed in Studio One.
Brandy— Love Life Interviewed. Event using StudioLive 24.4.2, recorded in Capture, mixed in Studio One.
Kendrick Lemar—Interview and Freestyle. Event using StudioLive 24.4.2, recorded in Capture, mixed in Studio One.

Enjoy!

IAM-Cover-Photo2

Let’s Talk Piracy—Make Your Opinion Known!

[This just in from Paul Fattahi,  Executive Director, International Music Software Trade Association. ]

Dear IMSTA Members and Friends,

As you may know, every year IMSTA conducts the “Let’s Talk Piracy” Survey in order to obtain a better understanding of the motivators behind software piracy. We then analyze the data and provide our findings, along with any observed trends to our members. It would be much appreciated if you could send this to your marketing, web, and social media teams and to ask them to promote the survey as much as possible. With your help, we could receive plenty of responses and have the results analyzed and prepared for our meeting at NAMM.

Happy Holidays,
Paul

As software is of incalculable importance not just to PreSonus, but also our entire industry, Please click here to take the survey. It won’t take but a minute.

Also, feel welcome and encouraged to share your thoughts on software piracy in the comments section below. That will take as little or as much time as you like.

 

PreSonus Holiday Laugh 2012—Rick’s DIY Approach to Yuletide Cheer

Rick Naqvi is anything but lazy. I mean, why go pay $90 for a half-dead tree sold by the local Cub Scout pack when you can venture into the great outdoors and get a tree yourself?

I’m not sure how he found an evergreen in Baton Rouge. And we almost NEVER see this much snow, but whatever.

Wishbone Ash and the PreSonus StudioLive

Joe Crabtree, Live Sound Engineer for Wishbone Ash, picked up a StudioLive 24.4.2 for Wishbone Ash’s most recent tour. He’s running front-of-house from his StudioLive, and—like many StudioLive owners before him—was able to offload a rack full of old compressors, reverbs, gates… the usual suspects.

Furthermore, he’s really using the board to its fullest. He records every show to Capture, and his band is taking advantage of the remote in-ear monitor control features available via QMix.

Enough chit-chat, just watch his vid. Joe, thanks so much for this!

Damon Humphrey, Up All Night on Studio One Professional 2.5

[This just in from Damon Humphrey, who was kind enough to offer insightful As to our run-of-the-mill Qs regarding his company, After Midnight Productions—that’s AMP, to you.]
Hey PreSonus! Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my experiences! If you need anything, please let me know. Thanks again.
  • How and when did you get involved in music? How long has AMP been running?
 I got involved in music by accident actually, my friend—and now business partner—Sean Fields was always involved with music. He asked me how I would feel about starting up a music production company. Without any hesitation, I said yes! We came up with a plan, put together a demo, and earned enough money to go official in 2003.  I first started out doing the marketing and promotion, which led us to our first client. That’s when I got into producing!
  • What PreSonus stuff do you use?
Right now I use Studio One Professional 2.5, and I am using the PreSonus FaderPort.
  • What were you using before PreSonus, and why did you switch?
I was using FL Studio, which I still do now, ReWired, or I may track out and mix in Studio One, which I do a lot of. I’ve used Reason, Sonar and Logic as well. But feel that it is much easier to do what I want to do in Studio One without struggling to do it. To get where I want to go, there are simply fewer steps. Studio One speeds up the process.
  • What are some of your favorite features?
My favorite features? Hmm, there are too many to mention, LOL! But, I really like the drag-and-drop feature, without multiple shortcut keys. I also like being able to move around in the DAW without thinking too hard, by not having to go through several menus and sub-menus. For example, I never bothered with bussing in FL Studio, because it was too complicated. I would end up loading up plug-ins on each channel. In Studio One, setting up the bus is simple. It’s just a right click, and select Add Bus for Selected Tracks.  I can then add a single instance of the Compressor to the whole bus.  That is a definite time saver, and also works with sends. Thanks to Studio One, I now have a better understanding of the way effects chains work.
  • Any tips’n’tricks or production secrets you can share?
Well, this can be implemented in all DAWS, but, for those who have had issues with their drums not sounding punchy, and full: stacking is the key. Also, knowing how to compress and EQ with minimal settings. In other words, less is more when it comes to those type of things. Taking your time to learn the DAW without rushing is the key to getting great sound out of the software. Know that when your drums start clipping, back off a little, that will make a huge difference. ALSO—and this is a big tip I am starting to do it myself—listen to a reference mix of your favorite artist and try and get your beat or song to sound just as clear and loud as that, with out over-doing it… Keeping in mind what I mentioned before: less is more.

 

 

Big Joe Daddy’s Big Multi-Pin Panel-Box Thingy

[This just in from Big Joe Daddy, PreSonus forum regular, guitarist, industrious cable-wrangler, and all-around great guy.]

Hey PreSonus, I finally got my multi-pin panel built and installed. The rack panel sits in a road case that serves as a stand for the StudioLive 24.4.2 mixer. The road case also has a power conditioner, a couple of drawers, wireless in-ear transmitter, etc, and the stage snakes are stored in the bottom of the case during transport.

The big cable on the left in the photo below feeds a fan-out to the mixer. The two smaller multi-pin cables feed 12×4 stage boxes. The XLRs are main outs, sub outs, and Auxes 9 and 10. (Auxes 1-8 are fed to the stage boxes. The mixer sits in a Gator case with the doghouse. Setup is a snap. The large multi-pin cable is stored in the doghouse for transport, so I never have to mess with plugging things in to the back of the mixer!

I play guitar in a band made up of weekend warriors like myself. We play small venues, mostly bar gigs and winery gigs, with an occasional barn party thrown in for good measure.  In addition to my guitar playing duties, I’ve also fallen into the role of ‘sound guy’, audio engineer, roadie, booking agent, transportation coordinator, finance manager, and marriage counselor. 😉 

Since I’m not as energetic as I once was in my teens, I’m always looking for ways to simplify the transport and setup process of all our gear. We have a tandem-axle trailer with a ramp door, e-track, interior lighting, etc. It holds all our gear in road cases with casters. If it doesn’t have wheels, we burn it. We joke with folks telling them that we play for free, and that we only charge to move all the gear in and out! 😉
Part of the burden of setting up our 5-piece band is to ensure that all the cabling is set up properly. We run with five wedges (or in-ears), a couple of mains, and a couple of subs, in addition to a full suite of drum mics, two Axe-FX II guitar rigs, keys, bass rig, etc, etc. Everything is run through the StudioLive 24.4.2.
Inevitably, especially when it’s dark, there are ‘gremlins’ that sneak their way into the setup process wreaking havoc at the last minute, typically from a cable getting plugged in incorrectly, or something of that sort. I often use gaff tape to cover any unused jacks on equipment to avoid mistakes. And of course everything is labeled.
My latest effort to help make our setup and breakdown process as easy as possible has been the introduction of a multi-pin snake system. Basically it’s made up of the following components:
  1. Multi-pin fan out snake that plugs in to the rear panel of the StudioLive, and the other end plugs into a large multi-pin connector on the rack panel.
  2. Two 12 x 4 stage boxes that connect to 35′ multi-pin snakes and also connect to the rack panel.
  3. A rack mount panel that houses all the multi-pin connectors and is mounted in a road case which serves double-duty as a rolling stand for the StudioLive mixer and case.

When we roll in to a gig, we merely open the doghouse of the mixer case where the fan out snake is stored and always stays connected to the StudioLive. We plug in the big multi-pin to the rack panel, and then roll out the two 35′ sub-snakes and stage boxes that are stored in the bottom of the road case for transport.

The stage boxes are positioned at the front of the stage and the back of the stage. This lets us run relatively short XLR cables to everything and keeps the stage clutter to a minimum. The stage boxes are clearly labeled so there’s a lot less chance of error when plugging things in.
We position the StudioLive 24.4.2 on the side of the stage next to me so I can access it if needed. I’ll do a quick virtual sound check with the iPad running a Capture recording created previously. If we’re lucky enough to have someone running sound for us, we’ll put them on an iPad. All of our monitor settings and Fat Channel settings are saved to a scene before we hit the venue, so most of the time, it’s turn it on and roll with very little tweaking.
I’ve got to give credit to Papa John of Papa Grows Funk for the ideas and guidance in putting this multipin system together. He has a similar setup that he demonstrated during Presonusphere. He took the time to answer my questions and make suggestions prior to placing the order.  All the boys in Papa Grows Funk are great guys. Many thanks.
When I got on board with PreSonus a few years ago, I started with the StudioLive 16.4.2. Instantly I was sold on the features, and ease of use, but most of all the improved sound quality over my old analogue board. Later I added the StudioLive 16.0.2 because the darn thing was so small and portable. It’s perfect for all sorts of venues when size and portability are important. Lastly, I added the StudioLive 24.4.2 to the quiver and I couldn’t be happier. The added features on the StudioLive 24.4.2, along with all the cool software PreSonus keeps releasing, makes me wonder what more I could ask for.
I’ve become extremely passionate about live sound, audio engineering, and pursuing the best possible sound quality for FOH. With the constant upgrades to the software and firmware, it’s like getting a new piece of equipment with each release. Kudos to all the folks at Presonus for such wonderful products and for listening to your customers. You’re providing incredible value to folks like me.  You’ve earned my business.
Joe “Big Daddy” Hinkens

Kimberly Thompson Chooses PreSonus


Kimberly Thompson
 is a world-class musician, producer, engineer, composer, and educator whose work has included gigs with Kenny Barron, Jay-Z, Kanye West, George Michael, Alicia Keys, and Beyonce. She’s recently moved from another well-known DAW to Studio One, and says she’ll never go back.

“Everything with Studio One is crystal clear,” says Thompson. “I’m able to hear all those ghost notes, those staccato notes, all that stuff that often gets lost in the mix. It’s an amazing program—it picks up the nuances of the sticks, the depth of the snare, and the classiness of the traditional brush strokes in jazz. It nurtures my sound while I’m recording live. I don’t feel the temptation to over-use EQ anymore—in many cases I don’t use it at all.”

Studio One’s intuitive workflow also scores high marks. “It’s a really easy program to work with, whether you’re approaching it as a producer, an engineer, a musician, or all of the above,” she observes. “Studio One enables me to keep working and be more productive.”

 

 

 

PreSous LIVE: John Mills and the Smaart Wizards

Join veteran live sound guru John Mills on a journey to discover precious Smaart Wizard technologies…now available for FREE in the StudioLive 16.4.2 and StudioLive 24.4.2 digital mixers. He will be taking your questions LIVE! Click here to go to the Livestream page or receive an e-mail reminder before the show.

Snipe Young on Building “Shock Your Body”

[This just in from Dr. Snipe Young, decorated PreSonus Artist/producer/songwriter/engineer/bad-ass. He just wrapped his most recent track, “Shock Your Body,” in Studio One, linked below for you to hear.  The good doctor was kind enough to share a bit about the anatomy of the track, and what makes it tick.]

Hey PreSonus—Let’s dig in shall we?!?! On this particular record I was going for a funk/retro/groovy groove—if that is a sound.

So here goes… I played the main groove live on my Open labs Miko, which has a FireBox 4×4 installed in it. From there I tracked it through a very old, yet warm vintage 24-channel mixer. I then sampled this recording, chopped a nice feeling groove and placed it on the Studio One timeline.

The groove is the backbone of the record, so I built around that with kicks and snares I created to give it a subtle punch and snatch. I then used the groove quantize to lock my bass from Trilian and the drums—It’s still a remarkable feature to me!

My next addition would be to play some guitar licks which were brought alive by the TriComp and Pro EQ. I also added an instance of Beat Delay and set it to echo on the 8th notes, which gives it a small stadium feeling and allows it to lay inside the mix better. Lastly, I just sprinkled on a few chords from a Komplete 8 Ultimate Vintage Rhodes organ, and Philharmonik strings and the pieces to the puzzle all tie together in the end to make a vintage-sounding montage.

We had fun creating this with Studio One Pro 2.5—a tool that a Pro uses!