PreSonus Blog

Monthly Archives: September 2015


Two new Studiolive CS18AI videos: AVB!

Here’s Ray geeking out in your favor—illustrating how to set up and network the StudioLive CS18AI using AVB and Direct Connect Ethernet. Enjoy!

Live Webcast Thursday, Sept. 24: Using the StudioLive CS18AI to Control Studio One

Don’t miss this Thursday’s PreSonus LIVE: Using the StudioLive CS18AI to Control Studio One!

 

Click here to watch or sign up for a calendar reminder.

CS18AI-Webcast

Ricki and the Flash Rocks with PreSonus, Part 5

 

Ricki and the Flash poster (1)Rehearsals started on Monday, September 15. Everyone came in with instruments: Joe had already set up his drums, and the film had rented a B3 and Leslie for Bernie. Rick the Bass Player had one of his Laklands, Rick Springfield had his Gibson SG, and Meryl had a Fender Telecaster. We had backup instruments, as well, and Danelectro sent us a couple of guitars (more on those later).

Neil, Mark, and I made several trips to the 14th St. Guitar Center to get pedals for Rick Springfield’s setup, and Line 6 sent us a guitar wireless system for Meryl. The premise is that Ricki (Meryl) is trying for stardom and is currently slugging it out in clubs in the San Fernando Valley, playing every Tuesday night at the Salt Well.

Gary Goetzman is the producer of the film, and he led the rehearsals, with assistance from Neil and Mark.

We started with a basic line check; the kick drum was miked with an ATM 250. All the other drums were triggered. Joe has triggers built into his custom Drum Workshop kit, and we just plugged out of the trigger module into my Radial DI boxes. We needed to make sure we had signal; one great thing about recording with PreSonus® Capture™ is that the send is pre-fader, so the fader position on the StudioLive AI console is irrelevant; the recording software uses the input gain level you set on the head amp actuators (trim knobs). It’s a really nifty design because it allows the house mixer to change the fader levels for the live house mix without affecting the recording.

Along the same lines, once we had the guitar amp levels where we wanted them with the Radial JDX boxes, we also took a “clean” feed, plugging the guitars directly into my Radial ProDI boxes before the amplifier, in case Neil and Mark wanted to “re-amp” the guitars during mixdown.

A quick aside: I’ll bring it up again later but I want to stress that Gary and director Jonathan Demme wanted authenticity, and they got it. Every note you hear is what was played by the musicians; there are no overdubs of instruments in this movie. There were a few extra band takes for vocals because of bleed but all of what you experience in the movie is Ricki and the Flash performing as you watch.

It was a treat to watch these professionals at work. Gary took five people who had never played together in this configuration and turned them into a band. Each song got a workout. Gary kept the band focused; they worked on one song at a time until they felt they had it down. From where I sat, it really paid off; by the end of rehearsals, I felt like I was mixing a band, not a loose knit group of musicians jamming, but a real, tight band.

Steve Cook Chooses PreSonus for Seymour Duncan Project

[This just in from Steve Cook, session bassist extraordinaire!]

This music business is a funny one. We have our steady gigs, we have producers that like to call on us for different sessions, then there’s the ‘X’ factor: the random gig calls. Sometimes they are for a used car lot sale or a hot dog stand dedication, however sometimes they are from the largest pickup manufacturer in the world. I like hot dogs, and I like Seymour Duncan pickups a whole lot as well.

The voice on the other end of the phone was Kathy Duncan, the head of Seymour Duncan, and her request was a simple one: “Can you record samples of every one of our bass pickups? You have creative liberty to do whatever you like, we just need the samples to be consistent, and representative of the pickups their truest form.”

Well, that narrows it down a bit, doesn’t it?

There were a couple of hurdles to leap in order to make this happen. First, we needed to find all the instruments required in which to install the pickups. Second, I found a tech that would come to the recording sessions and basically work on an assembly line of removing and installing pickups. For example, as I tracked the first P-bass pickup, he would be installing the first Jazz bass pickups, then we’d swap instruments, and move on to the second in each type, and so on.

Where the logistics were a bit daunting, the one constant on which I could rely was my recording set up. For this project (and all my home recording projects), I run PreSonus Studio One through a couple of FireStudio Projects, controlled with a FaderPort. The Class-A preamps in the FireStudios sound amazing, and Studio One is an incredibly fluid and easy platform in which to work. The FaderPort made the whole process easy. I had controls under my left hand with a bass in my right. The finished files sound great, and I (and thankfully Seymour Duncan) were happy with the results.

The project was really a lot of fun for me for several reasons. Rarely do we get to sample dozens of pickups at the same time. As I go back and listen to the individual tracks, I have been able to pinpoint exact tones I like paired with certain instruments, and I know exactly which pickups to install in my personal basses—mission accomplished! I also liked getting to know my Studio One software and other PreSonus products more in-depth, and that I have great sounding tools at my fingertips.

Thanks PreSonus, for continuing to impress, and for keeping us Nashville musicians rockin’! You can hear the demos over at the new Seymour Duncan site.

Musically,
Steve Cook

 

StudioLive AI and StudioLive RM AVB Stagebox Setup Videos

PreSonus Notion Maintenance Updates: Notion for iOS 2.0.135

The following updates have been made to PreSonus® Notion® for iOS® and Notion 5 for Mac® and Windows®Notion-iPhone

Notion for iOS 2.0.135:

New features:

  • Connect to MIDI Bluetooth devices directly from Notion. (Find it in the settings menu)

 

Fixes and Enhancements:

  • Update of all instrument sounds. If you are having any playback issues when a specific instrument is playing, go to the Sounds menu, find the instrument, swipe left, Remove and then tap the cloud icon to redownload. Flute and Double bass section sounds will automatically be replaced if you have them installed.
  • New transfer status dialog added, to prevent issues with large scores or large numbers of scores being hidden, when turning iCloud on or off. (Go to Device Settings>Notion to turn iCloud on or off for Notion)
  • Treble and bass staves and 5 and 6 string basses, now sound in playback as well as in note entry
  • Cursor now remains in the same place when iCloud is being checked in background
  • Instrument playback warning dialog now only appears once, on opening a score
  • Export wav file now uploads to Dropbox and SoundCloud
  • Export all parts to PDF now works as expected
  • Changing the length of hairpins by dragging the end points now fixed
  • Print the part (and not the full score) when viewing Dynamic Parts
  • Titles on following systems now working as expected
  • SATB template now has Treble Clef 8vb for the Tenor part, rather than bass clef
  • When importing MIDI, Notion now displays all key signature changes

 

Notion 5.2.380 for Mac and Windows has the following fixes and enhancements.This update went live on Friday, September 4:

  • When importing MIDI, Notion now displays all key signature changes
  • Fixed ability to switch page from portrait to landscape (Mac only)
  • Fixed playback issues, when an effect is added to individual channel in the mixer
  • Fixed ability to right click on both cautionary time and key signatures
  • Fixed issue where measure line was missing when set to “Link to Next”
  • Add text “Full Score” when part names are added whilst viewing Full Score
  • Fixed hairpin disappearing when ends being dragged left and right.
  • Fix issue of Notion crashing when adding chord symbol to a score that contained at least one grand staff instrument and one single staff instrument.
  • Fixed ability to change measure numbers
  • Fixed issue where measure line was missing on first ending

By the way, you can save nearly half off on Notion for iPad and iPhone, for a limited time only. Offer expires October 31!

 

Announcing the Winners of the BIAS FX Caption Contest

When announcing the winners of a contest, it’s customary for someone in my position to say something to the effect of “choosing a winner was hard.” That was less the case with our BIAS FX Caption Contest—the winners here really stood out from the rest of the pack, and each member on our highly-qualified panel of humorists laughed with equal aplomb at the Grand Prize Winner. But first, the runner-ups.

The following two captions deservedly win an AudioBox iOne Interface, Studio One 3 Artist, Progression 3, and BIAS FX for iPad.


 

First, there’s this funny, down-to-Earth, and frankly quite relatable gem from Timothy L.:

Caption3


Next up, from Matt C., should probably win some sort of Dennis Miller bonus award for its left-field reference. Plus, when you look at the age of most of the pedals in the shot, his choice of “1989” is kinda dead-on.

Caption1


The Grand Prize winner below was submitted by Jeff K. When you consider the letter-to-humor ratio here, you’ve got one of the most efficient funny captions in the history of such contests. Jeff wins the big ol’ prize batch of Studio One 3 Professional, Progression 3, an AudioBox iOne Interface, BIAS Amp Pro, and BIAS FX for iPad.

Congrats and thanks to all for participating—we’ll be e-mailing the winners ASAP.

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Latest @BrianBotkiller Album, “In Case of Revolution,” Produced in Studio One and Available Now!

In Case of Revolution[This just in from PreSonus artist and good friend Brian Botkiller. His latest record was produced on a StudioLive and in Studio One!]

For my new record, In Case of Revolution, I tracked all my vocals and did all of my mixing in Studio One, as well as instrumental tracking.  I began the record in the Studio One 2 era, but I finished the record in Studio One 3.  I also mastered 52 songs in Studio One last year bfor a project I was part of called “Weekly Beats,” which challenged participants to write and release one song per week in 2014. I managed to finish the project, and Studio One was integral to that. It was so easy to take stems into Studio One, mix them, then go into the Project section to begin the mastering process. I built a template which I was able to start from, which made the whole process much easier.

I also used my PreSonus hardware in these projects, namely my StudioLive 24.4.2 for an audio interface during tracking, and my Faderport for fader control while mixing. Both are very important in my Studio, which is based around a PCAudioLabs pro audio computer running Windows 8. I composed many of the songs in Ableton Live using Ableton Push. Using Ableton in conjunction with Push hardware and Studio One really made making this record much, much easier.
In Case of Revolution is a protest and battle record.  It is a mix of Electro, Progressive, and Techno. The title track features Jon Fugler of the awesome progressive techno group Fluke, as well as Corrupt Frame and LithoChasm. “Battle Cry,” another of my favorite songs on the album, features vocals by my wife, Joy Coy. I also play the drums on the record on some songs, namely my Ddrum Dominion kit on “Warpath,” which I recorded in Studio One using my StudioLive 24.4.2 and Blue and Samson mics. There’s also a great mashup/remix of my song “Welcome to Postwar USA” by my friends at Rubion 7. Everything was tracked and mixed in Studio One.
The record is self-released (for now) on a USB stick attached to a hand-painted brick, limited to 100 copies. It’s a piece of art, as I believe that music is indeed very much art. I also love tangible representations of music, but I do not plan to make CDs for this release, the record is not being sold via iTunes, Amazon, or the like, and it is not on Spotify at this time. It is only for sale via BandCamp and when fans get directly in touch with me at http://www.brianbotkiller.com
I believe that we, as artists and musicians, need to insist on some value of our art.  t doesn’t make us sell-outs; it simply means that we do want to be able to keep making our work.
PreSonus is very important to my workflow; I work very fast using PreSonus gear, and that’s what I love about it—getting the job done!
The new record can be purchased at http://brianbotkiller.bandcamp.com

In Case of Revolution

Ian Ethan Case’s New Album, Run Toward The Mountains, Recorded With FireStudio Projects, Available Now

[This just in from Ian Ethan Case, who used some PreSonus gear on his latest album. Check out the video preview for some of his astonishing work.]

When I first set out to record Run Toward The Mountains, I wanted to go for the absolute best sound quality I could. I had a unique opportunity to record at a new state-of-the-art recording studio where I basically had unlimited free studio time, and access to some of the best mics, preamps, and converters that money can buy. I worked with the engineer there over the course of two or three days just working on different mic setups, just working on tone.

While I was happy with the sound we got, I also did some experimenting at home where I just have two really good mics and my FireStudio Project; no preamps, rack gear or $600 direct boxes. I was pretty shocked to find that I was actually getting just as good a sound with my home setup, and actually even preferred it a little bit over the “million dollar setup” at the studio! I’d always had great results from my FireStudio interfaces but this gave me a new respect for them, and gave me a feeling of freedom knowing I could record at home and know that I was getting world-class results. It’s a good thing, because I ended up spending two years working non-stop on this album (a 92-minute double-disc), whenever I wasn’t playing concerts. When you’re not on the clock you can take the time to make things right and achieve a level of tightness that’s tough to get to otherwise, and I’m really grateful I had a way to do that for this album.

When it came time to master it, I was so happy with how the tracks had come together that I decided to bring it to the top-tier mastering house in Boston (M-Works Mastering, in Cambridge). I was expecting the mastering engineer, who has worked with his share of Grammy-winning artists and producers, to kind of complain about the tracks I was giving him, as I did all the mixing myself and I’m not a real mix engineer. But he was actually really complimentary of the mixes and only made very small adjustments. I know it wouldn’t have been that way if the raw sound of the interface I recorded everything through wasn’t solid to begin with.

At this point I’m absolutely thrilled with how the album came out and have never been so proud of something I’ve put out there. I’m grateful that I had a way to do it the way I did it, recording at home, despite not having tens or hundreds of thousands to spend on gear.

PreSonus Sceptre Studio Monitors—Artist Impressions