Our free StudioLive training series has been such a smash that it’s been extended due to popular demand—and this time around, we’re upping the stakes. One attendee at each of these training seminars will receive a free upgrade to Studio One Professional—and a single lucky winner who attends an SAE training in January, February or March of 2015 will be entered to win a StudioLive RM16AI digital mixer! You must be present to win.

SAE Institute branches in New York, Atlanta, Miami, Los Angeles, Nashville, San Francisco, and Chicago have free classes coming up on the following dates:

• 02/14/15
• 03/14/15

Click here to visit presonus.com/SAE to register for this event and make all your friends jealous.

With the arrival of the StudioLive RM-series rackmount mixers, we’ve received a lot of questions about the functionality. 96K? Can they be cascaded? What about the Dante cards? When can I get one?

We’ve answered those questions (and more) in the RM-series mixer FAQ, which can be had by clicking here. But we’ve also gotten a lot of other questions that we feel are worthy of their own FAQ—particularly regarding Ray’s beard. While we understand and appreciate your curiosity, we have had to keep some secrets for a while for competitive reasons—but, the cat is out of the bag and we can go public with the announcement of the Garibaldi FH16K. Read below for more info.

Ray’s Beard FAQ

The Garibaldi FH16K is a true-analog face-mountable beard that allows for maintaining facial warmth in the coming winter months, as well as unsurpassed soup and juice filtering. Beta testers of the Garibaldi have reported up to a 30% increase in their dates-per-week ratio shortly after concluding installation. Garibaldi is compatible with all walks of life, and enjoys cross-fashion compatibility with both corduroys and flannel.

While currently only compatible with human males over the age of 14, we plan to broaden availability to women and younger users through a hormone therapy add-on kit available in Q3 2015. At the time of this writing we have no plans to make the beard available to Androids.

• Q: Is the Garibaldi FH16K difficult to maintain?
• A: Not really, but carrying the weight of the beard consumes approximately 200 calories daily.

• Q: Does UC Surface contain a beard Channel Type preset?
• A: Yes. It was released as part of the most recent UC Surface update, which can be downloaded by clicking here. It is accessed from the Channel Info menu.

• Q: Any affiliation to the cast of Duck Dynasty?
• A: No. Ray is from the Northwest.

• Q: Ray has more hair on the bottom half of his head than the top half. That’s weird.
• A: This is not a question.

• Q: MIDI implementation?
• A: Not available at this time.

• Q: When does it ship?
• A: The Garibaldi FH16K is available to begin growing immediately, with full installation concluding in 2-3 years.

• Q: What networking options exist?
• A: There is no Dante option planned, as Dante Alighieri (the great Italian poet who wrote the Divine Comedy) was clean-shaven. AVBeard is being considered.

• Q: What customization options exist?
• A: At the time of this writing, the Garibaldi FH16K grows to the default Grizzly Adams setting pictured above. We will be introducing the FuzzTrim QT expansion in Q2 2015, allowing for stored presets including the Goatee, Neckbeard (AKA “The Linux”), Mutton Chop, Fu Manchu, and Gandalf.*

*Gandalf has not yet tested for compatibility with OSX Mordor, please wait before updating your OS

Tech Specs:

[This just in from the Press Office of MIDIMusic ProAudio, our distributor in Italy!]

Today, Midi Music has hosted an important event for the Italian key dealers featuring the two main new products recently introduced by PreSonus: The new generation of StudioLive RM Series Rackmount mixers, and the new range of StudioLive AI PA Loudspeakers. About 50 retailers and operators, as well as journalists from Italian commercial audio magazines attended the event.

Francesco Galarà, Midi Music’s new product advisor for the Pro Audio division, described the philosophy and technical characteristics of the RM series, focusing on the unique features and intuitive ease-of-use offered by UC Surface. He also addressed the versatility that makes StudioLive RM16AI and RM32AI suitable for applications in different fields: live sound, studio recording, radio and TV Broadcast, and system integration.

After going deep into the specific details of CoActual and Temporal Equalization technologies, it then has been the turn of the set of StudioLive AI PA speakers.

We conducted a listening test, covering various genres of music from pop to rock, from the classics to jazz and then—the icing on the cake—Tchaikovsky’s famous “Waltz of the Flowers,” which was very suitable for highlighting the magnitude of the StudioLive AI Loudspeakers’ dynamic response, linearity and definition playback—all without compromise at any listening level. The clarity and definition immediately captured the attention and curiosity of the audience, who remained long after the demo with many questions and insights about the features and capabilities of both products.

The event was followed by a nice dinner party, with typical Italian seafood and a fine Piedmont Hills wine selection, offering the participants another opportunity to continue to deepen the discussion about technical and commercial aspects of PreSonus products.

Midi Music ProAudio
Press Office

On our most successful PreSonus LIVE to date, Rick Naqvi and Raymond Tantzen discuss the RM-series StudioLive mixers and take some questions from the audience. If you couldn’t tune in live, now’s your chance to catch the show!

For more on the RM-series of rackmount digital mixers, click here.

International Sales Director of Mystery Mark Williams just got back from an incredibly successful trip to Chicago, where he and Martin Atkins hosted a PreSonus Riff to Release clinic focusing on production in Studio One and Nimbit, and followed it up by attending—and recording—the Cold Waves Music Festival, which included Front 242, Fear Factory, Die Krupps, and many more stalwart ambassadors of rivethead culture. More on that in this blog post.

The three-hour Riff-to-Release clinic at SAE Chicago boasted standing-room-only attendance—every chair was taken, and folks who didn’t show up early wound up sitting and standing in the aisles. In a flash of brilliance, SAE streamed video of the presentation into a networked room nearby to accomodate the spillover.

Longime PreSonus forum big dawg and bacon enthusiast Johnny Geib of Home Studio Trainer, presented with Mark on the Studio One portion of the presentation. Blake Novia, a student at SAE, recorded vocals into Studio One, and Johnny and Mark produced, mixed, mastered, and released the recording on Nimbit, all within the span of the presentation.

Don’t believe me? You can get the track here: http://www.nimbitmusic.com/blakenovia1.

Each audience member walked away with a Studio One Artist license and a 90-day Nimbit premium account. Thanks to all who came out and helped make this happen—we should really do this again sometime.

Mark shot a LOT of video on this trip—you’ll find it popping up on PreSonus’ blog and social media platforms sooner than later.

The Cold Waves music festival is a nonprofit event held in Chicago to raise money for the Hope for the Day, a non-profit movement dedicated to utilizing music and the arts as a defense mechanism to suicide. This years’ event just concluded, with stellar performances from Front 242, Fear Factory, Die Krupps, and many more. The event was a smash success, with over 2,000 attendees at the festival over two days, including over 100 musicians from all over the planet.

Mark Williams recorded the entire show on the new StudioLive RM32AI—the bulk of the recordings are being mixed as I type this, but for now you can click here to get the 4-song Cold Waves sampler promo, absolutely free! Rest assured that more will be up and available on Nimbit very soon, where sales will go to benefit Hope for the Day. We’ll let you know when that happens.

PreSonus donated some gear for Cold Waves’ silent auction, including two AudioBox Studios, two  pairs of Eris 4.5 Monitors, one pair of Sceptre S6 monitors, three Temblor T10 subwoofers, four copies of Studio One Professional, some of which were autographed by the festival’s performers. 

But just because the Cold Waves show is over, doesn’t mean the story ends here—Mark recorded the entire proceedings including a ton of interviews with Jason Novak and David Shock, Martin Atkins, and more. There’s much more coming—accoring to Mark, “about 60 gigs worth of video and 16 hours of audio.”

[This just in from John Taglieri from Dawg Pound Studios!]

Hey there, I’m John Taglieri from Dawg Pound Studios. Based in Hanson, Massachusetts, our studio boasts a 200 square foot live room full of drums, vintage amps, a ’64 Hammond, and close to 30 mostly-vintage guitars and basses to choose from. Our control room is full of great digital and outboard gear to help make sure we capture the music as accurately as it is performed—and make it sound amazing. I’ve produced close to 20 CDs for myself and clients, and as an engineer/producer have had two Billboard charting CDs (a #74 and a #112), a #1 single on Amazon, a total of 11 top ten singles on Amazon & iTunes, as well as a Best-Selling Alternative EP on iTunes. The studio has been touted as having a great-sounding live room, and a control room that sounds true. What you hear at the mix area is what it sounds like out in the real world as well.

One thing I’m proud of is that we use a lot of PreSonus gear in the studio. When I had my studio at its old location in New Jersey, it was very piecemeal. I started really working with PreSonus when I moved the studio to Massachusetts three years ago. I did the studio build from scratch and wanted the best gear that I would feel comfortable with. The room didn’t exist, so I worked with an acoustic engineer to get the design right, got some help from Auralex to tune it, and then chose PreSonus for workflow, live room monitoring and control room mixing. Currently I’m using the following;

• a StudioLive 24.4.2 mixer
• a FaderPort
• StudioOne Professional 2
• Four HP4 headphone amps in the live room
• an ADL 600 preamp (Coming soon!)

For my latest EP, Days Like These, we had a great and fun situation. We assembled top musicians from all over the country, including Kenny Aronoff (John Mellencamp, John Fogerty, Michelle Branch), Rich Redmond (Jason Aldean, Ludacris), Alan Bowers (Rachel Allyn), Chad Cunningham, as well as myself on drums. We also got Lee Turner (Darius Rucker) & Eric Ragno (Kiss, Alice Cooper) on keys and Greg Juliano on bass. Keith LuBrant, Joe Gilder & myself handled guitars, and we used writers from the US & Australia.

Tracks were cut in eight different studios around the country, as well as at Dawg Pound Studios, and on all different DAWs. We then used DropBox to get the .WAVs to Dawg Pound Studios, where Studio One Professional 2 was used to assemble and mix all the tracks. Dozens of tracks were done in-house as well as sent in. All songs started at my studio with acoustic guitar, vocals, and click tracks, and ended with final mixes. The workflow was effortless. Working with Studio One and my FaderPort, mixing was a great experience. I had just added the FaderPort to the system and I can’t tell you how much it streamlines mixing. It makes subtle mix, pan and FX moves far easier than using my trackpad. I run a tricked-out Mac Mini with a Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad. We must have done something right because the EP debuted on release week on the Billboard Independent Album chart at #112, which was quite an honor.

Running PreSonus in my studio has brought my studio up to a level of quality that I can truly be proud of. I am putting out sounds rivaling any other studio thanks to the quality of my inputs, the workflow, the ease of mixing, true quality stock plugins, great preamps, and I know my clients love the custom monitoring setup in the live room during tracking. Stop by the studio’s website and Facebook and check us out!

• DawgPoundStudios.com
• facebook.com/DawgPoundStudios

The StudioLive RM32AI and RM16AI created the most significant online buzz in our history of product releases. We were up to a whopping 16,000 views of our release videos for these products in mere days, and responding to the Facebook and YouTube comment threads on the matter have seen Ray Tantzen, our Sr. Product Manager, seriously distracted from bringing his next stroke of genius to store shelves, venues, and studios. Don’t worry, he’ll catch up—and thanks for all your great questions. With the cat out of the proverbial bag, we’ve done our best to keep up with customer interest. Fact is, if you really want to get to know one of these things, the best thing you can do is get one of these things.  But where? When? Who?

• Where: Several online and brick-and-mortar retailers are currently taking pre-orders for the RM32AI and RM16AI mixers. Most will allow you to pre-order online, but this will vary by dealer.
• When: Whenever! That’s what makes it a pre-order. In terms of arrival dates, RM-Series mixers are currently on planes, trains, and slow boats, and will be in dealer hands, and subsequently customer hands, in early October.
• Who: You!

Click any of the icons above to get the ball rolling on a preorder!

If you’ve heard the RM-series mixer buzz but don’t yet understand what all the fuss is about, take a look at the videos in the playlist below to learn a bit more.

Here’s a couple videos regarding the RMAI line from Sweetwater and Full Compass.

In one of the best PreSonus LIVE episodes ever, Justin Spence and Wesley Smith take user questions about the latest firmware update for the StudioLive AI Mixers, which added the cascading feature.

Cascade any StudioLive AI Mixer to any other StudioLive AI Mixer and boost your mixing power!

Get the firmware update by logging into your account at my.presonus.com.

For more on the StudioLive AI Mixers, click here.