We have a LOT of promos going on this month. Even we’re having a hard time keeping track of them all. That’s all Rick’s fault, really. But it’s because he likes you all so much! Here’s the gist of it:

Buy a StudioLive 24.4.2, get a free PRM1 reference mic!  Here’s the Free PRM1 Form. You can get more details here. Offer ends May 31.

 We’ve dropped the prices on two of our StudioLive mixers! Get the 16.4.2 for $1,799 and the 24.4.2 for $2,999. No rebates, no buy-two-get-one-free, just a lower price. Wow!

Studio One Professional 2.5, $100 off through April! Get with the best for a low low price! This is an instant rebate that will be available through your local PreSonus dealer or StudioOne.PreSonus.Com.

Save $30 bucks on a TubePre V2. This is an instant rebate available at your local PreSonus dealer. Easy money.

Save a whopping $50 on the PreSonus Studio Channel. This is another easy instant rebate available at your local PreSonus dealer.
Last, but certainly not least, if you upgrade from any other version of Studio One to Studio One Professional 2.5, you are entitled to the Simon Phillips Session Tracks drum loop library for FREE! Click here for the rebate form so you can grab your copy—ASAP!

[This just in from John Tulley, recording engineer for Twin Killers!]

The StudioLive 24.4.2 and Studio One 2.5 work so great together. Twin Killers music has a very eclectic sound palette and during the recording process the creative flow is quickly shifting through ideas and sonic spaces. The mixer/DAW combo allows me to get sounds dialed in quickly, without a rack full of gear, print awesome sounds and keep the creative process flowing. The layout always makes sense and is very clean. You’d be hard pressed to get so much power out of any other two tools while always remaining to stay in such a musical headspace!”

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.

Baton Rouge residents: PreSonus is partnering with The Blood Center for a blood drive on Monday, December 17th from 9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. If you are interested, email jobs@presonus.com to confirm a time slot!

Please click HERE to ensure you are eligible to donate. It is important to eat a good breakfast before donating blood and be sure to bring your photo ID!

[Sven-Erik Seaholm, Executive Wordsmith over at San Diego Troubadour, flew out to Baton Rouge for PreSonuSphere and created a nice writeup on his experience.]

As my flight lifts off from the Baton Rouge runway, a silvery trickle of sunlight glints along the plane’s wing (of which I have a perfect view) and suddenly splashes into my eyes with the blinding sting of organic hotel shampoo. Lying back, I think about the events from the last two days and wonder if I’ll ever be able to digest all of the info and experiences I feasted on like Thursday’s jambalaya…

Regular readers of this column know that in addition to the techniques and philosophies discussed here, we also cover a lot of different gear from a variety of manufacturers. Microphones to headphones, keyboards to plug-ins; if it helps you make better music and recordings we try to cover it. That said, there are a few companies whose products have been featured here numerous times. None more so than those from PreSonus (www.presonus.com).

Most recently, we looked at their StudioLive 16.0.2 mixer and StudioOne 2 digital audio workstation software. We highlighted these particular products for three specific reasons: the amount of power being placed into the hands of the “average” musician or recordist, the company’s very reasonable price points and the ingenuity and elegance with which their solutions are rendered.

When I heard they were hosting a two-day event called PreSonuSphere, an interactive conference where users would not only attend information-drenched presentations and receive hands-on training with PreSonus’ line of mixers and software solutions, but would actually be able to interact with the developers of these products as well, I knew I had to go.

[More after the jump. Read the complete article over at San Diego Troubadour.]

We’ve got an extra seat to fill here in the PreSonus office in Baton Rouge. Perhaps it’s a good fit for you!

Web Content Coordinator

Austin’s Matt Langel has been posting kick-ass vlogs of his experience with the PreSonus StudioLives. His most recent vid offers an exceptional fly-on-the-wall view of his sound check process at a noisy club. Any of you interested in checking out a real-world application of the StudioLive series mixers should take a close look at how quickly Matt is able to check a full rock band: applying compression, adding gates, EQing, and routing his subs like he’s sprinkling pixie dust. Matt, thanks for sharing!

Lynn Fuston, head honcho over at 3D Audio, posits a compelling question.

 “Would it be possible to assemble a system that could record 16 inputs onto a multitrack for under $2000?”

The answer is… well, read for yourself. It’s a bit of a lengthy thread but well worth the time. SPOILER ALERT: His solution involves and iPad and the AudioBox 1818VSL.

Here’s a highlight:

"I ran a test last night. 16 tracks at 24/96. Recorded for a minute. Added another 16 in record for a minute while playing back the first 16. Then added 5 more stereo tracks. Hit record. Then added 6 more stereo tracks. Hit record. 

Several observations:

1) This is not real world because we don't record 1 minute songs.
2) CPU usage at its highest never exceeded 30%. There are CPU and Disk Space Usage meters right on the front of the mixer.
3) I got "Low Memory" messages at least four times, so I finally quit every other app BUT Auria. That seemed to eliminate the problem.
4) It only bailed on a recording one time, and that was when I had the buffer set to 128. I upped it to 256 and it seemed fine. By then I was playing back 42 tracks at 24/96 and recording 12 more.

I considered doing a stress test and recording for a long duration but file management using iTunes, at least to someone accustomed to using a computer, seems like a real headache. I'm going to wait to do that test until after I finish my actual music recording. I don't want to fill up the drive with huge empty files.

Like the guy at the Apple store told me, "the iPad is designed for GATHERING information." Fascinating. In the big picture, I think he's right. It's a content-vacuum. Videos, pictures, audio: it's designed to collect info. It's really easy to import stuff into an iPad. Exporting (apart from tossing it into iTunes), not so much. So far, it seems like the recording will be the easy part. At least to this seasoned pro who is accustomed to using multiple backup drives and backup utilities like SyncPro and drag and drop file management."

Read the entire thread over at 3D Audio! There’s some great mobile recording opportunities with this setup…