We recently had the opportunity to hear more from Rome’s Jurij Ricotti, who served as the Sound Designer on this project.

“In 2017, I was invited by Pierpaolo Guerrini of PPG Studios to be a part of the preproduction of Sí alongside guitarist Daniele Bonaviri,” he continues. “The album production was given to the great producer Bob Ezrin who’s worked with Pink Floyd, KISS and Peter Gabriel.”

“We met several times in my studio—JGRStudio in Rome—and Pierpaolo’s Studio PPGStudio in Tuscany for the sound design process with Studio One and Pro Tools. During these sessions, I recorded all the acoustic guitars and sound design for the pre-production process of several tracks on the record. I also used Studio One for drum editing for some yet-unreleased acoustic versions… and we were quite impressed by how fast and accurate drum editing with Studio One is.”

“So now, Studio One is officially our DAW of choice and the most active in PPGStudio—Andrea’s main recording studio. It’s been an honor to work with Bob Ezrin, and I’m so proud to work with Andrea Bocelli, the most famous singer ever.”

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Check out the latest videos about our hottest product this year the ATOM!

Learn more about the ATOM here:

https://www.presonus.com/products/ATOM

Sometimes you just want a compressor that’s quick and easy. Maybe you’re tracking and need to compress the vocals, or hear what the bass will sound like when you add some compression on mixdown. But you know what happens—you adjust the threshold, and then the ratio, but now realize you need to re-adjust the threshold, which means the output gain needs adjusting…and maybe the knee…

If you have a bunch of ready-to-go presets, great. But here’s another option: The EZ Squeez compressor. It uses an FX Chain macro to alter six compressor parameters at once, so that a single knob sweeps from no compression, to some compression, to compression that’s more like a guitar sustainer stompbox. Although there’s a downloadable preset, I’d recommend reverse-engineering this to learn the power of the FX Chain’s Macro Controls. The principles used in this FX Chain apply to many other processors.

Figure 1: Three different Macro Control settings.

Figure 1 (top) shows the compressor settings with the EZ Squeez knob turned all the way counter-clockwise (minimal compression). As you turn up the EZ Squeez control, the Ratio, Release, and Gain increase, while the Threshold, Knee, and Attack decrease. The middle image shows the EZ Squeez knob turned up about 60% of the way. Turned up all the way, the parameter values become more extreme, as shown in the lower part of the screen shot.

Figure 2: (Top) Macro Controls parameters and (bottom) Macro Controls interface.

Figure 2 shows the Macro Controls. Rather than expose the control settings, it’s easier just to download the Multipreset, and then click on the curves for yourself. Note the curves on the Gain and Release parameters. Given that there’s only one node on the curve you can’t get too sophisticated, but these are close enough to give a fairly even response as you move the knob from fully counter-clockwise to fully clockwise.

Because compressors are so dependent on the input signal level, I did cheat on the “one-knob” concept and added an input level control. This allows trimming the input level so that it falls in the compressor’s “sweet spot.” There’s also a bypass button so you can compare the compressed and uncompressed sounds.

As to applications, you’ll probably find that EZ Squeez knob settings of 30% to 65% will work for a variety of signal sources. Past that point, the compressor gets into a more extreme territory that pumps mixed drums, and acts more like a sustainer for guitar. But it’s easy enough to find what works the best—just turn the knob until the compression sounds right. After all, that’s the whole point!

Download the EZ Squeez.multipreset

After a recent tip on how to extract two mono tracks from a stereo track, one of the comments asked for how to convert mono into stereo. Well, we aim to please…so here’s one option.

A common way to create stereo from mono is by duplicating the track, delaying one of the tracks compared to the other, and panning them left and right. However, this approach has two problems. First, you might not want a delay. Second, when you collapse the signal back to mono, there will likely be partial cancellation due to phase differences. The method we’ll cover here not only produces stereo imaging from a mono source, but collapses perfectly to mono. It works with pretty much any instrument, but is most effective with instruments that play chords (for example, try this on acoustic guitar—it works well).

Console Setup

Create two buses. One of these will become the left channel, and the other, the right channel. In your mono source track, create two pre-fader sends (one for each bus). Turn down the mono source’s fader.

Multiband Dynamics Setup

Insert a Multiband Dynamics into one of the bus inserts. Solo the bus with the Multiband Dynamics. Click on “Edit All Relative” and set the Ratio control to 1.0. This will set all bands to a ratio of 1.0, which converts the Multiband Compressor into a multiband EQ.

Play the track you want to convert to stereo. Solo each band in the Multiband Compressor, and adjust the frequency sliders to divide up the frequency response evenly over the five bands (the screen shot shows frequencies selected for dry electric guitar). Mute bands 1, 3, and 5.

Next, drag the Multiband Dynamics into the other bus’s Inserts slot. For this bus, mute bands 2 and 4 instead of bands 1, 3, and 5, then pan the two buses left and right. Now the frequency responses are equal and opposite for the two buses. Voilà! Stereo! (Note that you probably don’t want to pan the buses too far to the left and right, because the stereo effect will be unrealistically exaggerated—as in the audio example. But it does get the point across.)

We’re not done yet, though. The levels of the two buses will be fairly low because with only two or three bands, the output level will be down quite a bit. Turning up the bus faders may be sufficient to compensate, but if not, turn up the Multiband Dynamics processors’ master Gain controls (not the per-band Gain controls). Feel free to play around with the pan and Gain controls to achieve the desired sonic balance. Also, no law says you need to mute every other band. For example, you might want a bassier sound on the left by muting the three upper bands, and a brighter sound toward the right by muting the two lower bands.

Finally, note that when you toggle the master bus from stereo to mono, the sound collapses to mono without any funky phase interactions. Done!

We’re hosting a FREE webcast this Tuesday with some preeeeeetttty huge news! We’re excited to share with y’all.

To celebrate, we’re giving away a FaderPort 8 to one lucky entrant during the broadcast! That’s a $500 USD value!

Here’s how to enter:

1. Must be following PreSonus on Facebook and/or Twitter.
2. Share the Live Webcast to your personal Facebook feed or Tweet the YouTube Link during the broadcast.
3. Include #PreSonus4Ever in your post.

And that’s it! You’re entered. One winner will be drawn at random and notified directly on May 22 at 2 pm CST. Contest open globally. Webcast starts at 10 am CST on May 22, 2018 on Facebook and YouTube. TUNE IN!

Neil Zaza is a career guitar virtuoso who recently took some time out of his schedule to discuss his personal workflow with the PreSonus FaderPort 8 controller. He covers everything from set up to plugins to automation, he goes deep and covers it all! For your enjoyment, we complied the full series into one playlist here. Check it out and enjoy!

For more on the FaderPort, click here! 

For more on Neil, click here!

I admit it…I’m very picky about kick drums. But I also like using drum loops, so I often want to replace the kick. Fortunately, it’s not hard to do with Studio One, and you don’t need a dedicated drum replacement application to do it.

In this example, the audio track with the drum loop (Acoustic Verse 2 in the screen shot, toward the left) has two pre-fader sends. One goes to the Main Drums bus, which carries the drum loop audio. The reason for having a separate bus with the drum audio (and for turning down the original drum audio track) is because we want to reduce the level of the loop’s kick as much as possible. So the loop’s audio has two Pro EQs in series—both set to 48 dB Low Cut at around 100 Hz—to create a super-steep slope and get rid of most of the kick.

The other send goes to the Impact Kick Trigger bus, which exists only to hold a Gate (that’s why the bus fader is all the way down—we don’t want to hear the audio). To isolate the kick for triggering, turn down the Gate’s HC control so that the Gate responds only the lowest frequencies where the kick drum lives. Whenever the Gate opens, it can send out a MIDI note with your choice of note and a fixed velocity (you’ll have to add any dynamics yourself), and an instrument track can respond to that note. I set up an instance of Impact with a suitable kick drum, and assigned the Gate trigger to it. So, Impact provides the replacement kick drum sound and the Main Drums bus has the original drum loop without the kick. You can listen to the kick in real time as you trigger it, but you can also record the MIDI trigger in the instrument track.

The only caution is that the Gate parameter settings for Threshold and Attack/Release/Hold are critical for reliable triggering. For example if there are 16th-note kicks, you have to make sure that hold is short enough to allow retriggering; and you want Threshold high enough to it’s triggered only by the kick.

There are many variations on this theme…you may want to double an existing kick with the kick replacement, rather than reduce the original kick’s level as much as possible, or use the Pro EQ Low Cut filters to take out only the very lowest frequencies, so the original kick provides the higher-frequency beater sounds…whatever sounds best.

Of course if the drums are on individual tracks, then it’s easy to replace the drum sounds. But even with a mixed drum loop, it’s often possible to isolate at least the kick and snare to give drum loops a whole new character.

The one and only John Bastianelli combines talent, charisma, drive, fun, smarts and know-how perfectly here at PreSonus! Thankfully so–he’s one of the masterminds behind the Quantum 2 and he’s here to tell us all about it! It’s #PreSonusFAMFriday with John Bastianelli.

 

Plug it into your Thunderbolt port, open Studio One or your favorite app and hit record, then watch what happens!

Connect with John on LinkedIn here!

Learn more about the Quantum 2 here! 

When you think of IT guys, you don’t always think of the coolest guy in the office. WELL NOT AT PRESONUS! Let us introduce you one of the most talented, coolest, laid backest dudes on the block, Chris Hare.

It’s #PreSonusFAMFriday with Chris Hare!

• Check out the StudioLive 16R here!
• Keep up with Chris Here!

 

 

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