PreSonus Blog

Andy Needham Band’s “No Love Song,” and Why PreSonus is the Right Choice

[This just in from Jonathan from the Andy Needham Band. Jonathan serves as the band’s bassist, manager, and booking agent. We heard that he liked PreSonus, so we sent him a couple questions, and received a great many answers. They follow.]

How and when did you get involved in music? 

I personally got involved in music back in the 5th grade, when my aunt bought me my first snare drum at a local flea market. I played drums all through elementary and high school in the school band, and then picked up other instruments along the way, mainly guitar and bass. I got involved with Andy Needham about 10 years ago at a Christian camp in Southern New Hampshire. I started with the band just filling in for the drummer, then moved to the electric guitar, before finally becoming the band’s full-time bassist. All along the way I was always an all-purpose man who owned much of the band’s live sound equipment. I find just as much satisfaction behind a soundboard as I do on a stage.

What PreSonus stuff do you use?

We traveled for the past year with the StudioLive 16.4.2. Over the past year, our live event has taken on more elements that require more channels, so just this week we upgraded to the StudioLive 24.4.2. Our drummer, a production graduate from Berkelee College of Music, also uses PreSonus FireStudio Project in conjunction with Pro Tools 10 for recording purposes along with Ableton Live and Reason to create the band’s many backing tracks. We also use that for quick overdubs when working on promotional projects.

What are some of your favorite features?

All of them!

It’s hard to narrow things down. I don’t know if this would be classified as a “feature” but I am so impressed with PreSonus’ continued customer support and free upgrades to equipment already sold. When I bought my original 16.4.2 for the band, it didn’t have a lot of the things that I now can’t see myself living without. The value that is packed into the StudioLive blows my mind when compared to other mixers on the market. More important than the value—it just sounds great.

A particular favorite feature with our band: wireless mixing via StudioLive Remote on the iPad has been a huge help. Also, QMix allows for everyone in the band to control our own separate monitor mixes on our iPhones/iPods. This is crucial, as we can’t afford to have an monitor engineer on the road with us.

Another thing I would consider a “feature” would be in regards to the “ease-of-use” side of things. We can’t afford to always have the same sound guy on the road with us, but because the learning curve of this board is so easy, we can often utilize sound personnel at venues.

Lastly, I love that everything I need is packed into a single case—I don’t have to travel with extra racks of compressors, gates, effects, etc! Furthermore, I can save everything I do. Time is so important when we travel, and because all our settings are is internalized in the StudioLive, we can be sure that our sound will be consistent night after night.

Any tips’n’tricks or production secrets you can share?

As far as tips’n’tricks go, I find that everyone I talk to is in a different place. My biggest encouragement when people ask about this product on the road is to check out the depths of the free tutorials online. There is a free school at your fingertips 24/7 to learn the ins and the outs of this board.

I love the convenience of the stored Fat Channel settings (i.e. loading presets for instruments, vox, etc). When a band opens up for us, I can save a new scene for them and load each individual instrument to get a starting point.  It makes sound checks go a lot quicker and smoother when things sound fairly good from the get-go.

As I mentioned before, we outgrew our board due to some new aspects of our live event. Something we ended up doing (that is probably a little outside the norm) is routing our stereo backing tracks through Aux A and Aux B inputs and then assign those to Subgroup 1 and 2. By doing this, we expanded the board’s capabilities by two channels, though welimit the available subgroups. We were in a pinch and had to think outside the box to make it work—but it works!

We also regularly utilize Capture alongside with the StudioLive for helping with sound checks when we don’t have our sound guy on the road. We can run a sound check (or even recall a sound check from a previous night) and get things sounding pretty good before we have the stand-in person touch the board. It lowers the pressure on someone that has never ran our sound before.

We also have been utilizing the board’s GEQ for fine-tuning the system from venue to venue. Prior to Smaart Measurement Technology being available on the StudioLive, we would use a DriveRack PA+ for the general setup of the system and then play a couple of our standard tracks and walk around the room with the iPad making GEQ adjustments. By fine-tuning the system with the board’s GEQ on the iPad, it allows us to use our ears in all areas  of the room so we are hearing things as the crowd will hear it, not just at the FOH board. Usually the adjustments are minor, but by using our ears it can really separate a decent sounding system from a great sounding system. I always save each venue’s GEQ settings because we often play the same places year after year.

Along with saving each venue in the GEQ, a good tip is to always make a practice of saving your Fat Channels individually. The reason I do that is simply because things change tour to tour. By having each individual channel saved respectively, it makes it easier to move people around on the board. Once could also just copy and load the Fat Channels, but I find when I’m making drastic shifts, it’s nice that I don’t have to start any from scratch.  I just hit select,  load the channel I have saved the Fat Channel for, and I’m in business!

Keep up with the Andy Needham Band on the platform of your choice:

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Sonic Sense Pro Audio Takes the ADL 700 for a Test Drive on Bass Avenue

Big big thanks to Sonic Sense Pro Audio for this awesome demo of the new ADL 700!

 

PreSonus LIVE Airs Today: Studio One 2.5 Tips and Tricks

PreSonus LIVE airs today in a few hours, new features in Studio One 2.5!

2 p.m. CST / 3 p.m. EST / Noon PST / GMT -6

tips-n-tricks

 

You’ve Got it Covered

 

We'd prefer a photo of the mixer, not the box, but if your photo is this awesome it just may qualify.

We’d prefer a photo of the mixer, not the box, but if your photo is this awesome it just may qualify.

Over on our Facebook page, one of our most popular albums is our ever-growing collection of PreSonus User Studios. There’s some great comment threads there in addition to some cool photos, obviously.

So, in the spirit of all things social, we’d like to share your photos of your handsome face and your StudioLive mixer with our Facebook community. If you’re glad to be a StudioLive owner and feel like representing accordingly, now’s your chance!

We want to see some photos of smiling StudioLive owners. If you kind folks are feeling shutterbuggy, we will pick a user-submitted photo for our Facebook cover graphic—once every couple of weeks or so. If we pick yours, we’ll get in touch—and we just might send you a highly fashionable PreSonus T-shirt.

It’s easy to be a contender. Here’s all we ask:

  • Post a photo of you and your StudioLive mixer to your Facebook Wall. It’s important that you are in the photo, too.
  • Tag Yourself in the photo.
  • Share the photo to our Wall.
  • A comment or description indicating that you’d like the photo set as our cover graphic would help.

Keep in mind that in order to qualify for the cover photo treatment, the image must be at least 850px wide by 315px tall.

Photos that are really interesting, funny, or astonishing will of course be given preference.

Have fun!

Imogen Heap and the StudioLive 16.0.2 Doing Science

This is a triumph. Imogen Heap recently showed up on Dara O’Briain’s Science Club, and she brought her otherworldly Power glove 2.0 MIDI gyro-accelerometer Kinect-handwear with her. We’re flattered and honored that she’s entrusted the StudioLive 16.0.2 to corral her abstruse mad-science signal chain.

Seriously, how many different technologies do you think are collaborating in tandem here?

The ADL 700 Has Shipped, and Here’s Where to Get It

You like that, don't you?

You like that, don’t you?

It’s official, the ADL 700 Channel Strip is on the loose, and superlative preamp processing power is spreading across the USA by land and by air. It is soon to arrive in the care of PreSonus dealers, and subsequently in your studio rack, from where it will reach its final destination—your dreams. The ADL 700 has its roots in Anthony DeMaria‘s ADL 600  preamp circuit, but replaces its younger brother’s second channel in favor of a dynamite compressor and EQ section, creating a monster of a single-channel preamp/EQ/compressor/plug-in-to-this-and-you’ll-sound-goooood-machine.

Outside of the PreSonus marketing team, it’s not often that “sexy,” “formidable,” and “genius” all find a way to work well together,  let alone get shoehorned into a 2-rackspace unit. Fact is this is the finest product in our history. We nitpicked and fought over every last detail of the thing. I mean, the debate over what shade of amber the VU meter light should be spilled out of the R&D offices and ultimately was indirectly responsible for a small fire in our lunchroom.  But we picked the right color.
Check out the full specs ‘n’ techs over here at the ADL 700’s product page, and when you’re done picking your jaw up off the floor, clicky-clicky on the list below to get one for yourself from the PreSonus dealer of your choosing. We’re proud of this one, and once you lay down a couple vocal tracks with it, you’ll be proud of the work you do with it.

“ENOUGH ALREADY, WHERE CAN I GET ONE?”

Click on any of the dealers below to be taken to their online store. Or, if you’re feeling analog, hop a ride and get yourself to one of their brick ‘n’ mortar versions.

All-Robot Band Covers Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades”

I type too much, and there’s nothing I can say about this video that it doesn’t already say for itself. So here ya go.

 

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.