PreSonus Blog

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.”

Showing off the latest and greatest in London, including the newest member of the PreSonus fam, WorxAudio Technologies!

For more on WorxAudio, click here. 

We talk about Studio One a lot around here. Most users know that Studio One is available in three flavors; Artist, Producer, and Professional. But we would be remiss to overlook the Studio One fam’s spunky kid brother, Studio One Free.

Unlike the 30-day demo of Studio One Professional (also free, bee tee dubs) Studio One Free never times out, and offers more than enough for the entry-level producer/recordist to get some great songs created. Unlike a lot of other Free DAWs out there, you get unlimited audio and MIDI tracks to mess with, so the sky is pretty much the limit from the get-go. Studio One Free is non-denominational, and runs on both Mac and Windows.

We want to make music-making easy, and we understand that sometimes the world of high-tech audio wrangling can get pretty complex pretty fast, especially for beginners. As such, we feel there’s no need to charge you for features you aren’t ready to use. Any version of Studio One can be upgraded at any time to any higher version—so you’re welcome and encouraged to get what works for you now, and pay-as-you-go as your production needs mature.

Click here for a feature-by-feature breakdown of what’s offered in Studio One’s various editions. But in the meantime, here’s the core offering of Studio One Free:

• Elegant single-window work environment
• Content browser with powerful drag-and-drop functionality
• Unlimited audio tracks, MIDI tracks, buses, and FX channels
• Most intuitive MIDI-mapping system available
• Eight high-quality PreSonus Native Effects™ plug-ins and Presence virtual instrument plug-in
• Compatible with ASIO-, Windows Audio-, and Core Audio-compliant audio interfaces
• Real-time time stretching and tempo following for audio loops and samples
• Get started quickly by using the Pro Tools, Logic, or Cubase keyboard shortcuts you already know

To get Studio One Free, click here.

Heads up! Dave Pensado and Stephen Marsh will be joining us will be in the PreSonus booth (#1533) at AES 137, October 10 and 11!

Dave Pensado is a Grammy-winning mix engineer and the host of pensadosplace.tv. His extensive list of credits include Beyonce, Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson, Mariah Carey, Elton John, Michael Jackson, and way more. We’re flattered to know that Dave has been using the Sceptre S6s on his productions of late, and will join us to talk about them on Friday.

Stephen Marsh (Chief Mastering Engineer at Marsh Mastering) has been fortunate enough to count Grammy winners, multiple gold and platinum albums, and numerous chart successes among the thousands of releases to his credit. His Audiophile Remastering credits include Bob Dylan, James Taylor, The Byrds, Nat King Cole, Neil Diamond, and many other legendary artists. Of late, he has had some very kind things to say about the Sceptre monitors, and he will be happy to discuss them in further detail with you at AES on Saturday.

• Dave Pensado: noon until 1:00 p.m. on Friday, October 10
• Stephen Marsh: 2 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, October 11

If you’re going to be in the area, come on down. Today is your LAST CHANCE FOR FREE TICKETS, click here to get yours.

Kid Pan Alley

Like Nimbit, Kid Pan Alley is all about empowering people through music. But unlike Nimbit, Kid Pan Alley is quite an analog affair, and targeted to a suitably younger demographic evocative of the outfit’s name. KPA was founded some 14 years ago by Paul Reisler. His vision is to instill musical creativity, teamwork, and confidence in folks by getting them rolling early—while they’re still impressionable youngsters.

It’s working—and it’s not just kids who are taking notice. To date, the organization has fostered 2,500 original songs that have been performed by over 35,000 children. Some KPA projects have included world-renouned artists including Delbert McClinton, Sissy Spacek, Cracker, Amy Grant, Kix Brooks, Raul Malo, Suzy Bogguss, the Nashville Chamber Orchestra—and the organization sports recognition in the way of  Parents’ Choice and NAPPA Gold awards, 6 ASCAP Foundation awards and a Grammy nom.

This recognition and growth is due in no small part to the key element that that separates Kid Pan Alley from a lot of other youth music programs: the children are writing their own songs. Paul finds that kids are better collaborators than most adults—perhaps because they’ve yet to “develop” the sort of ego and self-importance we associate with a lot of adults; creatively, kids’ malleable brains are not yet bound by the rules-based blinders of adulthood. These children are encouraged to produce in an off-the-cuff, fun spirit—and even quieter kids are seen to light up like Christmas trees at the opportunity to contribute to a song.

KPA’s Nimbit store offers collected works from no less than 13 region-specific Kid Pan Alley residencies, as well as four collections, including the Grammy-nominated Kid Pan Alley Nashville, and the perhaps misleadingly-titled Unreleased Favorites. 

Kid Pan Alley is Kids’ music, by and for kids—and once you’ve heard it, you may begin to feel that there’s something a little sideways about the notion of children’s music being written by adults.

Interested in getting Kid Pan Alley rolling in your neighborhood? Click here.

• Click here to keep up with Kid Pan Alley on Nimbit.
• Interested in Nimbit? Sign up for free here.

Adam Ezra Group

It’s been a good couple years for Boston’s Adam Ezra Group. They’ve successfully engineered a brand of country rock that is simultaneously rootsy and forward-thinking. The formula is paying off, as the band were the worthy recipients of the 2013 New England Music Awards “Band of the year,” and also earned “Album of the Year” and “Song of the Year” from the same committee in 2012.

Ezra and his six-piece Group are the kind of guys who are more than just pro musicians. They’re the sort of rare-blood all-or-nothing types who truly believe in music as a force for change. That’s well in-line with what we’re about here at PreSonus and Nimbit—so, hats off, guys. When not touring and recording, all of the guys are activists and community leaders, whose efforts include volunteering for relief effort in Kosovo and practicing environmental geography in South Africa.

While they’ve demonstrated a reliable and consistent recording output—ten full-length albums since 2000—at the end of the day, Adam Ezra Group is all about the live experience. Their impassioned performances have drawn deserved comparison to guys like Bruce Springsteen, and have found them touring in quite good company: Rusted Root, Jason Mraz, Goo Goo Dolls, Blues Traveler, Los Lobos, and Dwight Yoakam, to name a handful.

AEG is currently touring with a StudioLive 24.4.2 and recording their live shows for release, so when you see them live be sure to scream real loud so that you can hear yourself when the recordings are released!

From a marketing perspective, Adam Ezra Group’s Nimbit store is full of good stuff—their offering includes four full-length releases and a couple singles. But they really shine in the merch department, including nearly a full wardrobe of Ramble-themed apparel. One notable non-wearable offering: custom purple beer coozies! In terms of non-Ramble Adam Ezra merch, there are no fewer than nine custom t-shirt choices available, stickers, and my personal favorite—AEG temporary tattoos! Furthermore, they’ve got their concert calendar kept completely up-to-date, so give it a gander and see when you can catch Adam Ezra Group when they roll through your town—looks like they’ve got a handful of east coast shows booked at the time of this writing.

• Keep up with Adam Ezra Group on Nimbit here.
• Interested in Nimbit? Sign up for free here.

Bim Skala Bim

Ska is one of those musical forms that, like surf rock, relies heavily on a fairly strict set of rules. It’s difficult to stray to far from the established formula and still sound like a ska band. Get too far off, and it’s not ska anymore. Play it safe, and you sound just like everybody else. I tell ya, it’s hard out here for a rude boy.

But Bim Skala Bim, formed in Boston in 1983, has managed to avoid either pitfall entirely, by adding a modicum of rock ‘n’ roll and—perhaps surprisingly, calypso—to their two-tone infrastructure. The result? I dunno. Call it four-tone, maybe. But whatever it is, the guys must really love it, as they’ve been at it for 31 years. In that time they’ve toured with homies The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Dropkick Murphys, and dropped nine full-length albums, most of which are available on Nimbit.

Oh, and it’s not just the band that loves what they do. Bim Skala Bim was a major force in launching third wave ska in the first place—or was it the third place—and about million bands followed their lead well into the 1990s. Furthermore, hometown pride is strong in The City of Champions, and they’ve decorated BSB liberally with no fewer than 10 Boston Music Awards and eight Boston Phoenix Reader’s Poll awards, and they’ve been recognized by Boston Magazine’s “Best of Boston” twice. In March of 2013, Boston Business Journal rated Bim Skala Bim’s Bones as album #19 in their “Boston Top 40 Albums of All Time” list.

Their Nimbit store is full to the brim of albums dating back to their early days, and also includes a rarities compilation and a few singles. Perhaps most notable is 2013’s Chet’s Last Call, featuring the band’s original lineup revisiting the roots that got the band—and a lot of fans–skanking in the first place.

• Click here to keep up with Bim Skala Bim on Nimbit.
• Interested in Nimbit? Sign up for free here.

PreSonus is supporting schools and students in many ways, and now is the perfect time to check out our music education solutions at musiced.presonus.com.

Any student who plays an instrument, from beginner to college, can benefit from listening to recordings of their own performances. In fact, any professional musician will tell you that this is the best way to improve! We’ve put together a tutorial series called “Step up Your Practice” to demonstrate the benefits of recorded practice using our AudioBox Studio or Music Creation Suite. Check it out at musiced.presonus.com/stepup.

We’d also like you to consider Studio One and Notion for any of your recording or composition courses. Both offer highly intuitive ease-of-use that doesn’t get in the way of the most important thing—learning. Furthermore, we offer educational discounts and/or multi-seat licensing, and plenty of tutorials. For full music labs, the Music Creation Suite provides everything you need for recording, including software, recording interface, microphone, MIDI controller keyboard, and cables—and to top it off, we offer a complete school curriculum to help you get started.

Coming off the world record-setting win of the Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps, our marching band audio system is now stronger than ever. We partnered with our friends at Audio-Technica to provide a turnkey solution to support field audio—read all about it at musiced.presonus.com/fieldaudio.

PreSonus is the leader in music education technology presentations. As such we are excited to participate in top national and state music conferences. Check out of list of upcoming conferences and come say hello!

If you’re interested in either school or student discounts on PreSonus gear, please contact one of our education retailers at musiced.presonus.com/buy.

Ska is one of those musical forms that, like surf rock, relies heavily on a fairly strict set of rules. It’s difficult to stray to far from the established formula and still sound like a ska band. Get too far off, and it’s not ska anymore. Play it safe, and you sound just like everybody else. I tell ya, it’s hard out here for a rude boy.

But Bim Skala Bim, formed in Boston in 1983, has managed to avoid either pitfall entirely, by adding a modicum of rock ‘n’ roll and—perhaps surprisingly, calypso—to their two-tone infrastructure. The result? I dunno. Call it four-tone, maybe. But whatever it is, the guys must really love it, as they’ve been at it for 31 years. In that time they’ve toured with homies The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Dropkick Murphys, and dropped nine full-length albums, most of which are available on Nimbit.

Oh, and it’s not just the band that loves what they do. Bim Skala Bim was a major force in launching third wave ska in the first place—or was it the third place—and about million bands followed their lead well into the 1990s. Furthermore, hometown pride is strong in The City of Champions, and they’ve decorated BSB liberally with no fewer than 10 Boston Music Awards and eight Boston Phoenix Reader’s Poll awards, and they’ve been recognized by Boston Magazine’s “Best of Boston” twice. In March of 2013, Boston Business Journal rated Bim Skala Bim’s Bones as album #19 in their “Boston Top 40 Albums of All Time” list.

Their Nimbit store is full to the brim of albums dating back to their early days, and also includes a rarities compilation and a few singles. Perhaps most notable is 2013’s Chet’s Last Call, featuring the band’s original lineup revisiting the roots that got the band—and a lot of fans–skanking in the first place.

• Click here to keep up with Bim Skala Bim on Nimbit.
• Interested in Nimbit? Sign up for free here.

Did you know? Studio One and Notion can run simultaneously, giving you the combined magic of both? This is true in no small part to Propellerhead’s ReWire. Here’s how to set it all up! Wait, slow down. First, let’s address what the heck ReWire is, and why you would want to take advantage of it.

ReWire is an industry-standard bit of software that serves as a communications platform between two DAWs. Having a couple DAWs (in this case, Studio One and Notion) allows them to stream up to 256 audio channels to one another. Furthermore, ReWire sees to it that both DAWs operate in precise synchronization, and provides shared transport functions between them. In other words, you only need to use a single set of play/stop/FFWD commands to control both DAWs simultaneously. ReWire has been getting DAWs to hold hands and play nicely together since 1998.

But why? A buncha reasons, including but not limited to:

• You can add Notion’s expressive samples to your Studio One compositions. Notion’s sound sets include playing techniques well beyond simple “vanilla” samples that vary on a per-instrument basis, that include techniques like pizzicato, natural and artificial harmonics, trills, stacatto, and much more. (The fact that many were recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra doesn’t hurt.)
• If you’re a producer/recordist who doesn’t know a lot about traditional music notation, integrating Notion into your Studio One workflow is an excellent way to start learning, hands-on.
• You will get to explore some potentially fascinating sonic territory blending traditional classical instrumentation with whatever dubstep or post-hardcore project you’re up to in Studio One.
• You can start a composition using Notion for iPad anywhere your inspiration strikes, open it in Notion for desktop, then rewire to Studio One to finish your tracks. 

If you’re wondering “How do I get ReWire?” You’re going to like this answer. If you’ve already got Studio One (Producer or Professional editions) and Notion, then you’ve already got ReWire. Here’s how to get rolling with ReWire in Studio One and Notion.

1. First, make sure that both Studio One and Notion are running in the same bit mode. They can both be in 32, and they can both be in 64, but they can’t each be in one or the other. Notion it will show you what bit mode you are running at the bottom of the About screen—choose Help >> About from the drop-down menu. In Studio One, this information is found at the bottom of the Home Screen. You can change what mode they start in through the following steps:Open Notion. In the Preferences >> Audio menu, check the “Enable ReWire” tickbox. You’ll only need to do this once.Close Notion.
   • Mac: right click the application’s icon and choose Get Info. Next, check/uncheck the box to run as a 32-bit application.
   • Windows: Run the installer for either Studio One / Notion again, and choose which version to install. You can install both 32-bit and 64-bit of the same application on the same computer if  you wish.
2. Launch Studio One.
3. In Studio One’s browser, select “Instruments.” You’ll notice a listing for Notion alongside a familiar yellow logo (see upper right of this blog post)
4. Drag an instance of Notion onto the Edit Window.
5. In the dialogue that appears, click “Open Application.”
6. That’s it! You’re good to go.

A couple notes: (See what I did there?) Unlike other notation software, you can output up to 32 pairs of audio from Notion. This means you can have full control over the whole mix right inside of Studio One. One example would be to use Notion busses to separate brass, strings and percussion, and then create separate channels for them inside Studio One. 

While it’s pretty simple to get ReWire set up, we understand that computers are temperamental beasts from time to time. So if you run into a couple of bumps in the road through this process, check out our knowledgebase article on troubleshooting your ReWire setup.

The end result? Here’s Studio One and Notion, playing nicely together:

Like Nimbit, Kid Pan Alley is all about empowering people through music. But unlike Nimbit, Kid Pan Alley is quite an analog affair, and targeted to a suitably younger demographic evocative of the outfit’s name. KPA was founded some 14 years ago by Paul Reisler. His vision is to instill musical creativity, teamwork, and confidence in folks by getting them rolling early—while they’re still impressionable youngsters.

It’s working—and it’s not just kids who are taking notice. To date, the organization has fostered 2,500 original songs that have been performed by over 35,000 children. Some KPA projects have included world-renouned artists including Delbert McClinton, Sissy Spacek, Cracker, Amy Grant, Kix Brooks, Raul Malo, Suzy Bogguss, the Nashville Chamber Orchestra—and the organization sports recognition in the way of  Parents’ Choice and NAPPA Gold awards, 6 ASCAP Foundation awards and a Grammy nom.

This recognition and growth is due in no small part to the key element that that separates Kid Pan Alley from a lot of other youth music programs: the children are writing their own songs. Paul finds that kids are better collaborators than most adults—perhaps because they’ve yet to “develop” the sort of ego and self-importance we associate with a lot of adults; creatively, kids’ malleable brains are not yet bound by the rules-based blinders of adulthood. These children are encouraged to produce in an off-the-cuff, fun spirit—and even quieter kids are seen to light up like Christmas trees at the opportunity to contribute to a song.

KPA’s Nimbit store offers collected works from no less than 13 region-specific Kid Pan Alley residencies, as well as four collections, including the Grammy-nominated Kid Pan Alley Nashville, and the perhaps misleadingly-titled Unreleased Favorites. 

Kid Pan Alley is Kids’ music, by and for kids—and once you’ve heard it, you may begin to feel that there’s something a little sideways about the notion of children’s music being written by adults.

Interested in getting Kid Pan Alley rolling in your neighborhood? Click here.

• Click here to keep up with Kid Pan Alley on Nimbit.
• Interested in Nimbit? Sign up for free here.

Check out this video for a ton of musical kids who are equal parts adorable and confident: