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Tag Archives: StudioLive


Exclusive New York StudioLive event Aug. 1—VERY limited seating…

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Studiolive owners in the New York area—this one’s for you! Come and join us at this exclusive, free event. Space is VERY limited (40 people tops) so get your ticket via the form below!

John Tendy will showcase the latest in PreSonus’ StudioLive Ecosystem, which includes the new Series III Mixers, StudioOne and the AIR and ULT Loudspeakers. John will demonstrate how each component works together to give musicians, engineers, and producers the ultimate live and studio recording experience. Urban folk & jazz artist KJ Denhert and her band will be the musical guests.

Guests include:

John Tendy—Sax:

John Tendy is the owner of TendyMedia, a production service that specializes in filming and multi-tracking of acoustic musical ensembles at live venues and in-house. In addition to producing, John has experience in film editing, musical composition, stage direction, comedy writing and voice-over work. As a television composer, he has written national spots for Disney, ATT, Mattel, White Castle, Sonic and more. John works nightly as a jazz and saxophonist, klezmer clarinetist, has performed on Broadway and can be seen regularly with his jazz trio at the historic Showmans Jazz in Harlem, NY.

KJ Denhert—Vocals:

KJ Denhert’s special blend of urban folk & jazz has earned her seven Independent Music Award nominations, was named as one of Jazz.com’s top female vocalists and in 2012 was the grand prize winner in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest. KJ has been the artist in residence 11 times at Italy’s Umbria Jazz Festival. She has appeared at scores of festivals and has residencies at the ’55 Bar, Smoke in NYC, the Baz Bar in St. Barth’s, and the prestigious Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy. KJ’s talents have taken her all over the world, including St Barthelemy in the French West Indies, where she has had a winter residency at the popular Baz Bar for nearly a decade. Consistently praised for her pathos, originality and impeccable musicianship, KJ is a one-of-a-kind songwriter, guitarist and performer, not to be missed. She stays relevant to blues, jazz, singer songwriter and folk music, winning awards in all categories and I currently recording a new CD, due for release in fall of 2017.

Jesse MurphyBass:

NYC bassist Jesse Murphy is described by Bass Musician as a “classically trained bassist-turned-Fender-ninja”. Murphy played with John Scofield on his CD, “Uberjam” and enjoyed a stint with Me’Shell Ndgeocello. His work on the title track of the Brazilian Girls’ “Talk to the Bomb” is nothing short of astonishing and his unique style has been described as a combination of James Brown and avant-garde chamber music. Jesse is also a member of the “Love Trio”, a band that sprang directly out of the Nublu Club scene in NYC.

Aaron Johnston—Drums

Verve recording artist, percussionist and drummer Aaron Johnston is best-known for being the polyrhythmic heartbeat and producer of the Grammy-nominated band Brazilian Girls, A “remarkably fluid drummer,” as the New York Times has dubbed him, Aaron’s skills have as a writer, produce and engineer have made him one of Latin and American music’s most sought after collaborators. The Brazilian Girls have released three albums on Universal Verve Records, garnering a Grammy nomination for Best Electronic Dance Album, critical acclaim from Rolling Stone and SPIN, tour dates with Sting and festival slots from Bumbershoot to Bonarroo, Coachella and Lollapalooza. In addition to his percussion work, Johnston has contributed to a number of film scores, including Paramount’s OKA Amerikee, a film based on the music of the Bayaka tribe in Africa. Aaron was featured in the May 2017 issue of Modern Drummer.

It’s Ray Tantzen for #PreSonusFAMFriday

Every Friday we introduce you all to a PreSonus employee that’s not just here for the paycheck, but also here because they love and use PreSonus products outside of the office. Today’s feature currently holds the title of “Greatest Beard of All Time.” He knows everything there is to know about growing, grooming and maintaining a beard–it’s a lifestyle, not a choice for him. He also knows basically everything about the StudioLive Series III because he helped engineer them. Here’s Ray Tantzen!IMG_2849
How long have you worked for PreSonus?

Four years and six months.

What’s your official job title?
Senior Product Manager
What’s your favorite thing about your job?

Knowing products that I’ve worked on help wonderful artists create and perform.

What was the first 8 track, cassette, CD, digital download you purchased?

8 track was the Village People.
Cassette was Beastie Boys, Licensed to Ill.
CD was Micheal Jackson, Bad.
Digital Download was Pearl Jam, Man of the Hour.

Who’s your go to band or artist when you can’t decide on something to listen to?
Anything Chris Thile.

Everyone has a side gig, what’s yours?

Dad, Husband, Church sound mixer, Beard mastering.

What do you love about the StudioLive Series III?
What’s NOT to love 😉 The workflow is awesome. It’s super easy to just jump on and use. I also love having the different EQ and compressor models available. It adds a whole new layer to the sound. And of course there’s the multitrack SD Card recording! There’s no need to mess with a computer to record. They’re all available now and shipping worldwide!

What other products do you have?

I also have an RML 16AI, CS18AI, Studio One, Notion, AudioBox iOne, ADL600, HP4, and just got a Quantum Thunderbolt interface. I’m hoping to get some Sceptre monitors and ULT PA speakers soon.IMG_1931


Why did you choose the Series III as your favorite?

I love having a mixer as the centerpiece of my home studio and the StudioLive 24 is a perfect fit. It has a smaller footprint than the 32 but still has the split-layer fader workflow and is still a full 32-channels under the hood. I have it connected to my Mac Mini via AVB to also use as an interface for recording. Plus is sounds incredible and I can take it out for live gigs when needed. I’m also really looking forward to the stage boxes and DAW control coming later. That will be the cherry on top!

AND it’s shipping as of this week!

Tell us about the coolest thing you’ve done with PreSonus.

The most exciting event I’ve been involved with hands down has to be Deadmau5. He had a StudioLive 32.4.2AI for his touring system and on the most recent tour with the Cube 2.1 he had so much bass on stage that the FireWire cable in the computer would start to shake loose. When he found out the new Series III mixers had AVB he wanted to upgrade immediately. Since the Series III had just started shipping and he was in the middle of the tour we wanted to make sure things transitions to the new mixer smoothly. So I got on a plane and meet up with his crew in Seattle to help set up the new mixer and show him how to use it. The first night I sat behind the Cube so I was nearby in case something went wrong. The show went great and there were comments about the sound being even better with the Series III. The second night I got to enjoy the show from the audience and it was amazing! He has put together a great show and the sound and live mixing/performing he does was top notch.

What are you currently working on? What’s next for you?

I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you 😉 What I can talk about is the upcoming stage box solutions and DAW control for the Series III mixers. After that, you’ll just have to wait and see!

Got any tips for working with the mixer?
Spend a little extra time before your show to setup custom layouts on the fader User layer and Fat Channel User layer. This will really help to put what you care about most right where you ant them for faster and easier mixing.

Anything else you want to share?
The beard is real, I’ve had it for 10 years, there are actually some competing beards here at the office.

Connect with Ray on Social here:

Snapchat and Instagram: @stingray_1122
Twitter and Facebook: @stingray1122


Introducing the StudioLive 16

The latest addition to the StudioLive Series III Family: Meet StudioLive 16.

 

Setting up and Understanding Networking on StudioLive AI and RM Mixers

Setting up StudioLive AI and RM Networking

In this video we’ll explain some of the basics you’ll need to know about networking for the StudioLive AI Console and StudioLive RM Rackmount mixing systems. You’ll hear about switches and routers while learning what a DHCP server does. We’ll also explain what an IP Address mode is and the differences between the modes supported by the StudioLive AI and RM mixers.

Understanding StudioLive AI and RM Networking

In this video we’ll explain some of the basics you’ll need to know about networking for the StudioLive AI and RM mixing systems. You’ll hear about switches and routers while learning what a DHCP server does. We’ll also explain what an IP Address mode is and the differences between the modes supported by the StudioLive AI and RM mixers.

 

 

Beta Testers Needed for StudioLive RM Mixer Cascading

 

Cascading-Emblem_NoFun_RM16_RM32_12-16-15_RR01Hey folks—the time has come to add cascading to the StudioLive RM mixers, and we’ve decided to run a public beta to stomp out any bugs before the update goes into wide release. We expect to have the beta concluded after around 30 days.

With cascading added to the RM series, users will be able to combine two RM32AI mixers for a 64-channel mix system to be controlled via the StudioLive CS18AI or UC Surface. You’ll also be able to cascade any two RM mixers, allowing for an RM32AI and RM16AI to work in tandem.

This update will also add:

  • A new Stage Box mode for using RM mixers as a simple I/O device with Studiolive AI console mixers
  • New network configuration interfaces and networking features for AI Consoles, RM mixers, and the CS18AI, including the ability to manually assign static IP addresses.
  • Remote control of Capture 2 from both the CS18AI and UC Surface.
  • AI Console, RM mixer, UC Surface and Capture 2 performance improvements and bug fixes.

Sound fun? You’re welcome and encouraged to join in! All you need to do is register your

StudioLive AI Console, RM mixer, or CS18AI to your user account at my.presonus.com, and you’ll then have access to the StudioLive AI Public Beta section of the PreSonus forums. Note that only users who have registered a qualifying product will have access to the beta section of the forum.

Please know that with beta firmware and software, there is always a risk of encountering a bug, so we don’t recommend using the public beta firmware and software for mission-critical gigs without first testing it out in a non-production scenario. Also, we ask that all questions and bug reports for public beta issues be directed to the public beta forum, and not via technical support tickets or calls. Tech Support will not be able to assist with beta software and firmware.

 

 

Ricki and the Flash Rocks with PreSonus, Part 5

 

Ricki and the Flash poster (1)Rehearsals started on Monday, September 15. Everyone came in with instruments: Joe had already set up his drums, and the film had rented a B3 and Leslie for Bernie. Rick the Bass Player had one of his Laklands, Rick Springfield had his Gibson SG, and Meryl had a Fender Telecaster. We had backup instruments, as well, and Danelectro sent us a couple of guitars (more on those later).

Neil, Mark, and I made several trips to the 14th St. Guitar Center to get pedals for Rick Springfield’s setup, and Line 6 sent us a guitar wireless system for Meryl. The premise is that Ricki (Meryl) is trying for stardom and is currently slugging it out in clubs in the San Fernando Valley, playing every Tuesday night at the Salt Well.

Gary Goetzman is the producer of the film, and he led the rehearsals, with assistance from Neil and Mark.

We started with a basic line check; the kick drum was miked with an ATM 250. All the other drums were triggered. Joe has triggers built into his custom Drum Workshop kit, and we just plugged out of the trigger module into my Radial DI boxes. We needed to make sure we had signal; one great thing about recording with PreSonus® Capture™ is that the send is pre-fader, so the fader position on the StudioLive AI console is irrelevant; the recording software uses the input gain level you set on the head amp actuators (trim knobs). It’s a really nifty design because it allows the house mixer to change the fader levels for the live house mix without affecting the recording.

Along the same lines, once we had the guitar amp levels where we wanted them with the Radial JDX boxes, we also took a “clean” feed, plugging the guitars directly into my Radial ProDI boxes before the amplifier, in case Neil and Mark wanted to “re-amp” the guitars during mixdown.

A quick aside: I’ll bring it up again later but I want to stress that Gary and director Jonathan Demme wanted authenticity, and they got it. Every note you hear is what was played by the musicians; there are no overdubs of instruments in this movie. There were a few extra band takes for vocals because of bleed but all of what you experience in the movie is Ricki and the Flash performing as you watch.

It was a treat to watch these professionals at work. Gary took five people who had never played together in this configuration and turned them into a band. Each song got a workout. Gary kept the band focused; they worked on one song at a time until they felt they had it down. From where I sat, it really paid off; by the end of rehearsals, I felt like I was mixing a band, not a loose knit group of musicians jamming, but a real, tight band.

Ricki and the Flash Rocks with PreSonus, Part 4

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[Continued from part 3…]

When we started rehearsals for Ricki and the Flash, we discovered that some things had to be changed. Part of what we faced was the reality of working with musicians who were used to the big stage in a club environment.

A brief review of our cast:

Drums and backing vocals: Joe Vitale. Joe has drummed for, among others, Joe Walsh (he co-wrote “Rocky Mountain Way” with Joe); Stills-Young Band; The Eagles; Crosby, Stills and Nash; and the re-formed Buffalo Springfield. Joe has written a book about his life as a musician called Backstage Pass.

Bass: Rick Rosas, aka Rick The Bass Player. Rick played most recently with Neil Young in Crazy Horse. He was also part of the Buffalo Springfield reunion. Rick passed away a few weeks after finishing the band scenes, and we miss him very much.

Keys: Bernie Worrell. Bernie was a member of Parliament/Funkadelic and joined Talking Heads for a number of albums. He’s in Jonathan Demme’s concert classic film Stop Making Sense and has played on countless sessions with artists as diverse as Keith Richards, Jack Bruce, Dee Lite, and Bootsy’s Rubber Band.

Lead guitar and backing vocals: Rick Springfield. Rick has been on the big stage since the late 1960s, first with Zoot, and then as a solo artist. For a time, Rick starred in the soap opera General Hospital, and he has many hit records, including “Speak to the Sky,” “Jessie’s Girl,” and “I’ve Done Everything for You.”

Rhythm guitar and lead vocals: Meryl Streep. One of the most well regarded actresses in the world, Meryl learned to play guitar for this movie. Meryl had never played in a band before but she has sung in many films, including Mama Mia and the recent Into the Woods, so she adapted quickly to the role of Ricki.

I have been “pushing faders” as a front-of-house (and sometimes monitor) engineer since 1979. I’ve mixed in wretched bars with “thrift-store” PA systems, and I’ve mixed bands at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. My background is live sound; working on a movie required some adjustment in my approach to mixing.

Music coordinator Mark Wolfson and Neil Citron, the music wrangler, have worked together for many years. Among other projects, they worked on the film That Thing You Do (also with Ricki director Jonathan Demme and producer Gary Goetzman). On this film, I worked with Mark and Neil to create an authentic club band feel.

One thing that we encountered from the get-go was a reluctance to show microphones on camera. This created some interesting challenges, as we had to find a way to capture the sound without showing any microphones beyond the vocal mics. Some solutions were simple: We could take a DI off of the bass, and we used triggers on the drums and then used drum samples that we sampled from Joe’s Drum Workshop kit. We hid the hi-hat and overhead mics as best we could.

Thanks to Audio-Technica, we had excellent condensers: an ATM 450 on the hi-hat and an ATM 4050 on the overheads. We were able to hide the ATM 650 dynamic on the Leslie high side and the ATM 250 dynamic on the Leslie low side.

The guitar amps presented a problem, though. We needed to capture an authentic sound without showing mics. Trying to mic the back of the amps proved unwieldy at best. It also didn’t sound so great.

Neil and I put our heads together and decided to call our friend Peter Janis at Radial Engineering. Peter sent us two JDX active speaker-simulator direct boxes. We were able to plug out of Meryl’s Fender 65 Deluxe reissue and Rick’s Fender Bassman 410. The Bassman reissue proved tricky because the speaker output has an RCA connector; we had to make two ¼”-to-RCA custom connectors. At the time, the JDX required an external supply, as well; now it’s available with the option to run on 48V phantom power.

We also used two of the new Audio-Technica AT 4080 active ribbon mics for room/ambience miking. These mics sound glorious, and they really helped Neil and Mark re-create the room sound when they did the mixing later.

With the system tuned, we were ready to watch five musician/actors become a band.

 

Studiolive AI PA Systems Shine at Musikfest 2015

[This just in from Dave Hinson of Hinson Sound in Bethlehem, PA!]

Dave Hinson Sound has been one of the sound vendors at Musikfest in Bethlehem for 15 years. Musikfest is the nation’s largest free music festival, boasting performances on 16 stages over 10 days. Our line array rig is deployed at the Volksplatz tent.

This year we became the sound vendor at the Main Street stage. When the contract was awarded, I called Rick Scott at Parsons Audio to order a pair of StudioLive 328AIs with the companion sub—The StudioLive 18sAI.

PreSonus was my first and only choice since hearing these speakers at a Dante class in Philadelphia back in April. I was first impressed with their sound, and they became a must have when I learned they were Dante-ready, and fully compatible with my Yamaha CL consoles.

What I was most impressed with, however, was that we unboxed the speakers, plugged them in, and they worked beautifully. No hassles, no tuning and no tweaking. We found that the speakers delivered incredible musical clarity. I believe they are two or three notches above their competition. Before next year’s festival season, I hope to make an all-PreSonus system: more mains, subs and monitors all running on Dante.
I am even thinking about how I can use lighting truss to support two mains per side and placing the sub below the stack.  This year, I used my QSCs as monitors, I hope to replace them with StudioLive 312AIs, or I could always use the 328’s in that mode also. You have a great product that has risen above the competition. I am sure 2016 will be a great year for you. Keep up the good work!

The group depicted below The Boiled Owls, performing a mix of Americana, bluegrass & folk music.

Musikfest 2015

Ricki and the Flash Rocks with PreSonus, Part 3

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Photo Credit: Mark Wolfson

Continued from Part 2…

All of the inputs were routed into a StudioLive™ 32.4.2AI console. Besides doing the live mix, the other half of my job was to ensure that every note was “Captured” during both rehearsals and filming.

Here’s how we did it:

Neil Citron, Mark Wolfson, and I wired the stage and then set up two recording systems. The first was set up on my MacBook Pro, running Mac OS X 10.8.5 and connected to the console using FireWire. I was running Universal Control-AI (with Virtual StudioLive-AI control software) and recording with Capture 2.0.

We connected the DB25 outputs of the 32.4.2AI to a Tascam X48 recorder because we needed to track SMPTE time code. This way, we also had two copies of each recording; as anyone who has ever lost a file knows, you need to back up, back up, back up.

The great thing about recording with Capture™ is it is literally effortless. Once my FireWire connection was secure and I knew the computer and console were talking to each other, all I had to do was open Capture and make one mouse click, and we were rolling! Of course, it helps to have the drive path set and the files named. I find that, given the option, it helps to set this up in advance, although the only really crucial setting is the file path.

We noticed that, according to the X48’s meters, the DB25 analog output was 6 dB lower than the digital signal coming into Capture. I’m not sure why the levels were different but comparing the WAV files in Studio One confirmed the difference.

Jeff Pullman, C.A.S, was the Production Sound mixer for the film and was a pleasure to work with. He also was very helpful in getting some sound isolation products so we could have a cleaner recording.

We did some test tracks with Neil playing so we could make sure the rig was running; then we started rehearsals.

Ricki and the Flash Rocks with PreSonus, Part 2

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The five musicians that make up the band Ricki and the Flash are all top shelf players. Their credits are the stuff of legends; you hear them on the radio every day. Of the five, only bass player Rick Rosas and drummer Joe Vitale had played together before, as the rhythm section of the reunion tour for the legendary Buffalo Springfield (no relation to Rick Springfield).

Bernie Worrell is a visionary funk keyboardist and a member of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. His credits include Parliament/Funkadelic and Talking Heads. Rick Springfield is a fantastic guitarist who also played Dr. Noah Drake on General Hospital.

Meryl Streep, of course, is one of the most renowned actresses in the world.

To get them to be Ricki and the Flash, we set up in the World Famous Rodeo Bar in the Murray Hill district of Manhattan. The Rodeo Bar is a long, narrow room with a brick wall behind the band. We were in a small space, and they were very LOUD.

We set up the band in an authentic club configuration and laid out the monitors for them. We used three StudioLive™ 312AI cabinets for the vocalists and keyboard position and a StudioLive 315AI for the drum wedge.

When we first set up the wedges, we decided to just use them in the standard DSP configuration. The speakers use Dave Gunness’ TQ™ (Temporal Equalization) settings to correct for the acoustical issues that arise in a coaxial design. In addition, each box has DSP settings designed to assist the user in different acoustic situations. There are four settings on the back of the speaker, accessed by a small button. The settings are: Normal (full range for front-of-house), LBR Source (for low-bit-rate digital audio, such as MP3 playback), Floor Monitor (for stage wedge), and a custom User preset.

Neil Citron is a long-time studio engineer, guitarist, and all around great guy. He ran the Mothership for Steve Vai for 15 years and is a member of the Sapphire Group, a bunch of audiophiles in Los Angeles. Neil has incredible ears and was brought in to teach Meryl guitar, be the music director, and record the performances.

Neil and I set up the wedges, supervised by Mark Wolfson, and we ran some program material through them. We really liked the sound of the default Normal setting, so we left it. As soon as the band showed up, we quickly realized that the stage mix just wasn’t “there.” A quick button-push, and the boxes were in Stage Monitor mode; they sat perfectly in the mix, with no additional EQ required.

We used one StudioLive 312AI plus one StudioLive 18sAI subwoofer per side of the “house” PA. We put the top boxes on using the SP1BK subwoofer pole; this also allowed us to steer the top box to reduce reflections off of the brick walls.

Thanks to Brad Graham, Rapco generously provided us with microphone cable and snakes to wire the stage. We wired the guitars using Radial JDX DIs to get the sound of the amplifier, not the guitar. We used Radial JDIs on the bass and keys. Thanks to Roxanne Ricks of Audio-Technica, we had A-T mics on the Leslie and hi-hat. We also used the fantastic A-T ribbons for ambient room miking. We had triggers on the drum kit; more about that later.

Here were the basic challenges:

  • Make sure the musicians can hear each other and the singers can hear their voices.
  • Make sure the levels into the recordings were right.
  • Get a good balanced mix for the audience.
  • Make it feel like a real show, which it was.

I’ll get into the recording aspect in the next part.

I need to give major props to Gary Goetzman, the producer, who took five musicians who had not played together before (with the exception of the rhythm section) and turned them into a real band in two weeks. Everyone was at the top of their game, and the professionalism of the band and producer really shone through.