Checking out the new Plugin Alliance website this morning, and very happy to see some of my favourite Brainworx and SPL plugins are now available in 64-bit versions – and finally without the dreaded iLok!

Those of you into mastering really should check out the Brainworx M/S processing plugins – they are a very different approach to mastering but can achieve some really fine results in Studio One Pro. Highly recommended.

I’m sitting in a big room at PreSonus HQ in Baton Rouge, Louisiana watching the super-smart Jonathan Hillman juggle two StudioLive 24.4.2 desks, three computers and a jungle of cables while we set up rehearsals for what will be easily the biggest live show we’ve ever put on at NAMM. And we’ll be live streaming it too, if we can pull it all off…

The Cajun All-Stars are currently jamming on an old Tears for Fears song while we fine-tune stuff. I just programmed a Roland FC-300 MIDI foot pedal to control Ampire XT in Studio One and Chris LeBlanc is using that system as his entire guitar rig – and it sounds really good. Now I’ve got a KMI SoftStep on my desk and figuring out how we can integrate even more live control stuff with that… This is shaping up to be a killer show.

Yes, I’m sure some of you are looking at that title and thinking “But isn’t the Winter NAMM show in January?” – and you would be right. But here at PreSonus, we’re already starting to get stuff ready for the show about six weeks ahead of the date. Yep, so much for the holiday season…

There’s an old music biz joke that the acronym NAMM stands for Not Available, Maybe May (or even less kindly, Maybe Movember). We took the decision a while back not to show stuff unless it was actually ready to ship, and we’re trying to stick to that, though sometimes when you have some wonderfully cool piece of technology in development it is really hard to resist the temptation to show it off. This time round we have Studio One 2.0 to show of course, and the new AudioBox VSL range, but we’re currently looking at the other stuff we have in engineering and evaluating how ready it is, and how best to debut it if it is indeed ready for prime time.

I’m pretty happy to say that I think we’ve got a couple of really cool things that we should be able to introduce at the show, so for the next weeks my head will be buried in technical notes and slideshows figuring out just how it all works and preparing to show it off. Cant wait!

Those of you who love classic synths as much as I do probably know the name of Wolfgang Palm, the genius behind the revolutionary PPG synths, and later Waldorf. However very few people seem to know of the unique software instrument he designed a few years ago called Plex. It’s been one of my favourite virtual instruments for years, allowing the creation of wonderfully organic yet unique sounds via a drag & drop palette.

Unfortunately the commercial version was discontinued some time ago, but I just found out that he’s now brought it back as a free download! Unfortunately for MacOS users it’s Windows only, but if you are a Windows user it’s definitely worth getting. Grab it at http://plex.hermannseib.com/

Y’know, even after 25 years in the professional music business, and many tours and records with great musicians etc. I still got a huge thrill when Andy Gill called me on the phone this morning.

Andy Gill…! Andy Gill!
Probably my favourite guitarist of all time. Funny thing was, I even playing Gang of Four’s I Party All the Time when he called.

gillmusic.com | The production and studio site of Andy Gill Gang of Four.

How did I miss the Made with Studio One group on Soundcloud until now? Standout tracks so far are Drachmae’s Handiworks and Luis Toniolo’s Second Thoughts. Nice work guys.

I’m currently listening through an Audiobox 44 VSL and a pair of Event Opal monitors that I’ve borrowed courtesy of the lovely people at Hyperactive in Germany. I am very hard to please when it comes to monitors, but I have to say, I really, really love these speakers. I don’t think I’ve ever heard monitors that are so clear and so powerful right across the frequency range. Quite remarkable. They aren’t cheap, and I already have some very nice monitors, but…

Yes, it’s Impulse Response day here at Orpheus HQ, and now some for you guitarists out there. One of the very cool things about the new Ampire XT plugin (which has rapidly become my favourite guitar sound plugin bar none) is that not only do you get a choice of several very nice cabinet models with Studio One, you can even load your own custom cabinets! And you can have up to three different IRs with varying mic positions on every preset.

So here are some nice cabinet IRs you can download for free – to use them open Ampire XT in Studio One 2.0 and in the cab drop down menu on the top right select User Cabinet. Then just drag and drop the Impulse Responses on to one of the three IR slots. Most of the IRs listed here have been recorded with several different mic positions, so I recommend loading three different IRs of the cabinet you want, then you can use the Edit Mic function in Ampire to mix and match between them to get the exact sound you need.

I haven’t tested all of these yet, but the ones I’ve tried so far have been great:

• Guitar Hacks (Powertube/Fredman)
• God’s Cab (Mesa – lots of different mics used, be sure to read the great manual that comes with it)
• Redwirez (Marshall 1960A • Celestion G12M25s)
• Recabinet Demo (1960/Blackface/Tangerine/Top Boost)

And if the list on Echochamber still isn’t enough, here are some of my other favourite free reverb IRs. Just drag and drop on to OpenAir to use them:

• http://www.voxengo.com/impulses
  (made in the great Voxengo IR creator program)
• http://www.acoustics.hut.fi/projects/poririrs/
  (very nice classical music hall)
• http://fokkie.home.xs4all.nl/IR.htm
  (some weird and wonderful IRs by Fokke van Saane, have to be heard to be believed)
• http://irlibrary.org/index.php
  (big collection of freeware IRs, with a nice preview function)

If the hundreds (thousands?) of reverb unit presets shipped with Studio One 2.0 still aren’t enough, check out this list of reverb Impulse Responses for download. I haven’t tested them all out myself yet, but I assume that they should work fine with OpenAir. As a lover of big-sounding 80s music I will be downloading some today to listen to for sure.

Yes, the listing is in German, but I think you can figure out the links even if you don’t speak the language. Or use Google Translate 🙂

The remarkably talented Florian just posted some Studio One wallpapers. Download and enjoy!