Drum Workshop is no joke. They make some of the most sought-after kits around with good reason: Quality construction begets quality tone.

So when the time comes to demo your high-quality drum kits, better be sure that you are dressed in the sonic equivalent of your Sunday best—spare no expense, like Dr. John Hammond said. So what do you do? Well, you get a roomfull of  first-call session cats, (Jaz Sawyer, Mika Fineo, Cobus Potgieter, Jordan Nuanez, and Jamal Moore ) and then you get a StudioLive 16.4.2 and a videocamera.

We’re flattered and thankful that DW chose none other than the PreSonus StudioLive 16.4.2 to render their drum sounds to disc for this video demoing the PDP Concept Series. Oh, and as long as everything was all miked up, they handled the voiceovers via the StudioLive as well.

The proof is in the pudding, howevs, so give a look/listen.

Hi guys!

Here’s a couple of StudioLive 24.4.2 ” in the wild” pictures I thought you might like to see.  Red 13 PA (named after a Journey EP) is based here in the UK. This pic is of our rig at a festival for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee last weekend. At the end of the night we had around 1000 people going nuts in the marquee!

We engineered for 8 bands that day. Headliners were The Great Pretender, a Queen tribute act, and before that was New 2  (a U2 tribute), both are highly regarded over here. The marquee reputedly holds 1000 and it was packed later in the day. We’ve had very complimentary feedback from all the bands involved and the organisers, especially regarding the sound quality on stage… and FOH as well.  One of the organisers has put his review on Facebook.

We didn’t choose the name “StudioLive” arbitrarily. The whole point is that the idea of mutual exclusivity between “studio” and “live” environs is becoming something of an anacronism. This is a paradigm shift which we endorse wholeheartedly.

Case, meet point. This is CRUSH, performing “Faithfully,” recorded live in a modest practice space.  But it doesn’t sound live, it sounds like a studio sesh. Get it? We’re impressed, and you think you will be too.

Note that any similarity between “Faithfully” and the music linked below is likely unintended—but pretty hilarious.

[Editor’s note: The kind e-mails just don’t STOP around here. I asked Houston’s Tommy Kib to give us “a paragraph or two” about his experience with the StudioLive and QMix in his worship services, and instead I got the sea of text that follows. Oh, and the video. Read on, it’s all good.]

Hey Ryan:

I volunteer with Adore Ministries (@adoreministries) running the audio: trying to capture, mix, master, and send recordings of our services up to SoundCloud for people that couldn’t attend. This allows us to share the message with all that want to hear it.

Tommy's StudioLive Remote solution

If there were a target audience for Adore, it would definitely be both young adults and the young at heart. Our services focus on staying very contemporary, while also keeping true to even the most traditional of Catholic traditions. A lot more information about Adore’s mission, vision, etc is on their website.

What we have been able to do with the wonderful PreSonus technology is a really tremendous thing. Since our particular venue doesn’t have the most reliable infrastructure, we have been bringing in our own audio gear. Most of the venue’s gear may have been state-of-the-art in the mid 1980’s… but it hasn’t really been refreshed, well… ever.

So, I bring in some good stuff to allow us to get in and set up a quality live sound and recording rig by ourselves. This allows us to barely touch, or have to trust (The faith pun is intended) the venue’s admittedly aging gear and leave without a trace. Typically the venue’s employees coming in for the service after us could easily be overwhelmed if we didn’t put everything back exactly like we found it. They also have a lot of folks re-routing signals, so input #40 on the snake near the altar might run to input #12 on the mixer. We learned early on that deciphering the existing setup this was a terrible waste of time.

On a typical Adore night at the Catholic Charismatic Center, I’ll haul over:

• Mics, stands, cables, DI’s etc.. anything feeding the mixer
• PreSonus StudioLive 16.4.2
• The wireless StudioLive Remote set up:
  • Laptop, Wireless Router, iPad, and 5 iPod Touches mounted in IK Klips.
• In-ear monitor setup consisting of some Shure wireless (PSM 400) and some hard-wired Shure packs, and of course the $50 mini-mixer for the drummer.
• I leave the big box with the 24 x 8 snake at home.

Most of the time, we send the main outs of the StudioLive to the venue’s front of house mixer, a very temperamental Allen & Heath GL4 that eats power supply fuses like I eat crawfish! Once in a while we’ll send a couple of signals allowing us to balance in some front fills or actually have a subgroup dedicated to front fills.

Using QMix means we don’t require a monitor engineer. I’ve noticed after 2 events that I can get a way better EQ and starting mix from being able to roam around the entire venue during sound check. We absolutely cannot be in there before about 3 p.m., and most of the band simply can’t arrive until 5 p.m., and the event has to start at 7 p.m.! And if we’re not out by 10 p.m., (service ends at 9 p.m.) we really make the janitor unhappy! 🙂

Tommy Kib at the helm.

The musicians (other than 2 that plug their ears right into the iPods) have really preferred using QMix over anything used before, even the Aviom system that this venue has. When we did rely on the Aviom, it was patched differently each and every time so there was 30 minutes of prep going in to re-patching and labeling the monitor mixes. With QMix, I think there’s only one “wish list” item I’d ask for… and that’s to save the channel labels or board tape part when recalled.

To say QMix is a game changer is a severe understatement. I’d credit it with at least 10 minutes savings during sound check, which is spent getting a much nicer sound. I thought the same when SL Remote for iPad came out, and now I don’t lose an hour spent running and connecting through a snake. Having the Store, Recall, and FAT Channel on the StudioLive takes anything we do anywhere to the next level, but being able to start with a recalled scene as a start point is PRICELESS! Probably another 10 minutes saved per night there…

What’s that add up to..? 2 hours saved per service? At least 80 gray hairs saved! When we only have 2 hours to set up and sound check, every minute counts!

Enjoy the little video! That should be enough for a “paragraph or two,” right?

Thomas Kibodeaux
Adore Ministries
@TKib

Really? We call this video “The Meters,” but we didn’t get George Porter Jr. from The Funky Meters to be IN it? He was totally down to be in the Swampgrease webinar a while back. OK, fine. Here’s Justin Spence talking about non-funky meters on his StudioLive instead.

Very clever! Markusgalla over at YouTube has found a way to stream your Mac’s audio into any channel of your StudioLive using a tool called “SoundFlower,” which is what I believe is what happens when a SoundCloud drops some SoundRain on the SoundGrass.

English speakers may choose to make use of the provided subtitles. What sort of applications can you think of for this? The possibilities are quite limitless.

Corona, CA, May 2012… Located in the heart of this bustling Southern California city, the Fender Center for Music Education is a busy place. The 33,000-square foot building is home to a music school, a museum, two performance venues, and a recording studio, and the Center is buzzing with activity throughout most of the year.

Run by the nonprofit Fender Museum of Music and the Arts Foundation, the Fender Center’s main focus is to provide music education to young people at low or no cost. As the Center’s audio engineer Kelly McGuire explains, the program has made an impact on a great many kids’ lives.

“Our program is called Kids Rock Free,” says McGuire. “It’s a low-cost lesson program for kids from 7 to 17 years old. We’ve been doing this for going on about 12 years now, and over 12,000 kids have been through the program.” The Center is also home to two live performance venues. “We have an outdoor concert venue where we do summer concerts like Steve Miller Band, and we also have a smaller nightclub venue,” says McGuire.

As a non-profit, the Center doesn’t rely on deep corporate pockets, counting instead on the support of donors. “Steve Miller and Paul Rogers have been really supportive,” says McGuire. “They’ve both put on benefit fundraisers for us, and companies like PreSonus have been there for us since the beginning.”

McGuire has been mixing a variety of projects on the Center’s StudioLive 24.4.2 console. “For one of our first projects, we put together a three-concert TV series starring Deana Carter.” The project was a collaboration with nearby Lucas Oil. “They’re our neighbors here in Corona,” says McGuire, “and they have a full TV production studio that turns out about 100 shows per year. There are lots of musicians working over there, and they’re huge supporters of our program, and they came up with the idea of doing a show with us, originating from our venue, and aired on their network.”

McGuire approached Carter and her band about the idea. “When I approached Deana, Max and David about doing this show, I just had a really good feeling about it,” he says. “I said, ‘Let’s try it out because I think you’re really going to like it. The audio’s going to be good, and the video’s going to look fantastic.’ And that’s exactly how it turned out.”

As McGuire points out, the StudioLive enabled him to wear multiple hats during the shows, handling the live mix, monitors, TV feeds, and live recording. “I was able to mix the show live, mix a couple of other sources for the TV track, and run five monitor mixes for the band, and at the same time I was tracking the show to a MacBook, using Studio One to edit it later. That’s what’s so cool about the StudioLive. There is really nothing else that I can think of that makes the whole process so effortless and streamlined.”

While the initial show with Deana Carter was put together as a showcase, the response both at the Center and at Lucas Oil has been so positive that plans are already in the works for several new productions. Upcoming shows will include members of Grand Funk Railroad, .38 Special, and Jack Mack and the Heart Attack.

But the StudioLive has been busy on more than just TV shows. “I’ve also been using the console for other stuff, including some shows, some studio recording, and some projects with the kids,” says McGuire. “It’s going to be in use all summer, pretty much all the time, including some of our outdoor concerts.”

This one-two knockout comes to us (and subsequently you) from GastroMusicology, a team that created a PreSonus StudioLive 16.0.2 introduction video so thorough, so detailed, and so compelling, that it had to be split up in to two entirely separate videos.

Kinda like “Kill Bill,” except with this you don’t have to pay twice to watch what is pretty much one movie.

Part 1 of 2:

Part 2 of 2:

Las Vegas, NV, May 2012… Join PreSonus for a very special live webcast, direct from the InfoComm Show in Las Vegas.

Tune in for Connecting Your Customers with StudioLive™, a 30-minute presentation that will cover the broad range of advanced control and connectivity between PreSonus StudioLive consoles and laptop computers, iPads®, iPhones®, and iPod touches®.

From iPad-based wireless mixer control with StudioLive-Remote and iPhone/iPod touch monitor control via QMix™, to multitrack recording and production with CaptureTM and Studio OneTM Artist, PreSonus is the only compact digital mixer that offers such a wide range of software integration – for free!

The presentation will also take a look into the ever-expanding integration between PreSonus products and Rational Acoustics’ acclaimed Smaart™ audio-analysis technologies. Optimizing system EQ has never been this fast and easy.

Four 30-minute presentations will be broadcast live from the PreSonus Demo Room (N105) at InfoComm on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, June 13, 14, and 15 at 9:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 1:00 PM, and 3:00 PM. (All times are Pacific Daylight Time) A live Q&A from attendees will follow each session.

A special bonus for those attending the show in person: PreSonus will give away a free seven-port USB hub and free 2GB USB drive to attendees at the end of each presentation.

So join us online at http://livestream.com/presonuslive to catch all the action as it happens, or to view it later.

To schedule an email reminder, visit us at http://presonus.com/community/presonuslive/