PreSonus Blog

Category Archives: Artist


Bill Edstrom, and Why He Chose to Write a Book on Studio One.

Studio-One-book[This just in from Bill Edstrom, Pro Audio Author and all-around gem of a man.]

Hey PreSonus!

I’ve done projects in just about every DAW on the market. To use most of these systems you need to be in a very technical frame of mind. About three years ago, I was looking for something simpler—something to get creative songwriting ideas out. That’s when I discovered Studio One. The workflow made sense to me and it helped me write.

As I got more interested in Studio One, I discovered anther great thing—a community of users that were amazingly helpful and enthusiastic. I started contributing to the PreSonus Forum with some free YouTube videos which lead to my work with Groove 3. I went on to create four volumes (24 hours worth!) of video training for Studio One.

When I started talking to Bill Gibson at Hal Leonard about some book concepts, I really wanted to do a Studio One book. I think they see the potential for this DAW because they have already published Larry the O’s book Power Tools for Studio One with a second volume on the way.

My book is designed as concise introduction to the core features of Studio One. I wrote it for the person that already has some experience with another DAW. The book content is really focused on getting up to speed with the software as quickly as possible. There are also 12 new videos included with the book covering some of the key concepts that would be tricky to explain in writing.

Why Studio One? Well, besides being great software, PreSonus has been amazing to work with. I have had the chance to meet Matthias and the PreSonus Software team at PreSonuSphere and NAMM and they have been very welcoming. The rest of the PreSonus team including Rick, Jonathan, Brad, and Jim have been friendly and great hosts in Baton Rouge. I also really enjoyed presenting to a group of Studio One enthusiasts as part of PreSonuSphere 2012 last year.

At first, I was recording with Studio One as a canvas for creativity. But I realized that I could produce music end to end without really needing to use other tools. Back in March 2010 I put together my first rather crude Studio One video called “Fun With PreSonus Studio One.” That video has 42,000+ views. I think the title sums up my experience with Studio One. It’s fun to use!

Regards,
Bill Edstrom

You can (and should) get Bill’s book from the following retailers:

Powell’s
Barnes and Noble
Amazon

 

The Winner of the Dream Rig for Your Dream Gig Sweepstakes Sounds Off!

[This just in from Steve E., winner of the 2012 Dream Rig for your Dream Gig Sweepstakes!]

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Looks like home to me.

I wanted to send you a picture of me and the gear and I wanted to thank all of the companies involved in hooking me up with all of this awesome equipment!

This is truly a “Dream Rig” and I have only began to scratch the surface of what the combination of the ADL 700 preamp, Blue Microphones Kiwi mic, and KRK monitors have to offer.

So far, I have tracked my dad and I on mandolin and acoustic guitar respectively just using the Kiwi into the ADL 700 with excellent results. Hopefully soon, I will have an heirloom double album of my dad and I playing traditional old time music on one disc and a re-mastered version of my dad and grandfather paying the same exact tunes back in 1967 from a reel to reel tape. This equipment couldn’t have come at a better time! I I also have recorded my daughter Isabella singing into the same combo and I am totally blown away with the details you can bring out with the onboard compressor and EQ settings. By the way, all of the awesome artwork behind me on the walls is hers, too.

The possibilities are endless! When I combine the ADL 700 with the Kiwi and its 9 polar patterns it is just mind boggling! In addition to this, the ability to switch the EQ in before the compressor is a really awesome feature, along with being able to bypass either one or both at the flick of a switch. This truly is a match made in heaven…

I have also ran the new Monoprice guitar into the ADL 700 instrument input and achieved an excellent funky single-coil blues sound along with pumping the gain up a bit and getting some smooth crunch and creamy sustain. I can’t wait to track some bass through it!

My next major project is to record a full-length album with my friend Keith for our band Letchwurth (this is the dream band I selected when I entered the contest.) This equipment will take our recordings to an entirely new level—just as long as I can bring my recording and mixing skills up to the same level, ha! We cannot wait to start tracking with the new equipment. This setup blows away everything we had before! Also with the new Pro SoundCloud account we will be able to post everything up for everyone to hear. Look out for Letchwurth “Ringworm Eraser” in the future…

Before I won the contest, I had a few cheaper dynamic mics and one condenser along with the Focusrite liquid Saffire 56 preamp/firewire interface you see on the bottom of the ADL. In addition to this, I only had headphones to mix and monitor with, so with the KRK VXT4’s and 12S sub have been able to mix and monitor the right way. This speaker combo is absolutely perfect for my small home-office and I am totally amazed at the detailed sound-field that these speakers deliver. I am now able to hear details that I never even knew were there, even with headphones! Of course, I couldn’t have hooked it all up without all of the cables and accessories from Monoprice. My setup is now complete! What else could I need?

Thanks again to everyone involved with putting this equipment into my lap and allowing me to step beyond the next level with my recording capabilities!

I am truly thankful and view it as a sign to capture high quality recordings with my friends and family for many years to come.

Victor Wooten, Steve Bailey, and David “Fingers” Haynes from the PreSonus Booth at NAMM 2013!

Olesya Star’s Unusual Duet

olesya_star_christmas2012[This just in from PreSonus Artist Olesya Star, who recently completed an unusual duet.]

As an independent artist, people always tell me that to survive you have to take 2 steps left whilst walking forward or you’ll go in circles, so I always keep an open mind to new ventures, avenues and pathways through this minefield called the music biz. One such diversion presented itself to me recently in the form of a country duet, originally meant for Dolly Parton, but sung by Tim Rose. Tim was an original American troubadour who was a founding Greenwich Village folk musician in the 1960s, and former band member with the likes of Mama Cass (Mamas and Papas), and later in life Andy Summers (The Police) and Mick Jones (Foreigner). Sadly, I never met Tim Rose before he died in 2002, but by pure chance I was asked by an old friend of Tim’s  if I would supply “Dolly Parton-like vocals” and work the track, originally recorded in 1988.

The tracks were originally recorded on 2″ tape, so the tape needed to be baked and digitized prior to landing on my studio desk. I had 24 tracks to play with that had been encoded at 24bit/96khz, which I brought immediately into PreSonus Studio One Professional v2.  The job of identifying the microphones that were used in the original recording was completely irrelevant with Studio One, as it was far simpler just to make the recording sound how it should by using the simplest included Studio One features: Channel Strip, CompressorPro EQOpenAIR reverb and, my favorite by far, the Mulitiband Dynamics effect on the Master channel which glues the track together—sometimes much better than using summing mixers that cost in the thousands.

I recorded my vocals through the PreSonus AudioBox 1818VSL, dropped the majority of unnecessary channels/recordings, and sculpted a rough mix before handing the final session over to my producer/mastering guru, Adam Mills. Adam  added some heart-poundingly heavy kick drum and a sprinkle of the missing magic by adding just 2-3% OpenAir in the Mastering/Project section of Studio One, as an insert, with a tight room preset— and no more pre-delay than 15-20ms. There you go, now I’m even handing out secrets!

The result is “You Can Hurry Darling (And I’ll Walk Slow)” which now sounds like I was in the room with Tim Rose at the same time, All thanks to Studio One and PreSonus. Here’s a sample, the full single drops Feb. 14!

PreSonus Pays Tribute to Recording Royalty at 2013 Grammys

PreSonus Pays Tribute to Recording Royalty at 2013 Grammys

by Carl Jacobson, Director of Strategic Marketing & Business Development

None other than Quincy Jones himself!

None other than Quincy Jones himself!

The Grammys are the Grammys… pomp, circumstance, bravado and flash. If you’re a fan of music celebrities or one of the stars that make it, there’s no other night like it.
But if you’re like us at PreSonus, you get more excited about the unsung heroes who actually record and produce the music.  We find the contributions to pop culture by Quincy Jones to be as significant as those he worked with like Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, or Frank Sinatra. And the listening enjoyment you get when you hear Steely Dan or Ray Charles is as much due to Al Schmitt’s engineering genius as it was to the performances by the artists themselves. They go hand in hand.
So that’s why, when the Producers and Engineers Wing of NARAS, (the people who bring you the Grammys) asked us to join them during Grammy Week for a Night of Jazz honoring our friends Quincy and Al, we felt honored too. These are our people and we want to celebrate what they do.
The unofficial tagline of the P&E Wing is “All Geek, All the Time.” Imagine being invited to a party full of people who can get as excited about the speakers playing the music, as the music coming out of them!  Imagine if the party you’re invited to is being held in the same recording studio where Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, and Nine Inch Nails recorded their best work.
The night was held at The Village in West LA, and when we learned that the State of Louisiana was a sponsor, and gumbo & beignets were on the menu… we felt right at home. And, for once, we didn’t have to cook. That’s our kind of party!
It was suggested to us that we could bring some toys, so for us that meant our new Sceptre monitors and the ADL 700 channel strip, we even invited our brothers at Nimbit for good measure. A nice thing about the Grammy Week P&E Wing party, is that it’s cool to talk tech. Most of the producers and engineers who fly in for the Grammys are too busy working to attend NAMM, so they appreciate the chance to talk about the latest and greatest gear in a casual and intimate environment with the people who make it.
I can’t tell you how many times we heard love expressed for a Central Station or PreSonus preamp. Or the respect people had for what we’ve done with Studio One in such a short amount of time. Honestly, the jokes about letting people leave with the Sceptre monitors got a little old by the end of the night, but hey, it’s hard not to get gear lust when you hear them.  There was genuine excitement that we collaborated with Dave Gunness on the designs, and relief that someone had finally perfected a coaxial speaker design that was not only loud (loud is easy,) but that it sounded good, too… I overheard one engineer say “It’s a good loud.”
Aside from getting some quality time with the honorees we also got a chance to see some dear friends. Brad Zell, our Director of Marketing Communications reconnected with Rob Chiarelli, mix engineer for Madonna and Christina Aguilera, among many others who he worked with at Avalon. Brad also spent some quality time with Dave Hampton, engineer and system tech for Prince and Herbie Hancock. And I’m always happy to run into my guitar instructor from high school, Shawn Clement, who later went on to score countless films, video games and TV shows.
Some other notable people we saw with that night included will.i.am, George Benson, Ed Cherney, Carmen Rizzo, and Jimmy Jam.
All in all an amazing evening and we can’t wait till next year.

 

Joe Solo’s Music Success Weekend Workshop

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Scott Szeryk Performing Caprice No. 5 by Paganini.

Hope you had an awesome Christmas!

Here is our latest video.  Scott Szeryk performing Caprice No. 5 by Paganini.
Released on Christmas day and Recorded on the amazing Studio Live 24.4.2

Khaliq Interview (SoundCloud)

Khaliq at home.

Khaliq at home.

PreSonus VP of Sales and PreSonus lifer Rick Naqvi recently had the opportunity to sit down with überproducer Khaliq Glover. Khaliq has licence to drop names like Prince, Justin Timberlake,  Herbie Hancock, John Mayer, Christina Aguilera, Stevie Wonder, Santana, Sting, Brian Eno, Annie Lennox, Smokey Robinson, Jeffrey Osborne, B2K, Narada Michael Walden, Kenny Lattimore, and Faith Evans. He was also one of the many engineers to participate on 1985’s ”We Are The World” project.  The man’s the real-deal, and we’re flattered that he converted to Studio One, thanks to a little help from Teddy Riley.

Khaliq also runs a site called MixingAndRecording.Com, where he hosts telesummits from time to time, featuring select industry pros from Khaliq’s l̶i̶t̶t̶l̶e̶ big black book of industry pros. Give it a listen; Khaliq and Rick kick around the history of PreSonus and offer some insights into our products.
Mixing and Recording: download Khaliq’s free e-book!

 

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

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,