PreSonus Blog

Category Archives: Studio One


New Loops from MVP!

New MVP Loops at Shop.PreSonus.com!
MVP Loops offers nothing but the best in sample sounds, loop libraries and music software. Their team are responsible for millions of records sold worldwide and have worked on some of the biggest projects of this generation.


Lust and Loyalty 

Lust & Loyalty from MVP Loops is a modern R&B product that gives you the best of both worlds. Whether you are looking to make a modern ballad or something a little more trap dirty, Lust & Loyalty has what you need: 12 melodic construction kits with 625 amazing loops, riffs, and samples. The sounds have all been processed through the best gear and converters to give you the sound that you have come to expect from MVP Loops.

All keys and tempos have been provided, and the sounds are amazing. In the style of modern day hit makers such as Chris Brown, Rihanna, Beyonce, and more, Lust & Loyalty has what you need to make modern R&B and modern R&B trap.

Get Lust and Loyalty here.


Sound Mob- Live Edition – Vol. 2 

Sound Mob Live Edition Vol. 2 is here from MVPLoops! Following up on the huge success of the Sound Mob series, this version boasts 2.51 gigs of sounds containing 1,449 loops, riffs, one-shots and samples in an incredible package. Recorded at our facility in Los Angeles using the best musicians and gear, Sound Mob Live Edition Vol. 2 is a special product. Whether you are looking to create a hit like “It’s a Vibe” from 2 Chainz, Jhene Aiko, Trey Songz, and Ty Dollar Sign or a classic sample-based Jay-Z style hit like “Show Me What You Got,” Sound Mob Live Edition Vol. 2 has what you need.

Get Sound Mob Vol. 2 here.


DREAM

Looking to produce a big song to grab the Top 40 crowd, get placed in a movie, or expand an album? Look no further than DREAM, a new product from MVP Loops that represents the current drama-drenched, Top 40, uplifting sound! Music is coming back to the forefront of productions, and artists are looking to bring in as many people as possible—whether it’s Beyonce, Adelle, Wiz Khalifa, Sam Smith, or many other chart-toppers—they have found a formula for making a hit for the masses. DREAM represents this style.

DREAM contains construction kits, loops, samples, riffs, and multi-formatted kits in Audioloops and Impact kits. The sounds are big, featuring bold piano melodies, strings, huge synths, leads, basses, and cracking drums.  DREAM is perfect for collaborations of hip-hop and R&B.

Get Dream here.


Smoke Shop 

Welcome back to the West Coast. Smoke Shop features ten modern West Coast construction kits in the style of Kendrick Lamar, SchoolboyQ and YG.Smoke Shop is filled with tons of content including drum one-shots, riffs, full mixes, drum and instrument mixes, giving you the flexibility to sample grooves or individual instruments to create your next masterpiece.

Get Smoke Shop here.

Friday Tip of the Week: Strums Made Easy with Step Recording

One of the main differences between guitar and keyboard is chord voicing. Guitar chords typically have six widely separated notes, whereas keyboard notes tend cluster around two areas accessible by each hand. For example, check out the notes that make up an E major chord on guitar.

If you’re a keyboard player using chords to define a chord progression, it’s easy enough to have chords hit on, for example, the beginning of a measure. But “strumming” the chord can add interest and a more guitar-like quality. Although you can edit the notes in a chord so that successively higher notes of the chord have increasing delay compared to the start of the measure, that’s pretty time-consuming. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to do guitar voicings—and strum them.

Stepping Out. The core of this technique is step recording, which is easy to do in Studio One once you’ve inserted a virtual instrument. Steps are keyed to numbers on the screen shot. This assumes the strummed chord will start on the beat.

 

  1. Define your MIDI region, then open it in the Editor (F2).
  2. Click on the Editor’s Step Recording button—the one that looks like stairs going down and up.
  3. Choose a note length value of 64th notes.
  4. Click Enable.
  5. Play the notes of the chord, from low to high (or strum down from high to low), starting from the beginning of a measure.
  6. You’ll probably want to extend the note lengths.
  7. This will be a fairly slow strum, and there may be too much time between notes. No problem: select the notes, set quantization as appropriate to move the strummed notes closer to the first note (e.g., a half-note in the example above), and then choose Action > Quantize to 50%. Moving the notes closer to the first note speeds up the strum.

The moral of the story is that chord notes don’t always need to hit right on the beat—try some strumming, and add variety to your music.

 

 

 

 

Friday Tip of the Week: Synthesize OpenAIR Reverb Impulses in Studio One

Convolving white noise with audio produces reverb but frankly, the results aren’t all that inspiring compared to the impulses obtained from “sampling” real rooms. However, there are ways to make white noise impulses that provide a unique, “idealized” sound compared to standard impulses.

  1. You need a noise source, so insert Mai Tai and create a noise-only preset.
  2. Sculpt the noise to emulate a “room.” Suppose you want a 2.0 second reverb from a highly damped room. Use the amplitude envelope to provide a 2 second fadeout, and the filter envelope to damp the sound. I also add a little delay to make the noise a wider image.
  3. Transform the instrument sound to an audio track.
  4. Normalize the audio, then bring the peak level down by about 7 or 8 dB. Open Air seems happiest with impulses that don’t use up all the available headroom.
  5. Export the WAV file.

Now bring the WAV file you just saved into Open Air, and check out the clarity and smoothness of the sustain—it has an “idealized” quality, sort of like how CGI is an idealized version of an image. Listen to the audio example processing some percussive sounds from Impulse, and you’ll hear what I mean.

Here are a few other hints:

  • When you shorten the reverb in Open Air, it sounds more gated. Once you find an impulse you like, generate versions at different lengths, and then you can choose the length that’s appropriate for the music.
  • Create short reverb impulses and reverse them—you’ll hear the best reverse reverb sounds ever.
  • Make a bright, sparkly vocal reverb by filtering out the lows, or to create the Taiko Drum of Doom, create a long impulse but filter out all the highs.
  • Try different effects, like “chopping” the noise for rhythmic effects.

The bottom line is this is an incredibly flexible way to come up with reverb sounds…and you can end up with different reverb sounds than any other reverb processor on your hard drive. Have fun!

Friday Tip of the Week: The Ultra-Tight Rhythm Section

Last week, we used the Gate for drum replacement. This week, let’s use it to tighten up an electric bass part—and end up with a rhythm section that’s tighter than a comic book superhero’s costume.

We’ll use a fairly basic example of sidechaining to create this tightness. While most people understand the principles behind sidechaining, I haven’t heard very many people actually use this particular application. But with electric bass, using a drum sidechain signal to gate the bass adds a percussive overlay to the bass’s melodic character that fits perfectly with drums.

For the bass sound, in this example I’m using my bass expansion pack for Cakewalk’s Rapture Pro (I’ll be porting the samples over to Presence XT soon). The drum loop track has a send that drives a Gate inserted in the bass track, with the Gate’s sidechain set to External so it’s triggered by the drum’s audio.

Although different situations call for different Gate settings, I find the key to getting good results with electric bass is the Gate’s Release control. Because bass has a natural decay, a little release time prevents the bass from sounding too percussive—the attacks are all properly in place, but the bass note trails off gracefully, even though the drum transient may be long gone.

However with more electro-oriented material, using a sharp decay with an electric bass provides an unusual type of effect—you have the organic, natural sound of the electric bass modulated by the clipped, percussive decays caused by gating with the drums. As always, experimentation can yield interesting—and sometimes delightfully unexpected—results. Try it!

It’s Not Voodoo—it’s PreSonus Studio Magic 2018

We’ve updated Studio Magic Plug-in Suite for Mac and Windows! Worth more than $400 but provided free to new and existing registered owners of any currently available PreSonus audio interface or mixer, the 2018 Studio Magic Plug-in Suite software bundle includes seven popular plug-ins in VST, AU (Mac), and AAX formats. All you have to do to get Studio Magic 2018 is register your qualifying hardware at my.presonus.com!

Learn more about Studio Magic 2018 here:

Take a closer look at each plug-in in the YouTube playlist below!

Mapping Another Program’s Shortcuts to Studio One

Studio One comes with keyboard shortcut mappings for Cubase, Logic, and Pro Tools, so those switching to Studio One can use the keyboard shortcuts with which they’re familiar—as well as navigate the trial version without having to learn a lot of new shortcuts. To add to that list, I mapped Sonar’s shortcuts to Studio One; these mappings are included as an alternate key scheme in the most recent update. What I learned in the process might be useful if you want to create mappings for a program you were using prior to migrating to Studio One.

Spoiler alert: Ultimately I think it’s best to learn Studio One’s keyboard shortcuts unless you use multiple DAWs and don’t want your brain to explode learning all the variations. Many of Sonar’s shortcuts are based on the traditional Windows approach of using control keys to navigate quickly through menus rather than calling up functions directly. Also, many functions for which Sonar has few or no keyboard shortcuts (e.g., automation) have shortcuts in Studio One, and assigning some shortcuts to Sonar can overwrite useful Studio One shortcuts, so you need to create a new shortcut for any you remove. For example, Studio One’s reverse audio shortcut is Ctrl+R—the same as Sonar’s shortcut to refresh the Media Browser. A Sonar user will more likely want the refresh function, although that means creating a new shortcut for reverse audio.

Another example is for Sonar users who miss its ProChannel. Yet Studio One has a functionally similar Console feature when you open the channel—you see what effects are inserted, and a thumbnail of their settings. So I mapped Studio One’s Open Channel to Ctrl+I (the screenshot shows assigning this in the process of creating the key scheme), Sonar’s shortcut for opening the ProChannel. Although this overwrote Studio One’s shortcut for Invert Selection, I think Sonar users will be willing to sacrifice Invert Selection for having something similar to opening up the ProChannel. The shortcut I is another conflict, which opens Sonar’s Inspector. In Studio One, I enables auto-punch, which you can also enable by clicking on a transport button—but since Sonar users have always enabled auto-punch via a Control Bar button anyway, it made sense to give up I for the Inspector.

Then there are the design differences. For inserting effects in clips (Events), Sonar includes an FX rack that behaves like the one in its Track or Console view. In Studio One, the equivalent appears in the Event’s Inspector. However, having already mapped a Sonar shortcut to open the Inspector, I assigned Studio One’s Insert Event FX to Sonar’s Open Clip FX Rack shortcut. Sonar users can use that to insert an Event FX quickly, and hopefully they’ll realize they can open up the Inspector to see all the options for Event FX.

Nudge is another example of accommodating a common Sonar function. In Studio One, the number keypad is more for navigation and marker recall and with Sonar, nudge operations. So I assigned Sonar’s “greatest hits” nudge functions to the keypad.

Then again, sometimes you get lucky. For example, Studio One’s Audio Bend panel relates to what Sonar’s AudioSnap does, so I just assigned the AudioSnap shortcut to it. And while there’s a shortcut to hide selected tracks in Studio One, I find Studio One’s Track List the most convenient way to manage track hide/show. Sonar’s Track Manager handles show/hide well, so I used its shortcut to open the Track List. Another sneaky trick is that
Studio One doesn’t have a dedicated Navigator pane like Sonar, but if you reduce the track heights to the absolute minimum, the visual representation of a song is very similar.

Studio One doesn’t have screensets per se, but the five Console Scenes for which shortcuts exist are similar, so I assigned number keys 1-5 (which Sonar uses for screensets) to the scenes. Only problem is the tool shortcuts also use number keys, so I changed them to Ctrl+Shift+[function key] because Sonar users are familiar with using function keys to call up tools.

Finally, note that Sonar has many functions that aren’t assigned to default keyboard shortcuts, yet some of these functions do have default keyboard shortcuts in Studio One. So if you’ve created your own custom shortcuts in Sonar or another DAW, if Studio One has a similar function it may already have a default shortcut. If not, you can create similar (if not identical) custom shortcuts in Studio One. Another nice touch: When you open the list of keyboard shortcuts from Help, they reflect whichever mapping you’ve chosen—not just the Studio One defaults. And don’t forget you can create Macros to re-create another DAW’s workflow in Studio One, and then assign the Macro to a shortcut.

Still, after spending way too many hours going over the similarities and differences between Sonar’s and Studio One’s keyboard shortcuts, I have to say that I’ll be learning Studio One’s shortcuts. It’s clear a lot of thought went into choosing and assigning them, so I believe a little effort spent now will save a lot of time overall. My recommendation for learning shortcuts is to print out the list, and learn a new one every few days—you won’t regret it.

Click here for further notes on Sonar’s Shortcut Mappings in Studio One. [PDF]

 

 

Friday Tip of the Week: Fun with Tempo Tracks

 

Fun with the Tempo Track

Creating tempo changes can add a significant amount of emotional impact to a piece of music, and you can create these changes with the Tempo Track. MIDI will follow tempo variations, as will Audio Tracks in Timestretch mode and also, Acidized WAV clips. To open the Tempo Track, click the Clock icon in the Track Column.

It’s important to remember that tempo changes remain in effect until any subsequent tempo changes, and the Transport tempo indicator always reflects the current tempo. Note that unlike other programs where the timeline doesn’t change, a very useful Studio One feature is that the timeline reflects tempo changes. For example if you change two measures to half the original tempo, those two measures will last twice as long graphically as the other measures in the timeline. This also means that if you draw a linear series of tempo changes (see below), they will appear to have a curve but the changes themselves are still linear—it’s just that the timeline display  reflects whether the tempo is speeding up or slowing down. That’s pretty cool.

So why would you change the tempo?

I was hoping you’d ask…

I mainly use three types of tempo changes, because each has their use.

Short changes. These happen over a short range, like slowing down the tempo slightly during the measure before going into the big chorus, or speeding up a little during a couple measures before a solo comes to an end.

Long-range changes. Here’s a good example of why tempo changes can be really handy. For a particular set, there was a song at 127 bpm followed by one at 133.33 bpm (locked groove tempo). I started a linear tempo change about 2/3 of the way through the first song, slowly increasing the tempo to 133.33. It took long enough that you didn’t really notice the tempo was changing, but it added a feeling of anticipation and segued perfectly into the second song.

It’s easy to create a linear series of tempo changes. Choose the tempo change resolution with the Quantize parameter (it doesn’t matter if Snap to grid is on or off). Hold [Option/Mac] or [Alt/Windows], click, and draw the line. While still holding down the modifier key, you can drag up or down to change the final tempo. Holding the shift key gives 0.1 BPM resolution. For finer resolution, place the cursor in the section containing the tempo change, and enter the number in the Tempo Track field. (Note that the screen shot doesn’t show the fine resolution of the tempo changes, but they’re there.)

“Time Traps.” Suppose you want to add a short, almost subliminal “dramatic pause” at some point, like just before some booming snare drum hit signals the start of the chorus. Although you could shift your tracks over a bit or insert some space, it’s much easier just to do a radical tempo drop (e.g., from 120 to 50 bpm) for a fraction of a beat where you want the dramatic pause. This sloooooows everything down enough to add the pause. (Ideally, you’d want something that sustains over the pause—silence, a pad, held note, etc. but that’s commonly what will be happening anyway.)

Studio One has a neat trick for doing these: you can edit non-consecutive tempo changes simultaneously. This is important because the amount of tempo change is pretty crucial to get the desired effect, so if you want to add more than one time trap in a song, adjusting one can adjust them all. Simply use the Arrow tool to click and drag over the tempo change you want to edit, then hold down Shift and use the Arrow tool to click and drag over any additional tempo changes you want to edit. Editing one edits them all.

Modifying the tempo track can allow a song to “breathe,” like what happens when musicians play together. If you haven’t experimented with subtle (or even dramatic) tempo changes, you’re in for a treat when you do.

 

New Studio One Add-ons from SonalSystem

We’ve got two tremendous new sample/loop collections from SonalSystem, the brilliant minds who brought us the lauded “Biscuits and Gravy” drum loops a while back. Now, they’ve got a killer hip-hop pack and an indie guitar pack, and each is available in three editions: Gold, Silver, and Platinum and are compatible with Studio One Prime, Artist, and Professional (Versions 3.5.4 and higher). Click here to shop!


Echo Park – Indie Pop Guitars: was meticulously sound designed with contemporary genres in mind and features a blend of inspiration from the vibrant Echo Park neighborhood in Los Angeles, CA.

Crafted with a focus on composition, this library is a perfect companion for producers, film/tv composers and songwriters across genres who are looking for inspiration along with studio quality sounds to complete their vision.

  • Silver: Mono/Stereo FX Loops
  • Gold: Silver edition plus 300+ Dry Loops
  • Platinum: Gold edition plus 300+ DI Loops and 100 Ampire XT Presets

Click here to shop!

 

 


Music City Drums vol.2 – Boom Bap: These hip-hop drums were recorded using an extensive collection of vintage drums, classic mic pres, and choice microphones. Because Sonal System took an old-school approach to recording and sampling, the timeless and gritty vibe of hip-hop’s golden era can now be a bold, colorful addition to your sonic palette.

  • Silver: A collection of 500+ Stereo Loops
  • Gold: Silver edition plus 3000+ Multitrack Loops (presented in sessions for added convenience)
  • Platinum: Gold edition, plus  three Impact kits and 100+ MIDI Loops

Click here to shop!

 

Tons of new Studio One Loops from Sample Magic!

The prolific crew over at Sample Magic has brewed up some kind of spell that allows them to conjure loops of stellar quality while keeping them exceptionally affordable.  They’ve just cast us a ton of new loop content for Studio One, covering everything from hip-hop’s Golden Era to today’s Festival Trap, and a few unexpected things in between like Organic Electronic. Click on any of the artwork to head over to shop.presonus.com and listen to audio demos!

Golden Era

Inspired by the groundbreaking hip hop scene of the late 80s and early 90s, Golden Era is an expansive 1.2GB collection of classic MPC beats and breaks, retro vinyl-styled loops, soul and jazz-infused melodics, afro-laced percussive grooves, analogue layers, 520+ dusty drum hits and 70+ stabs spanning Rhodes, Hammond, assorted analogue synths, live bass hits and electric guitar licks.

Inspired by the likes of A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul and Jurassic 5, Golden Era delivers six folders jam-packed with old school beats and breaks, mellow live bass, fat analogue subs, retro synths, soulful keys, live percussion grooves, characterful FX layers and more.

All loops are tempo-synced at either 80, 90 or 100bpm and loops are key-labeled where applicable. 

Click here to shop!


Raw Techno

Monstrous, moody, monolithic: Raw Techno delivers stacks of uncompromising analogue-derived sounds that are authentically rooted in the monochrome Berlin aesthetic. Packed with pummelling 909-led grooves, raw 303 lines, industrial synths drones, menacing bass tones, dark dub chords and 300+ high-grade drum hits and kits, Raw Techno distils the best of this singular sound into one essential collection.

The collection contains tempo-synced loops at 125, 127, 132 and 135bpm. All loops are key-labeled where applicable for total convenience.

Click here to shop!


Ambient House

Epic textures, lo-fi beats and melancholy kissed grooves with a modern twist. Ambient House is equal parts melodic chill and driving tech-house in a sound that’s swept Balearic climates and clubs across the nation. Atmospheric chords and introspective arpeggios from rich analogue sources, tape saturated beat-constructions and classic mono synths.

Brimming with choice, this contemporary collection contains over 1.2GB of evolving poly-synths, skippy hats, organic live percussion, sizzling sequences, laid-back pads, thundering beats and upper, downer, all-arounder FX served in pristine 24-bit Wav with MIDI where appropriate. Flexibility is the name of the game with 4 x exclusive drum kits and 4 x multi-sampled analogue synths (Roland Juno 60, Korg MS-20, Korg Volca) included.

Click here to shop!


Future Soul

From the best-selling producer of Future Electronica comes ‘Future Soul’ a fusion of maximalist beats, epic evolving melodics and hook-laden vocal chops. Positioned at the intersection of LA Beat, Future R&B and Neo-Soul this 1.4GB+ collection takes its cues from hardcore-digital production as well as vintage funk and soul vibes to devastating effect. 

Inspired by the multi-faceted sounds of SnakehipsJack U and Kaytranada no stone has been left unturned in providing the most-authethenic analogue and digital loops, samples, patches and MIDI available today. Key and tempo-labelled at 90 BPM expect full-track inspiration loops, rich astral pads, fat layered hits, syncopated trap grooves and much more. 

Click here to shop!


Festival Trap

Euphoric, in-your-face and hard hitting, ‘Festival Trap’ is 100% guaranteed to get your production blazing dancefloors. Jammed with sub blasting grooves, hyper leads, glo-fi melodic synths and cone-rupturing 808 boom, Festival Trap offers up the best of classic dirty south grooves, combining elements of electronica and future pop. Inspiration assured for your next main-room smash.

Dive into 1.2GB+ full-track inspiration and music loops ready baked, chopped and mangled to perfection. Choc-filled with full fat drum fills, twisted bleeps, pitched vocal loops and rich polyphonic pads, tempo-synced and key-labelled 100/140bpm MIDI is provided as standard across all pitched folders.

Click here to shop!


Eclectic D&B

With warped space sound design, retro analogue hoovers and frenzied liquid drum grooves, Eclectic Drum & Bass combines the very best of Neuro, Tech-Step and Liquid genres across 1GB+ of loops, samples, MIDI and patches at 174bpm. Rich polyphonic pads, rip-roaring riser FX, sitar-style FM leads and cone-quaking subs in the style of NoisiaUlterior MotivePendulumAmoss and Artificial Intelligence for maximum dancefloor impact and after-hours bliss!

Click here to shop!


Future Beat

Pooling an awe-inspiring collection of sounds from Sample Magic’s award-winning team of producers, Future Beat includes a diverse selection of forward thinking loops, hits and over 40 presets for Lives onboard synths. Expertly worked into a extensive library of Live Sets, clips, and fully designed Drum and Instrument Racks, Future Beat weighs in at a mammoth 4GB+. Punchy drums, low slung bass, silken leads, analogue inspired pads and much more… Sampled from an impressive array of analogue and digital gear.

Maximum percussion

11 Drum Racks provide all the percussive fuel you need to power your grooves. The ten standard Racks have been put together to cover the spectrum of urban flavours, from laid-back R&B jams to brooding trap workouts and everything in between. Alternatively, the Selector kit lets you effortlessly browse 180 kicks, snares, claps, hi-hats and other percussion within a single Rack to build your own custom kits in seconds – just the thing for getting rhythmic ideas down fast.

Synths to go

Every one of Future Beat’s Instrument Racks is based on an Operator, Analog or multisampled Simpler patch feeding into an extended chain of effects. The sampled Instruments were created using a who’s-who of vintage and modern synths, including the Roland Juno-6, Korg Mono/Poly and Nord Lead 2x. Sonically expansive and easy to play, every one of them has been specifically built to best reproduce today’s urban sound.

FX, Sets, loops and one-shots

Also included are 10 colourful Effects Racks, and 5 fully produced Live Sets putting Future Beat’s Drum and Instrument Racks into action. Use their component beats, basslines, leads and chord progressions as is, or as starting points for your own ideas.

Finally, the Pack wraps up with 250 inspirational drum and music loops (the latter with MIDI files for alternative sound sourcing), and 100 one-shot synth and FX samples.

Covering the full spectrum of modern trap, footwork, hip-hop and R&B, Future Beat gives beginners a complete construction kit of easily manipulated building blocks, and experienced producers everything they need to compose new tracks in note-by-note detail from the ground up, or find those vital missing elements required to finish existing ones.

Click here to shop!


Crate Diggers

Dust off your MPC for an old-school collection of bass heavy grooves, soulful keys and treasure trove vinyl funk. From the best-selling producer of Golden Era comes over 1GB+ of classic hip-hop, rare groove cuts and trip-hop vibes. Take a dip into a vintage archive of masterfully crafted breaks chops, booming 808s, jazzy horn stabs, tape saturated atmospheres and silky guitar loops across 90 – 110bpm.

Click here to shop!

 

 


Sleepless in Ibiza

The Ibiza season draws to a close but the white isle spirit lives on in Sleepless House with 1.04GB of raw tech and jackin’ house sounds. Create your instant retro house classic with snappy analogue drum beats, wide and boomy bass, glitchy vocal snippets, epic chord lines and much more. A genre-spanning collection of loops, MIDI and one-shots guaranteed to inject Balearic bliss to your tracks.

Click here to shop!


Organic Electronica

At the crossroads of BonoboNinja Tune and Four Tet exists “’Organic Electronica’” – as musical and rootsy as it is original and contemporary. Floaty vocal melodies combine with rich analogue pads, shuffling acoustic breaks anchor organic bells and pumping subs. Combining the best of exotic and other-worldy soundscapes, get to grips with 1.1GB+ of loops, kits and MIDI for the ultimate in ethereal electronica.

Click here to shop!

Friday Tip of the Week: The $10 Presence XT SSD Drive

The $10 Presence XT Solid-State Drive

One of Studio One Pro’s assets is that it comes with a lot of content—well over 20 GB. But of course, you need to figure out where you’re going to put it. If you have a laptop with an SSD boot drive, every gigabyte counts and you might not want it living on your system disk. Also, although the old saying goes “you can never be too rich or too thin,” I’d add “and you can never have too fast a load time for samples.”

Like many people, I use three separate drives on my desktop: system, projects, and samples (including SoundSets and loops). With USB 3.0 flash drives coming down in price, you can put all of Studio One’s SoundSets on a 32 GB flash drive, which at my last price check was $10 (I took it a little further, and spent an extra $20 for a USB 3.0 128 GB flash drive that can spew out data wicked fast).

I deleted the default SoundSet folder, copied all my SoundSets over to the flash drive, then added the flash drive location at Studio One > Options > Locations > Soundsets (in this case, it’s H:\Sound Sets). Note that you can’t delete the default location for Sound Sets, so unless you actually delete the Sound Sets in the default location, Studio One will still see them.

USB 3.0 flash drives are super-fast for reading (and still pretty fast for writing). You’ll see the difference when Studio One scans the Sound Sets, and also, when loading instruments that take up a couple hundred megabytes. Furthermore, Sound Sets are compatible with Mac or Windows. So when I want to take my SSD-based MacBook Pro (which never seems to have quite enough space) on the road, I just pop the flash drive out of my Windows desktop, and take the Sound Sets with me. Yes, it’s literally “good to go.”