[This just in from Scigor of SFGames. He has been using Studio One Prime in the development of a forthcoming game, and is doing some fascinating things with it!]

I’m Scigor, a Tokyo based Creative Visual Artist.

And I’m the (crazy) mastermind behind SFGames, an indie games development team made of creative waywards.

SFGames is a team of artists and professionals joined together to work on various projects, starting on our first game with the working title of “Operation Cerulean Dew”—an action survival/horror game with sci-fi elements. We are lucky enough to be part of OSVR (Open Source Virtual Reality) partnership, so in addition to our main game, we have the chance to make new projects exclusively for Virtual Reality. We grabbed a great opportunity to develop an educational project for the Centenary of the Great War. And we have another cinematic VR project in the pipeline, a fantastic journey about human imagination and the spark of creativeness.

Illustration and character design are my main activity but I’m also a 3D enthusiast, passionate about video games and animation, and interested in many others artistic fields like music and cinema; a kind of “factotum” artist. But I’m not a pro musician; my approach is very self-taught and by ear. So why do I take care of sound design by myself?

Because I’m fascinated by how any forms of art are inextricably linked—creative ways to express emotions and ideas. For any idea that I write, every illustration that I paint, or melody that I record, I cannot think of these as separated things. If you’re creative, you can develop anything with the right methods and skills—but you will also need the right tools!

All this led me to a new approach to sound design and scoring, since these projects represent VR experiences addressed to a much more cinematic style in a “real” 3D space. While Francesco (our musician) has been working with Pro Tools and Logic, I’ve always tried to get by with free software as GarageBand, Ardour, and Audacity—but non of them offered enough. A couple of years ago I came across Studio One, which I found amazing from the beginning, mostly due to its great sound engine, so I was immediately convinced to use it in my work. It’s one of the very few programs that I was able to use right away without reading the manual!

I must say that are many artists like me with the need for a friendly and intuitive interface like Studio One, and while some state that the user interface doesn’t matter when you make music, I believe otherwise. Complex and hard-to-use interfaces become boring over time, and we are forced to waste too much time to learn how to use it, rather than create.

I’m working in a Windows multi-monitor environment, with a Wacom Cintiq tablet with touch screen as second monitor, and because this setup makes it hard use a standard keyboard (my tablet is huge), I mapped the most used key commands to a programmable Logitech G13 gameboard. Studio One works perfectly with my tablet, and it’s so responsive that I can “paint” music!

Even if Francesco is the one that works on the main soundtrack, I also have ideas that sometime I want use in our games. My workflow starts with a simple idea or direction to follow, a main theme using my simple template for scoring. So I basically rough out what the theme should sound like: add some instruments (a free orchestral library), some textures and colors, just to blend and fill the sound. And Studio One helps hugely on “sketching” quick ideas.  Once I’ve reached my technical limitations, I send everything to Francesco who provides a professional rework of my ideas.

When it comes to sound recording and editing, I start with recording foley and sound effects on my own, if I have the right gear available. When I cannot do this by myself, I send some samples (sometimes made with my own voice on a webcam, as a guide) to Francesco: I give him a sound assets list and he records all needed sounds with extra variations. I remix everything in Studio One, and once I’ve finalized the sounds, I export the stems as sound cues for Unreal Engine.

I like that Studio One Prime is almost a complete DAW per se, very important in the Indie world! I find it very user friendly and works smoothly on any platform; I can still use it on my five years old MacBook Pro, and I don’t notice a difference in performance.

Also, I cannot work without the visual workflow and tool palette that Studio One provides me. Intuitive, simple, direct. What I need and in the right place. And scratch pads! I never get tired to say how useful they are for someone like me who doesn’t have knowledge of reading or writing musical notation, but has a lot of ideas to remember! And last but not least, I have never had a crash. 

There are still many things I want to explore and experiment with Studio One, like the powerful macro system and the Mix Engine FX , very useful to give emphasis and personality to a set of sound effects all at once. As I said at the beginning, I’m not a professional musician, but Studio One fits my workflow naturally, and makes me feel as I’ve always use it. It simply sounds better!

I recommend Studio One 3 to indie developers and artists on a budget who want to start with a free yet powerful DAW, and later can move to more powerful versions for cheap.

SFGames is:

• Scigor: Game Design, Art, 3D Modeling, Sound Design
• Francesco Tresca: Music and Sound Design
• Marco Frisan: Art, 3D Modeling and Programming

We are still getting off the ground, so follow us on! It would help a lot if you can spread the word!

• Follow SFGames on Twitter
• Subscribe to SFGames on YouTube

Yuki Hayashi is a score composer for TV, anime, and film who relies on Studio One to create his best work. Here, he shares his impressions of Studio One’s sound quality and ease of use.

Learn more about Studio One 3.2 and try the free demo here.

We recently collected the opinions of some engineers and producers who recently switched to Studio One, including Paul Drew, Jonas Westling, Justin Bryant, and Pete “Boxsta’ Martin. Did you know that  if you’re using a qualifying DAW, you’re entitled to a discount when you Crossgrade to Studio One? It’s true!

• To see the list of qualifying products, click here.
• Not sure if you’re ready to make the switch? Try the Studio One Professional demo here, it’s free!

Check out this series of videos from Marcus Huyskens of Studio One Expert. He covers a bunch of the new stuff in Studio One 3.2 including Workflow Enhancements, Editing Automation, VCAs, the Console Shaper, and new Comping options. Awesome stuff!

Wow, there’s a lot going on today. This is a long post, so let’s jump right in!

Studio One 3.2

Studio One 3.2 is available now! This is a FREE update to existing owners of Studio One 3, including Artist and Professional editions. Click “Check for updates” in Studio One to get it for yourself. Click here to visit the newly-updated Studio One site for even more details.

Read the full change log by clicking here, but here’s the short version of what’s new:

• Mix Engine FX with new Console Shaper plugin: Apply effects to a bus that have an effect on all channels routed to the bus. Our first Mix Engine effect is Console Shaper, allowing you to impart analog-style artifacts like crosstalk and drive, evocative of classic analog consoles of yore.
• VCA Faders: Control groups of channels with a single fader. Link your VCA to a Folder Track for added convenience.
• Enhancements to the Arrow tool: Highlight the top half of an event in the Edit window to contextually convert the Move tool into the Range tool.
• Other updates include: extended comping, improved Tab-to-Transients, New Transport Options, Automation Editing Improvements, improved Appearance Controls, and DSP Fat Channel and preamp control for RM mixers—as well as Preamp control for RM mixers and Fat Channel control and integration for both RM mixers and AI Consoles—straight from Studio One!

StudioLive AI firmware updates

New firmware is available for the entire StudioLive AI line from your my.presonus.com account, allowing for control from UC Surface 1.5.

• 32.4.2AI
• 24.4.2AI
• 16.4.2AI
• RM32AI
• RM16AI
• CS18AI

The new firmware for RM Mixers brings hotly-anticipated cascading to the RM series StudioLive Rackmount Mixers. Any two RM mixers can be cascaded via AVB to combine their channel counts. This update also adds a new Stage Box mode, in addition to the existing Remote I/O + Monitor-mixer mode.
This mega-release also brings a number of other new features and refinements, including a whole slew of bug fixes. To see the full rundown of new features and fixes, check out the UC Surface 1.5 Release Notes and the UC Surface 1.5 Release Addendum, available on your my.presonus.com account as well as on the Dowloads section of the Product page for each mixer at PreSonus.com.

UC Surface 1.5

This update adds support for cascaded RM mixers and Capture control—if you’ve installed the above-mentioned firmware and Capture 2.2. This update also adds support for USB 3.0 on Mac OS X 10.11.2 or higher. Get UC Surface 1.5 here.

Capture 2.2

Capture can now be remotely controlled by a StudioLive CS18AI and UC Surface. You can now control virtual soundcheck, transport, and Record arm; drop markers; and keep an eye on record times from anywhere in the venue—among other improvements and some bug squashing. Get it here.

Studio One Remote

Studio One Remote has been updated for Studio One 3.2 compatibility, and is also now available for Windows tablets! Studio One Professional owners can get the Windows version from their my.presonus.com accounts; Apple users can get it via this link to The App Store.

Check out this two-part video from John Tendy detailing his use of the StudioLive RM16AI to mix and record a real gig, and then take home the recordings to do a quick (and I mean quick) mix in Studio One!

This is a great no-frills, real-world look at the practicality and power of the StudioLive RM16AI. Tremendous thanks to John for his work on this and support of PreSonus! We appreciate you.

Big thanks to Music and Sound Retailer for this recognition at NAMM 2016. While the award bears MSR’s name, Studio One 3 Professional was chosen by music dealers who voted it to be the best of the year. We’re honored, and you all are too kind. To learn more about Studio One 3, click here. 

Ever bring your laptop to a coffeeshop to work on your music outside the house? It’s a known fact that a change of environment can do a lot for your creativity.

But check out this guy. Go big or go home, am I right? This dude set up his Studio One rig at a Starbucks in California, complete with a huge curved monitor, mixer, power conditioner, MIDI keyboard controller, computer, two cell phones, a pack of fig newtons (I think) and several Priority Mail boxes.

Anybody know this guy?

Credit to dmizz over on Reddit for posting the photo. Click here for the original thread.

You can get the e-bass add-ons via our online store. Click here to shop.