I’ve noticed that during the week I often pick up a very cool new plugin or impulse response and end up playing with it all week, and then blogging about it on Friday (see several previous posts) so I think I may make this a regular “Freebie Friday” slot…

This week it’s the turn of VST Classics. Some of you may know that myself and several other members of the Studio One team used to work at Steinberg back in the day, and helped develop and define the original shape of digital audio recording. I still remember being on stage at Frankfurt MusikMesse 15 years ago showing off the very first VST plugins – the Neon and Model-E synths, VB-1 virtual bass guitar, and the Karlette tape delay (named after Karl “Charlie” Steinberg). These plugins were pretty bleeding edge back then, and I still look back at them fondly. So imagine my surprise when Steinberg announced they were re-releasing new versions of them as free downloads! Yeah, they won’t win any awards for innovation now, but they still have a unique sound, so if you fancy a trip back to the dawn of digital audio to hear what we had to play with back then, now is your chance.

The Model-E is still a decent emulation of the classic MiniMoog sound (the filter programming was done by industry veteran Marc Lindahl, who is also now at PreSonus working on some groovy new products as we speak), and it has a ton of great presets, including a bank from Wolfram Franke of Waldorf, one of my favourite synth programmers. Unfortunately in this re-released version for some reason I can only access the Hubertus Maas bank from the Model-E, although I can see all the preset banks listed in the Studio One browser. Not sure what’s happening there. If anyone can figure out a workaround let me know.

Trivia: Kraftwerk were one of the first users of this plugin, after seeing me use it to cover one of their songs at a show. They even came backstage afterwards to say how much they liked my cover version. One of the best compliments I have ever received

The Karlette is also a fun little multi-tap tape delay emulation that has quite a cool old-skool sound to it – worth playing with if that 70’s Zeppelin analog tape delay sound is what you are looking for. As regards Neon and VB-1, they are really showing their age, but somebody somewhere will love them I’m sure 🙂

VST Classics Vol.1

VST Classics Vol. 2

It’s been a busy couple of weeks here at PreSonus Central in Baton Rouge. We’ve got some really exciting things to show at NAMM next week, including an extremely cool new Studio One feature that I think people are going to love. I’ve been playing with it all week, working with Jonathan in Colorado and Thomas in Hamburg (Skype conferencing is a wonderful thing) to help scrape off the rough edges in time for release, and it’s been a ton of fun. So today I think I’m going to try to shoot a short video or two introducing it – hopefully we’ll have that edited in time for next week so you guys can check it out yourselves…

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.

Did you get any new gear for the new year? The kind folks over at TMRZoo.Com did, in the way of an AudioBox 22VSL, and subsequently smothered us with their particular brand of digital flattery.

Interested in the full review?  Of course you are, click here.

At PreSonus, we believe in finding the right person for the job, which is why we leave it to Rodney Orpheus to blow minds. That’s what he’s paid to do, after all, but “mind-blower” isn’t the most flattering title to have on a business card, so we call him a “Technology Evangelist.” I would prefer to call him a “Cyber-Paladin,” but doing so would place me just to the left of my jurisdiction, and just to the right of Rodney’s favor.

So here he is, evangelizing our technology in the best worms-eye-view, hands-on, golly-it’s-really-that-easy demonstration of StudioLive Remote on the iPad that I’ve ever seen. Rodney gallantly sojourns across The Scala, effortlessly slaying a 330Hz  resonance dragon with one hand, while stoically rescuing the bassist’s monitor mix with the other. Raise a glass of Romulan grog, for the hero has restored order to the kingdom!

Edwin McCain’s isn’t a guy who’s on the road, Edwin McCain is a guy who is from the road. He’s a 100-shows-in-100-days sort, yet he has somehow has managed to write, record, and release a full-length album every couple of years—for the past 20. The guy knows what he’s doing.

It speaks well of us, then, that Edwin chooses to use not-one-but-two PreSonus StudioLive 24.4.2 mixers on the road, for monitor and FOH. At every show. Each show gets a multi-track recording, because hey, why not? I mean, the mics are already plugged in and everything.  Hit REC on Capture.

I’ll let Edwin and his crew explain in their own words. Listen closely for a clever tech tip or two…