PreSonus Blog

To hell with recycling, amirite?

Art Padilla, Hero’s Last Mission

Ace Baker

Chickenfoot hasn’t been together all that long, but they saw fit to re-issue their debut self-titled LP with a handful of live tracks.

If you’ve been to PreSonuSphere or checked out our blog, you may well know that these tracks would have been (and were) recorded by Ace Baker via a PreSonus StudioLive 24.4.2… and… let’s just say it sounds like a studio recording. It sounds like it was recorded in a studio, but it was recorded live.

Studio. Live. Get it? Oh, just listen:

Video via some magazine called Rolling Stone.

Seriously, I could just set this thing to repeat and watch it all day.

So, Mark Williams was traveling, as he is known to do. Being an international man of action is exhausting work, and someone snapped a shot of the guy as he just up and fell asleep—in a full suit—on the beach in Lisbon, Portugal. It’s tough work, but someone has to do it.

Anyhow, in true Mark Williams style, not only did he not break a sweat in the hot sun in a full suit, but when he got up to walk back to his car, there was no sand on his suit. Not a grain. Lone Ranger style.

I don’t know how he does it, but he better patent it ASAP. He could put the entire dry cleaning industry out of business.

Mix recently ran a fascinating piece on exterminating pests. Not nutria or bollweevil, but pesky snakes, who have continued to envenom audio production despite our release of Virtual StudioLive and QMix. We’re trying our best, and appreciate Mix calling attention to the good fight!

Here’s a snippet:

“I work in live sound, and I’m done with audio snakes. No, I don’t mean I’ve switched from copper to Cat 5. I mean that I’m done, totally, forever. And my mixer? I have one, but you won’t see it. It’s behind the stage. And my iPad? No, I’m not playing Angry Birds, I’m mixing the band from the best seat in the house, right next to my wife and kids. I don’t even think about monitors anymore, the band takes care of them on their own. And because there’s no snake, stage racks or separate monitor system, everything takes less than 20 minutes to set up. Just put the mixer near the stage, connect the band and powered speakers, and go. Even crazier, an entire system for a 600-seat venue can fit in a Honda Civic. Oh, did I mention I’m doing all of this with a $1,999 mixer and some free apps? Welcome to the future of portable sound.”

Hop over to Mix for the full article!

Apple fanboy Rick Naqvi should probably be hitting up Tim Cook for a sales commission.  Here, he extolls the virtues of the iPad and Mac Mini… but it doesn’t end there. This isn’t just another “Wireless control of the StudioLive via iPad” video. This is something else. This has bells and whistles.

First, Rick sets up his Mac Mini to auto-launch VSL on boot. So, assuming proper connections and having everything powered up, his Mac Mini will auto-connect to his StudioLive seconds within powering up.

But keep watching… it gets real interesting. Via the iPad, Rick uses VNC Mocha Lite to connect to his Mac Mini desktop: no monitor required! This configuration allows you to run and interface with both VSL Remote and also access Capture or Angry Birds during the show. Rick keeps it simple and thorough at the same time—but you might wanna make sure you know what an IP address is before viewing.

This just in from Bobby Duthu, PreSonus enthusiast, recordist, pro drummer, and all around great guy! He had posted some photos to our Facebook album of user studios of his home studio that piqued my interest… so I checked in with him and found him very open to sharing some of the methods to his madness.

Hey, Ryan!

Thanks for the kind words and also for the compliment of posting me on your site and blog. My rig is simple really. My interface consists of two FireStudio Projects daisy-chained together, resulting in 16 available mic inputs for ease of drum set miking. For software, I use Studio One Artist on a MacBook Pro. 

My drum set recording techniques are also fairly simple, actually. My studio room is 30×20, very live-sounding, and features a 6-piece Sonor Designer Series drum set and Paiste 2002 cymbals.

I start by making a determination of how the drums should sound based on the particular song being tracked. I like to begin this process by attempting to achieve the desired sound acoustically, and slowly add effects if necessary. If effects are needed, I take full advantage of any number of plug-ins and/or sends included in Studio One Artist, like reverb and compression for example, but the emphasis remains on the acoustic sound of the drums.

Ultimately, in my experience, most producers and engineers prefer as raw of a drum track as possible, with minimal effects and EQ. This allows more flexibility for the engineer to the overall track, which in the end should collectively be our most important consideration.

Imogen Heap is staggeringly talented. Her new HeapSong is check-out-able over YouTube. HeapSongs are created by Imogen in an impromptu manner by compiling fan-submitted “sound seeds,” AKA audio samples. Beautiful!

Oh, and notice the PreSonus StudioLive 16.0.2 front and center!

Don’t tell him about the stolen drum stool or he’ll fall!

Members of White Zombie, HEAD, and Cirque du Soliel to release Black Sunshine cover on Halloween—Mastered in Studio One Professional 2!

Los Angeles, CA, 9-14-12— In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the release of White Zombie’s ground breaking album La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Volume I, original White Zombie drummer Ivan de Prume along with Scott “SVH” Von Heldt (former guitarist/vocalist for Brian “Head” Welch ex-Korn, Love and Death), and Cirque du Soliel violinist Martin St. Pierre are slated to release a cover of the White Zombie classic Black Sunshine under the moniker of HEALER.

The song was recorded during sessions for an intended EP that was to be the groups followup to their highly acclaimed debut album Awakening, which showcased a unique blend of Metal and World music. “We started covering Thunderkiss ‘65 and Black Sunshine in our live set and the vibe was very fresh and original because of the violin and world elements we had as a band” stated Von Heldt. “When it came time to work on new material we recorded Black Sunshine just to get a feel for blending that raw Zombie element with our own original twist and in the end I think we ended up with a pretty kick ass version of an already classic metal track!”

Healer was formed in 2005 and toured briefly from 2005-2007 which included a stint on the Van’s Warped tour. They disbanded in 2008 with St.Pierre returning to Cirque du Soliel full-time and Von Heldt soon after joining Head (the solo band of the nicknamed former Korn Guitarist). In 2011 de Prume and Von Heldt reunited and have been working on material for a new Healer release which they hope will see the light of day by early 2013!

Black Sunshine will be available October 31st via iTunes, Spotify, and other online retailers! For now, you can stream it here: