PreSonus Blog

Notion 6.8 Maintenance Release

Notion 6.8.0 Build 18060 is now available, adding compatibility with the updated Score Editor of Studio One 5.1, Portuguese as a new supported language, and more. Notion 6.8 is a free update for Notion 6 owners or PreSonus Sphere members that can be obtained by clicking “Check for Updates” within Notion, or download from your PreSonus Sphere or myPreSonus account.

NEW

Compatible with Studio One 5.1

Studio One 5.1 adds new functions to its score editor, including print, page layout, transposition and key signature changes. These items are now supported when you send score data between Studio One and Notion 6.8. To see more about Studio One 5 and its new Score Editor, click here.

Studio One 5.1 Now Available!

New score elements that can be exchanged with Studio One:

• Key signature changes
• Instrument transposition
• Staff name and abbreviation
• Page size and orientation
• Page margins
• Notation font size
• Staff and system spacing
• Bar number options
• Overall text size
• Multi-measure rest options

For a full guide to Studio One and Notion transfer, see updated User Guide (Chapter 15.7)

ALL FIXES

Import/Export Improvements

• If the track order is changed in Studio One, then the order is retained when importing into Notion
• Scores with instrument names that contain special characters now import as expected to Studio One
• Fix for sending audio from Notion to Studio One when there is a slash mark in the instrument name
• Avoid importing metronome marks, time- and key signatures twice on import from Studio One
• Half notes will now split into tied notes on Studio One or MIDI import, if they are syncopated and across the middle of a bar
• Fix for drawing a tie if only element is present in a MusicXML file
• Imported MIDI tempo now cleaner to read when there are many consecutive tempo changes

Video Window

• [Win] Fix video window showing only its caption when opening for the first time after installation
• [Win] Fix video window keeping the previous video’s aspect ratio after changing the video
• [Win] Fix video window moving around when resizing

Languages/Documentation

• New language – Portuguese
• New Portuguese Quick Reference Guide and Shortcuts pdf’s added to Notion, to your user account, and to the website here
• [Win] Installer language fixes
• Some translation improvements in Korean

General

• [Win] Fix for ‘Save As’ crash if an External MIDI port is set in ‘Preferences>MIDI IO’
• [macOS] Fix for starting Notion when an existing PreSonus Sphere membership expires
• [macOS] Add fix for plug-ins that use legacy copy protection
• Fix crash on entering glissando/portamento into part with only one staff
• Crash fixed if beaming tool is accidentally used on a tablature staff
• Version number scheme for Notion changed – Now 6.x.x Build xxxxx

With physical audio media in its twilight, streaming has become the primary way to distribute music. A wonderful side effect has been the end of the loudness wars, because streaming services like Spotify turn levels up or down as needed to attain a specific, consistent perceived level—squashing a master won’t make it sound any louder.

However, the “garbage in, garbage out” law remains in effect, so you need to submit music that meets a streaming service’s specs. For example, Spotify prefers files with an LUFS of -14.0 (according to the EBU R128 standard), and a True Peak reading of -1.0 or lower. This avoids adding distortion when transcoding to lossy formats. If the LUFS reading is above -14.0, then Spotify wants a True Peak value under -2.0.

Fortunately, when you Detect Loudness for a track on the mastering page, you’ll see a readout of the LUFS and LRA (a measure of overall dynamic range), as well as the True Peak, RMS (average signal level), and DC offset for the left and right channels. Fig. 1 shows an example of the specs generated by detecting loudness.

Figure 1: Although the LUFS reading meets Spotify’s specs, True Peak doesn’t, and the RMS value of the left and right channels isn’t balanced.

 Note that this hits Spotify’s desired LUFS, but the left channel’s True Peak value is higher than what’s ideal. This readout also shows that the average RMS levels for each channel are somewhat different—the left channel is 1.2 dB louder than the right one, which also accounts for the higher True Peak value. This may be the way the artist wants the mix to sound, but it could also indicate a potential problem with the mix, where the overall sound isn’t properly centered.

A simple fix is to insert a Dual Pan into the Inserts section. Use the Input Balance control to “weight” the stereo image more to one side for a better balance. After doing so and readjusting the LUFS, we can now give Spotify exactly what it wants (Fig. 2). Also note that the left and right channels are perfectly balanced.

Figure 2: The True Peak and RMS values are now identical, so the two channels are more balanced than they were without the Dual Pan.

 A Crucial Consideration!

You don’t want to mix or master based on numbers, but on what you hear. If you set up Dual Pan to balance the channels, make sure that you enable/bypass the plug-in and compare the two options. You might find that balancing the left and right channels not only accommodates Spotify’s requirements, but improves the mix’s overall balance. If it doesn’t, then leave the balance alone, and lower the track’s overall output level so that True Peak is under -1.0 for both channels (or under -2.0 for LUFS values above ‑14.0). This will likely lower the LUFS reading, but don’t worry about it: Spotify will turn up the track anyway to reach -14.0 LUFS.

Coda: I always thought that squashing dynamic range to try and win the loudness wars made listening to music a less pleasant experience, and that’s one of the reasons CD sales kept declining. Does the end of the loudness wars correspond to the current music industry rebound from streaming? I don’t know… but it wouldn’t surprise me.

Notion iOS 2.5.5 Maintenance Release

A maintenance update is now available for Notion iOS, the best-selling notation app on iOS. This is a free update for Notion iOS owners that can be obtained by visiting Notion in the App Store on your device, or checking your available updates in the App Store.

All the changes are below—if you missed all the major news for v2.5 itself, check it out here.

And while you’re here, please join us at our new official Facebook user group for news, tips and community support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/PreSonusNotionUsers

All Fixes and Enhancements:

New:

• New language: Portuguese

Sounds Menu fixes:

• In Store tab, Notion now shows a check mark (instead of a cloud) for purchased bundles
• In Store tab, now shows a check for instruments purchased in bundles
• In Store tab, icons are force refreshed after tapping Restore Purchases
• In Sounds tab, instruments are reloaded after restoring purchases
• Notion no longer restarts purchase downloads when the app launches

Languages:

• (iOS13 and later) Can now change preferred language for just Notion, rather than following the language set globally for the device. Go to Device Settings>Notion>Preferred Language
• ‘Choose Instruments’ now localised as expected in New Score dialog
• Improved Korean translations in score setup
• Template documents localised
• Templates now open as expected in all languages

General:

• Fix for drawing a tie if only “tied” element is present in an imported MusicXML file
• Fix for Chord Root changing on iPhone only version of Chord Library when selecting extensions
• Half notes will now split into tied notes on MIDI import, if they are syncopated and across the middle of a bar
• General performance improvements
• Minimum requirements: Apple iOS9 or higher (please note, Notion 2.5.x will be the final version to support iOS9 and iOS10)

My mastering specialty is salvage jobs, which has become easier to do with Studio One. But this gig was something else.

Martha Davis’s last solo album (I Have My Standards, whose mastering challenges were covered in this blog post) has done really well. Since the pandemic has sidelined her from touring as Martha Davis and the Motels or going into the studio, she’s releasing a new song every month online. These involve excellent, but unreleased, material.

That’s THE good news. The bad news is that her latest song choice, “In the Meantime,” had the drum machine kick mixed so loud the song should have been credited as “Solo Kick Drum with Vocal Accompaniment.” With a vocalist like Martha (listen to any of her many hits from the 80s), that’s a crime. She was hoping I could fix it.

Don’t tune out, EDM/hip-hop fans. What about those TR-808 “toms” that are always mixed way too high? When I was given a Boy George song to remix, those toms were like sonic kryptonite before I figured out how to deal with them. And let’s not get into those clichéd 808 claps, okay? But we have a solution.

What Didn’t Work

I tried everything to deal with the kick, including EQ, iZotope RX7 spectral reduction, mid-side processing using the Mixtool, and more. The mix was mostly mono, and the kick was full-frequency—from low-frequency boom to a nasty click that was louder than the lead vocal. Multiband dynamics didn’t work because the kick covered too wide a frequency range.

What Did Work

In desperation, I thought maybe I could find an isolated kick sound, throw it out of phase, and cancel the kick wherever it appeared in the song. Very fortunately, the song intro had a kick sound that could be isolated as an individual sample. So instead of going directly to Studio One’s mastering page, I went into the Song page, imported the stereo mix into one track, created a second track for only the kick, and dragged the copied kick to match up with every kick instance in the song (yes, this did take some time…). It wasn’t difficult to line up the copied kicks with sample- (or at least near-sample) accuracy (Fig. 1).

Figure 1: The top track is from the original song, while the lower track is an isolated kick. After lining the sounds up with respect to timing, flipping the kick track phase removed the kick sound from the mixed tracks.

The payoff was inserting Mixtool in the kicks-only track and flipping its phase 180 degrees. It canceled the kick! Wow—this physics stuff actually works.

But now there was no kick. So, I added the Waves LinEQ Broadband linear-phase equalizer (a non-linear-phase EQ can’t work in this context) in the kick drum track. This filtered out some of the kick drum’s lower frequencies so there was less cancellation while leaving the highs intact so they would still cancel as much as possible. Adjusting the shelving frequency and attenuation let in just enough of the original kick, without overwhelming the track. Even better, because the kick level was lower, I could bring up the low end to resurrect the bass part that had been overshadowed by the kick.

The Rest of the Story

The mix traveled to the mastering page for a little more processing (Studio One’s Pro EQ and Binaural Pan, IK Multimedia’s Stealth maximizer, and Studio One’s metering). After hitting the desired readings of -13.0 LUFS with -0.2 True Peak readings, the mastering was done. Sure, I would much rather have had the individual tracks to do a remix, but it was what it was—a 28-year-old two-track mix.

To hear how this ended up, the audio example first plays an excerpt from the mastered version. Then there’s a brief pause, followed by the same section with the original file. I’m sure you’ll hear the difference in the kick drum.

Listen to an audio example from In the Meantime here: 

Saturday, October 10th

(click)?Pigface will go live online HERE at 6PM (CST)?(click)

(Concert photography by: Bobby Talamine)

Martin Atkins has been a longstanding PreSonus artist/endorser and we’re excited that both he and his audio engineer, Mark Williams have embraced our StudioLive 64S Series III console mixers are their go-to “mission control” for their studio recording workflows.

Let’s find out more about them and what’s new in the Pigface camp in these surreal times we’re in:

Martin: I’ve had a long storied career – starting in 1979 when I joined Public Image Limited (the band started by Johnny Rotten when the Sex Pistols imploded) for a 5 year spell that included world tours and their most successful albums. A few years with Killing Joke (who just opened for Tool last year) some work with Nine Inch Nails (appearing on the Grammy award winning Wish) touring with Ministry and founding my own band Pigface – an industrial ‘supergroup’ that has included Mary Byker (PWEI, Gaye Bykers On Acid), Chris Connelly (Revolting Cocks, Ministry), Randy Blythe (Lamb Of God), Danny Carey (Tool), Curse Mackey (Evil Mothers), En Esch (KMFDM), Lesley Rankine (Silverfish, Ruby), Charles Levi (My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult), Bobdog Catlin (Evil Mothers), Bradley Bills (Chant), Andrew Weiss (Ween, The Rollins Band), Greta Brinkman (Moby, Druglord), Orville Kline (Porn and Chicken), Gaelynn Lea, Dirk Flanigan (77 Luscious Babes), Leanne Murray (Beer Nuts), Chris Harris (Project 44), Mike Reidy (Worm), Leyla Royale, Andrew Apocalypse, Ali Jafri, Roger Ebner, Bruce Lamont, Jesse Hunt, Dai, C.A.M., J Lamar, Just Chris (courtesy of Add-2) and Rona Rougeheart. 

I started my own label Invisible Records in 1988 and, after a few short years it was obvious I should open my own studio – I bought Steve Albini’s tape machines (an 8 Track ½” and a  ¼” machine both by Otari.) As digital started to enter our lives my studio became a hybrid of cool quirky analog, circuit bent pieces, and whatever digital interfaces were affordable at the time. 

More and more of my time was spent either in the studio or out recording live events with my band in the US or over in China where I travelled a couple of times. I’ve always been impressed by how supportive PreSonus is to artists– either with no nonsense customer support when needed or by carefully crafting new pieces of equipment that just make sense. I think the piece that illustrated their support of artists for me was the now “classic” Faderport– when most companies were trying to sell multi-fader automation they (and then I) realized that most of us only needed one channel to write volume and pan automation – so, that, I guess, cemented everything for me.

It feels like things are really coming to fruition now, with support from PreSonus and my good friend and audio engineer, Mark Williams. I got to see the StudioLive 64S Series III console mixer in action first at Mark’s studio in Baton Rouge where he laid out all of the tracks, but then we got to work at River City Studio, which is an amazing recording facility, right there at the PreSonus office building. Everyone was so welcoming, people jumping out of meetings to say hi that I had met speaking at PreSonuSphere years ago (you should bring that back!) and I even met the CEO. Mark and I were able to tweak the tracks there and then finish up any tweaks remotely from Chicago.

All of this made the need for a StudioLive 64S console essential for my studio– with so much catalog and multi-track sessions it will be an essential hub of our next few years of activity as a band and as a label. I have the ability to quickly communicate the power of these live shows we have been creating. We recorded many of the shows during our 2019 tour – the line up was just AMAZING and, just be reading through the names you’ll know this was nothing to roll the dice with – the new format allows seamless passing of sessions, follow up tweaks, and easy workflows. Not only has the StudioLive 64S made the mixing of the live tracks from the last tour possible, it’s enabling possibilities of making other shows available for the fans who want more material from us.

Mark: I met Martin the first time in 1993 while working in college radio at the University of Alabama. I worked for him as a field representative for Invisible Records for about 5 or 6 years. Martin contacted PreSonus about one of his ACP88’s and became an Endorser for the company. Throughout the years, PreSonus has outfitted his studio with products including: the ADL600, Central Station, Fadeport, Digimax 96, and their award-winning DAW software, Studio One.

I’ve worked on numerous recording projects and mixes throughout the years with Martin and in November 2016, we recorded the Pigface 25th anniversary concert at the Chicago House of Blues using 2 StudioLive RM32 rackmount mixers and Capture recording software.

In 2019, I supplied Martin with a Quantum interface to record all Pigface live concerts with. The front-of-house (FOH) engineer for the final concert at Thalia Hall sent me all 32 channels of the recording. I synced up the 26 channels from the multitrack with 6 additional channels from the board mix and FOH feed.

Breaking down the 32 channels, 48khz recording down by song was quite an undertaking, as it was a massive amount of data to go through.

Martin flew down the last week of February 2020 so we could mix the album in my studio. The heart of our system was an IMAC with 32 gigs of RAM with a few external terabyte drives, a StudioLive SL64 console mixer, Scepter 8 monitors and Avantone Mixcubes. We went through each song to evaluate what we would use. As we did that, we created template fat channels for each musician. We had 3 drummers, 3 bassists, 2 guitarists, a DJ, 3 saxophones, cello, viola, violin, sitar and more vocalists than I can remember.

Basically we mixed everything “live” using the StudioLive 64S, relying on the console for dynamics processing and effects. We did some simple edits in Studio One. However, to maintain the integrity of the recording, we didn’t repair or fix anything. We used the recording as is in all its chaos and beauty. We didn’t correct any timing, pitch (i.e. no Auto-Tune!). I wanted to stay true to the Pigface form for the live energy.

A couple of days went by of mixing in my studio and then went to River City Studio. I was able to store the presets for the StudioLive 64 on the iMac. We just carried it up to the studio and plugged it in. The scenes loaded up quickly and easily. The transition from my studio to the PreSonus studio was seamless. We were able to get a different perspective in PAE HQ due to the different room and monitoring.

Then, we finalized the mixing in my studio and I uploaded the mixes online for filesharing, as Martin had to fly home to Chicago. He and I tweaked the final mixes over the next month easily to get to the final product that has been pressed to a beautiful Double LP. Y’all need to check it out… click on the link below for more info!

The mix that we did there is what is being used for the live video concert on October 10th.

Afropunk. Counterculture. Art. Rock Music. Weird things. Generation Z.

These 4 siblings hail from Austin, TX and have been a band for 6 years now.

Around the end of 2019, We Don’t Ride Llamas (WDRL) was  introduced to PreSonus by Grammy nominated music producer, King Michael Coy (Dr. Dre, H.E.R, Anderson .Paak, Ms Lauryn Hill, Busta Rhymes, Snoop Dogg, Bilal, Kendra Foster, Frank N Dank) who has been a Studio One Professional endorser for several years now.

By March of 2020, the group was armed with an AR16c mixer, a PX-1 condenser microphone, the PM-2 stereo pair mics and Studio One Professional DAW software, the kids have been upping their recording game while staying home during the time of COVID-19.

Being the super-duper creative explorers that they are, WDRL has maximized their use of these products in true DIY fashion:

From creating cool voice-overs (did y’all ? the trailer video above ☝️ yet?), producing band interviews and promotional videos to the more obvious use case of recording original music and cover songs… the band can now achieve high quality recorded or live streamed audio that kids from previous generations would not have been able to do.

As a matter of fact, We Don’t Ride Llamas recently just wrote a song called “Buddy” that is featured in Welcome To Sudden Death, now streaming on Netflix. You can check out both the “Groove” and “Dance” mix versions on Spotify here!!!

Synecdoche is the long awaited EP that’s on the horizon for release. The recording is an extremely personal project for WDRL as it explores feelings of being displaced, yearning for the future, their general melancholy at the current state of the world and how everything (for them at least) always comes full circle.

Here are a few things they had to say to us:

“We knew that he company has a longstanding reputation for products that are easy to use, sound great and within the budget for most rock bands. These are the reasons we initially were interested in PreSonus. Can’t wait to get our hands on one of those ATOM pad controllers (hint, hint)… :)”

“We love how user friendly and multifunctional everything is! Your products make us feel like sound alchemists even though we’re still fairly new to recording our own stuff at home.”

“The fact that the AR16c mixer is pretty simple to understand and we can just pick it up and go record somewhere is amazing. Also the amount of product videos and training tutorials PreSonus has available online now makes a huge difference.”

Instagram | Official Website

Although it’s always better to fix issues at the source, here’s a tip to help repair recorded vocals during the mixing phase. The technique (which is featured in the new book How to Record and Mix Great Vocals in Studio One – 2^nd Edition) combines multiband dynamics processing with equalization to both de-ess and reduce plosives. Although the screen shot shows the Multiband Dynamics processor in Studio One 5, this technique will work with previous Studio One versions if you duplicate the settings.

In the screen shot, the Multiband Dynamics’ Low band settings are outlined in red, and the High band settings are outlined in blue. (Note this is not the actual interface; the high band panel is pasted into the image from a different screen shot so you can see both the Low and High band settings simultaneously.)

The High band acts as a de-esser, because it applies compression to only the high frequencies. This helps tame sibilance. The Low band compresses only the low frequencies, which reduces pops. However, this preset also takes advantage of the way Multiband Dynamics combines equalization with dynamics control. Turning down the Low stage Gain all the way further reduces the low frequencies, where pops like to hang out and cause trouble.

For the High band, vary compression to taste. The compression settings are less critical for the Low band if you turn the Gain down all the way, but in either case, you’ll need to tweak the settings for your particular vocal track.

And that’s all there is to it. When a loud pop or sibilant sound hits the Multiband Dynamics, it’s compressed to be less annoying, while leaving the rest of the vocal intact. Vocal repaired!

Studio One 5 has many little features that might fly under the radar, but are surprisingly useful.

Like being able to change what happens when one Event overlaps (covers over) a different Event.

Prior to Version 5, overlapped Events were treated the same. The overlapping Event became translucent, so you could see the waveform or note data of the Event underneath it. This is ideal for making audio crossfades, which is one of the main reasons for overlapping audio Events. To create a crossfade, type X, and optionally, click and drag up/down at the crossfade junction to shape the crossfade curve. Then you can shift+click on the overlapped Event, type ctrl+B, and combine them into a single Event. With note data, overlapping Events is helpful when combining, for example, the main snare hits on one track with alternate snare hits on a different track.

Another option after overlapping Events is mixing them together. Shift+click on the overlapped Event to include it with the overlapping Event on top. Then type Ctrl+B to mix audio, or G to merGe note data.

However, if you don’t crossfade or mix, then the region below the overlapping Event is still there. The overlapping Event is grayed, which can get confusing if you have a lot of muted sections; and if you remove the overlapping Event because you want to replace it with something else, it’s not obvious where the overlap occurred.

Meet “No Overlap” Mode

Some programs default to deleting, not just covering over, a section that’s being overlapped by another clip. This is useful when you’re doing lots of edits, because you’re not left with vestigial pieces of regions that still exist, but don’t do anything. To accommodate this type of workflow, Studio One 5 now offers a “no overlap” mode for Events. There are three ways to access this (Fig. 1).

• In Arrangement view, click the options Wrench and check “No overlap when editing events.”
• In Options/Advanced/Editing, check “No overlap when editing events.”
• Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl Alt – [minus sign] to toggle between overlap and no overlap.

Figure 1: In addition to using a keyboard shortcut, Studio One can default to “No overlap when editing events,” as chosen in the Arranger view or under Options.

Selecting “No overlap when editing events” deletes the overlapped part of an Event, and the replaced section looks like it’s part of the track (i.e., not grayed). However, if you later decide you didn’t really want to delete the overlapped region, then just remove the section that overlapped it. Now you can slip-edit the edge of the underlying Event back to where it was.

(Note that if you enabled Play Overlaps in a track’s Inspector, or chose “Enable Play Overdubs for New Audio Tracks” in Options/Advanced/Audio, so that you could overdub over an existing track and hear both the original track and the overdub on playback, enabling “No overlap when editing events” overrides this setting.)

Granted, this may seem like a small change, but it accommodates more workflow possibilities—especially if you learn the keyboard shortcut, and choose the right option at the right time.

This tip is excerpted from the updated/revised 2nd Edition of How to Record and Mix Great Vocals in Studio One. The new edition includes the latest Studio One 5 features, as well as some free files and Open Air impulses, but also has 35% more content than the first edition—it’s grown from 121 to 194 pages. And as a “thank you” to those who bought the original version, you’re eligible for a 50% discount on the 2nd edition. There’s also a bundle with the book and my complete set of 128 custom impulses for Open Air…but so much for how I spent my summer vacation, LOL. Let’s get to the tip.

Suppose you’ve laid down your raw vocal—great! Now it’s time to overdub some instrumental parts and background vocals. Unfortunately, though, that raw vocal is kind of…uninspiring. So you start browsing effects, tweaking them, trying different settings—and before you know it, you’re going down a processing rabbit hole in the middle of your session.

Next time, open up the Vocal QuickStrip. Insert this vocal processing’s “greatest hits” FX Chain in your vocal track, tweak a few settings, admire how wonderful the vocal sounds, and then carry on with your project.

There’s a download link for the Vocal QuickStrip.multipreset file, so you don’t need to assemble the chain yourself. It works with Studio One 4 as well as 5 (note that the Widen button for the Doubler is functional only in Studio One 5).

The Effects

The Fat Channel (Fig. 1) is the heart of the chain. Of its three available compressors, the Tube Comp model emulates the iconic LA-2A compressor—the go-to vocal compressor for many engineers.

Figure 1: Fat Channel settings for the Vocal QuickStrip FX Chain.

The Fat Channel also includes a built-in high-pass filter. You can place the EQ either before or after the compressor; here, the EQ is before the compressor because boosting certain frequencies “pushes” the compressor harder. This contributes to the Vocal QuickStrip’s character.

The EQ uses all four stages. The most interesting aspect is how the Low Frequency and Low-Mid Frequency stages interact subtly when you edit the Bottom control. The Low-Frequency stage is fixed at 110 Hz with 1 dB of gain, but its Q tracks the Low-Mid Frequency stage’s Gain control. So, when you pull the LMF Gain down, the LF stage’s Q gets broader; increase Gain, and the Q goes up somewhat.

The High-Mid Frequency stage sits at 3 kHz, because boosting in this frequency range can improve intelligibility. The High-Frequency section adds “air” around 10 kHz. However, as you increase the Top control, the frequency goes just a bit lower so that the boost covers a wider section of the high-frequency range. This makes the effect more pronounced.

The Chorus is the next processor in the chain, but it’s used for doubling, not chorusing (Fig. 2).

Figure 2: The Chorus provides a voice-doubling ADT effect.

The parameters are preset to a useful doubling effect, and there are only two control switches—one to enable/bypass the effect, the other to increase the stereo spread.

For echo/delay effects, the Analog Delay comes next (Fig. 3). Although many of the parameters are well-suited to being macro controls, there had to be a few tradeoffs to leave enough space for the crucial controls from other effects.

Figure 3: The Analog Delay is set up for basic echo functionality.

For example, the Delay Time controls beats rather than being able to choose between beats and sweeping through a continuous range. Feel free to change the Macro control assignment. Also, the LFO isn’t used, so if you want to modify the ping-pong effects, you’ll need to open the interface and do so manually. In any event, the Delay Beats, Feedback, and Mix parameters cover what you need for most vocal echo effects.

The final link in the chain is the Open AIR reverb (Fig. 4). Normally I use my own impulse responses (see the Friday Tip Synthesize Open AIR Reverb Impulses in Studio One for info on how to create your own impulse responses), but of the factory impulses, for vocals I’m a big fan of the Gold Plate impulse. (If you have my Surreal Reverb Impulse Responses pack that’s available from the PreSonus shop, I’d recommend using the 1.2 Fast Damped, 1.5 Fast Damped, or 2.25 Fast Damped vocal reverbs. However, note that these three files are also included for free with the second edition of the Vocals book)

Figure 4: The Open AIR reverb plug-in’s Gold Plate impulse response is one of my favorite factory impulses for vocals.

The Macro Controls 

When designing an FX Chain with so many available parameters, you need to choose which parameters (or combinations of parameters) are most important for Macro controls (Fig. 5).

Figure 5: The Vocal QuickStrip Macro controls.

Compress varies both the Peak Reduction and Gain to maintain a fairly constant output—an old trick (see the EZ Squeez One-Knob Compressor tip), but a useful one. Bottom, Push, and Top control three EQ stages. All of these, and the Compressor, have bypass switches so it’s easy to compare the dry and processed settings.

Delay also has a bypass switch, as well as controls for delay time in beats, delay feedback, and dry/wet delay mix. The only switches for the chorus-based doubling function are bypass and narrower/wider. Reverb includes a bypass button and dry/mix control, because that’s really all you need when you have a gorgeous convolution reverb in the chain.

So go ahead and download the Vocal QuickStrip, use it, and have fun. But remember that an FX Chain like this lends itself to modifications—for example, insert a Binaural Pan after the Open AIR reverb, or optimize some EQ frequencies to work better with your mic or voice. Try the other two compressors in the Fat Channel (or if you’re a PreSonus Sphere member, then try the other eight compressors—they all have different characters). With a little experimentation, you can transform an FX Chain that works for me (and will hopefully work well for you) to an FX Chain that’s perfect for you. Go for it!

Download the Vocal QuickStrip FX Chain here

Purchase How to Record and Mix Great Vocals in Studio One here

If you know him well, you know him as “Kirkee B.” To the rest of us, Curt Bisquera is a world-renowned professional studio and live drummer. Having played with more famous artists than we have room to name in this blog post, he’s in-demand—both in the studio and on the road. Talk about a Dinner Party DREAM guest list: Mick Jagger, Elton John, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Seal, John Fogerty, Sarah McLachlan, John Legend, Hans Zimmer, Josh Groban, Lana Del Rey, Celine Dion, Johnny Cash, Billy Joel, Tina Turner, Donny Osmond, Lionel Richie… those are a few of his credits over the last 30 years in the music industry.

We recently connected with Kirkee B on Instagram and found out he’s a HUGE PreSonus Sphere user and fan! We thought it would be nice to hear his thoughts on PreSonus Sphere.

How did you first hear about Sphere? 

I heard about PreSonus Sphere through PreSonus’ Artist Relations Manager, Perry Tee. He really didn’t say what it was… he just said, “Look out for what’s coming… it’s gonna blow your mind!” And he was correct!

What got your attention? 

The video content. I’m on Sphere every day watching all the new video content that’s posted. I’m getting better at using Studio One 5, thanks to all the videos from Gregor and Joe! They are a huge help and inspiration.

What’s keeping your attention? 

The fact that it is always maintained and updated and that I can also join in with a bunch of other users around the world.

Can you speak to the value of PreSonus Sphere? 

Oh man, where to begin? After the morning espresso kicks in, there are two things I check: the news and PreSonus Sphere! I always feel like I’m on top by checking Sphere everyday… Super valuable!

Is there something specific that you’ve learned from one of the exclusive videos? 

YES! I’ve learned how to use the Splitter Tool thanks for PreSonus Sphere and I LOVE IT!

What would you tell someone who’s considering Sphere? 

Once you sign on, you will feel the world of creativity at your fingertips! There’s nothing like it.

In your opinion, how can PreSonus Sphere change the music industry? 

It allows users to gain confidence at their own pace in using PreSonus products and software in an easy, one-stop, online environment. Confidence is huge if you want to be successful in this industry.

How does it feel to be one of the FIRST to join the PreSonus Sphere family?

I am honored! It’s really changed the game for me, now in my creativity is limitless. I can do things now I was unable to do in the past. NOW the future for me is PreSonus Sphere!

Join PreSonus Sphere today!

Connect with Curt on Instagram here!