The Steel Guitar Forum

Finally bought the pro version. Wow what a program. Love the drag and drop feature. Well worth the price.

Greg,

Here's some really good tutorial videos. It's meat and potatoes without unnecessary talk.

https://www.homestudiocorner.com/presonus/

If you have an interface that will do hardware monitoring, be sure to check "cue mix follows mute" in the advanced settings. It took me awhile to figure this out. It will allow you to monitor a cue mix, with effects, and approximately zero latency... all controlled withing Studio One.

RC

Good info thanks Rick

My good friend and band mate acquired Studio One Pro not too long ago, on my recommendation ! Funny, why is that important or even significant ? Because I run two versions of Pro Tools ! Don't get me wrong I love Pro Tools as much as a fine Telecaster, but if I were to venture out today to BEGIN a recording journey with a DAW, it would be with Studio One .

I sat with him for a few minutes after he loaded it, I went thru some parameters and setups and he was puzzled, how did I know this and never even saw it before ? It was an easy answer, the workflow made total sense to me, actually to me it was very similar to the Pro Tools work flow in a different box . Sure , some parameters had different names but they did the same thing.

Nice program !

I bought Studio One 4 Pro at a deep discount price, like many Sonar users, back when Gibson was in financial trouble and dumped Sonar. I even bought a tutorial. I upgraded to 4.6 Pro. However, I just can't get into it and since Sonar has been reborn as (free) Cakewalk by Bandlab I've continued to use it as it does everything I've needed. I'm now winding down my recording studio as later this year or next year (looks more like next year because of the virus thing) we will be moving to an independent senior facility and I won't be able to record.

(Look for a sale of mics and other recording items soon).

What interface do you need with these various programs?
I've tinkered with a free program called Mixpad which would be fine except the audio input on my PC has too much delay. I already have a mixer for mic and tracks.

Do I need a better sound card?

You need a recording interface unit. Lots of USB connected units available, including the UK Focusrite. Some have one analog preamp built in up to 8 analog preamps. Most have instrument and microphone inputs, some with combo jacks and others with separate jacks. They also have headphone outputs for monitoring. Most USB interfaces have much better latency (less delay) and also better signal to noise ratio. PC sound cards make poor recording devices.

Here is Sweetwater Music's listing of USB interfaces.
https://www.sweetwater.com/c695--USB_Audio_Interfaces

Thanks, Jack - plenty of ideas there!
I don't need loads of inputs as I already have a mixer and something fairly simple should suffice.

Ian, you really want separate tracks for each instrument. Don't mix beforehand and then feed it to the recording program (DAW). Each instrument or vocal (or MIDI) on separate tracks. You can do whatever you want to each track (e.g. EQ, reverb, or whatever) then you mix the tracks to the final stereo track.

Studio One sometimes has a "lite" version free. Cakewalk by Bandlab is equivalent to Studio one Pro version and is free. I know this is a Studio One thread so PM me if you want info on downloading Cakewalk.

Jack, what I mostly do is play to tracks, which I am happy to lay down first. But I guess 4 inputs would give me more flexibility. I'm never going to record more than one instrument at a time.

Focusrite units include Pro Tools First - is that a useful program, at least to start with?

Yes that's a good starter program. I don't know how many tracks it will allow at one time. Many starter or "Lite" programs limit you to two or 4 tracks max. I had a free version of Studio One 3 and it limited to 2 tracks. If you want unlimited tracks then the free Cakewalk by BandLab or the purchased recording programs.

I just got S1 Pro this week .. I have never had it so I am a bit overwhelmed at the moment!

Jack Stoner wrote:Yes that's a good starter program. I don't know how many tracks it will allow at one time.

16, apparently, which is plenty to begin with.
I'm looking at a six-input Focusrite - four line inputs for tracks and the stereo DI From my Telonics preamp, and a couple of mic channels if I need them.

Thanks for the pointers.

Double post

Ian Rae wrote:

Jack Stoner wrote:Yes that's a good starter program. I don't know how many tracks it will allow at one time.

16, apparently, which is plenty to begin with.
I'm looking at a six-input Focusrite - four line inputs for tracks and the stereo DI From my Telonics preamp, and a couple of mic channels if I need them.

Thanks for the pointers.

If you think you're going to go with Studio One,I'd recommend going with a Presonus interface. They are great and you always know the features are compatible between the DAW and interface. The interface will probably come with the basic version of Studio One and it may very well be all you need. The preamps in the Presonus interfacess have been very good for me. The Presonus "fat channel" is a software based channel strip that makes effects when recording simple and very low latency. I'd recommend an interface with onboard DSP and you can really have zero +- latency. This means you dont need such a powerful computer to run this. I use the Presonus 192, but I dont need all those inputs. 99% of the time I only need one input because I do everything myself. I would be just fine with one of two inputs.

R

RC

16 inputs ! WOW ! Thats massive !

Don't confuse hardware inputs on an interface with available channels to the DAW. The various inputs are for interface flexibility, where is the signal coming from . DAW inputs is not the same as Interface inputs.

Interfaces come on flavors of 2, 4, 8 and more active channels. 2 is very common and 4 may be the most common for home studios. 8 or more is a totally different ballgame. Are we mic'ing drum sets everyday which require more than 5 mics and 5 or more channels ? are we recording LIVE bands with 5 or 6 instruments ? I'm not.

The minimum requirement is two, which allows for two discreet instrument / mic channels or a combined stereo pair.

Next up would be four, which expands the flexibility further. 1,2,3 or 4 LIVE instruments/ mics at the same time. For a home studio thats extremely rare to do this. As Rick points out, most of us use one input all the time. We track one instrument at a time. Probably the same one !

For years my own experience was a 2 channel interface,then I added a second system and went with 4 channels. How many times have I used 4, in over 6 years, ? Never !

The added flexibility of 4 channels allows for additional preamps to be available without pulling and plugging in a bunch of cables. The 4 inputs are already available and can be changed at the DAW track input just by changing the input source. This was my reason to move up to 4, added available preamps at my fingertips.

A stereo track from an outside source gets loaded into the DAW directly, no interface required, Its imported. Should we want to record a stereo track live, we use 2 inputs on the interface, two mics, two DAW tracks. Pan left and right. Just like we do or did with a Stereo reel to reel tape machine. Same thing except the recorder is now the DAW.

2 or 4 DAW inputs will serve us well for decades, maybe longer ! An interface may very well allow for multiple instrument/mic INPUTS but it still may only be a 2I or 4I interface to the DAW. How many active channels can the interface use at the same time to feed the DAW. Thats what matters.

good luck ! Don't trip on the wires !

I know Presonus interfaces are popular but EVERY new one I tried had a hardware problem of one thing or another. Back in the Firewire days I bought a new Presonus 8 channel unit only to find it wouldn't connect. I sent it back and bought another new one from a different music store, it had one channel dead and was sent back. A couple years ago I tried Presonus again since I now had a copy of Studio One. I bought a Studio 192 (8 channel, USB 3.0). It worked the first day although the automatic set up wound up with over 20ms of recording latency (unacceptable). I was able to get it down to 8 ms the first day but that was unacceptable too. The second day I was going to work on the latency and I powered it on but after working unsuccessfully on latency I tried to power it off and the power switch or internal logic had failed and it wouldn't power off. It was sent back and the end of Presonus hardware for me.

Thanks for all the advice, and apologies to Greg who simply posted to celebrate buying something else entirely

Jack Stoner wrote:I know Presonus interfaces are popular but EVERY new one I tried had a hardware problem of one thing or another. Back in the Firewire days I bought a new Presonus 8 channel unit only to find it wouldn't connect. I sent it back and bought another new one from a different music store, it had one channel dead and was sent back. A couple years ago I tried Presonus again since I now had a copy of Studio One. I bought a Studio 192 (8 channel, USB 3.0). It worked the first day although the automatic set up wound up with over 20ms of recording latency (unacceptable). I was able to get it down to 8 ms the first day but that was unacceptable too. The second day I was going to work on the latency and I powered it on but after working unsuccessfully on latency I tried to power it off and the power switch or internal logic had failed and it wouldn't power off. It was sent back and the end of Presonus hardware for me.

Sounds like you had some bad luck. I've owned a lot of Presonus gear and had one problem in over ten years. It was a monitor that quit working. Even though it was out of warranty, Presonus fixed it and paid shipping both ways. They even had me send the good one just so they could check it out. None of it cost me a penny. That's good customer service.

You must have had some compatibility issues with the 192 and your computer, or other software programs. Latency should never be an issue with the 192. There is an advanced setting that must be checked in Studio One to use hardware, or native zero latency with effects. Its kind of hard to discover. It has to do with mute follows cue mix.

RC

I've had no latency setup problems with other hardware. I've got a recent, i7 6700K CPU with 16GB RAM. My current unit, an MOTU recording latency is 2.3ms, very low and acceptable.

Had I kept the 192 I may have been able to "tame" the latency but since it developed a hardware problem the second day, I didn't get a chance.

If I were starting fresh with a home recording setup I would probably grab one of these. Interface and controller in one: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... controller

Joseph Carlson wrote:If I were starting fresh with a home recording setup I would probably grab one of these. Interface and controller in one: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... controller

I agree. That looks like a good home studio setup. I have Presonus 192, HP60, Faderport 16, Faderport Classic, Studio Channel Tube Pre, etc... I'm tempted to sell most of it and get one of these. I never use more than two inputs at a time, and its almost always just one.

RC

How does Studio One Pro compare with Logic in terms of functionaries, ease of use etc...?

Edward Efira wrote:How does Studio One Pro compare with Logic in terms of functionaries, ease of use etc...?

Near impossible to answer if not totally impossible ! Depends on who you ask and who's answering.

Ease of Use defined:

Put 50 people in a room with the exact same software. 20 will have no issues, didn't even need to read the manual. The next 20 will say it was ok but needed the manual. The next 5 will say the manual was written poorly and they couldn't get it to run, the last 5 will say the software doesn't work, its full of bugs.

I am fairly proficient with Pro Tools, I find Studio One to be very easy to understand, a very nice workflow. But also consider how many people think Pro Tools is too hard to use and learn !

I also know several Pro Tools skilled folks who run Logic in parallel , so maybe that means they can run Studio One as well ? Maybe there is some sort of workflow connection, familiarity ? Pro Tools , Logic, Studio One ?

If someone is savvy enough to view software and recognize and understand the workflow, the software will be fairly strait forward to operate. If someone is NOT software savvy well then it doesn't matter what software they are attempting to use.

All software is supposed to be written with an interactive "LOGICAL" workflow. But we know that ain't true !

What Tony Prior said... And, that said, I LOVE Studio One, after using Reaper/Audacity and GarageBand... There's also a BaZillion YouTube videos to get you oriented with the way things work in Studio One... I'd guess though from others, if you have a handle on some of the other DAW's you'll be a quick study.