The Ultimate Studio One Pro Book E-Book

Doruk Somunkiran

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 488

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

The Ultimate Studio One Pro Book is a detailed, step-by-step guide to creating music with Studio One’s extensive set of production tools. This practical, goal-oriented resource will help musicians start producing their own music with Studio One and teach audio professionals how to include Studio One in their production workflow.
The book begins by showing you how to set up Studio One to work smoothly on your system. The following chapters will walk you through the process of creating a project, along with recording audio and using virtual instruments to construct a MIDI arrangement. As you advance, you’ll find out how to edit your songs to perfection using Melodyne, Audio Bend, and an extensive collection of MIDI modifiers. You’ll also discover how to mix in Studio One with the effects plugins included in it, along with applying audio mastering in the Project window. Throughout this book, you’ll gain the skills needed to leverage Studio One confidently and effectively, as well as build your own unique music production workflow.
By the end of this book, you’ll be able to effortlessly translate your musical ideas into complete songs using Studio One’s powerful tools.

Leseprobe

The Ultimate Studio One Pro Book

A step-by-step guide to recording, editing, mixing, and mastering professional-quality music

Doruk Somunkiran

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

The Ultimate Studio One Pro Book

Copyright © 2023 Packt Publishing

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First published: July 2023

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Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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ISBN 978-1-80324-101-2

www.packtpub.com

To my students, who inspire me every day with their curiosity, creativity, and perseverance.

– Doruk Somunkiran

Contributors

About the author

Doruk Somunkiran is a composer, music producer, and instructor with 20 years of experience in the industry. After graduating from Berklee College of Music with top honors in 2000, Doruk has written and produced music for countless albums, commercials, movies, and TV programs. As a teacher, he’s helped more than 5,000 students to define and reach their musical goals, and his hands-on, intuitive teaching style has earned stellar reviews from thousands of students around the globe.

I want to thank my family for always being there for me. You’re the best!

About the reviewer

Dev Next Level, a music producer born and raised in Bharat, has worked with leading Indian artists and has designed sound for many video games, mobile apps, and virtual and augmented reality projects, and background scores and songs for commercial TV channels, state and central government projects, and more.

He is also an official producer of Bollywood Dubstep and has taught countless numbers of students online, as well as offline, from across the world, including Australia, UK, New Zealand, Nepal, Canada, and Abu Dhabi. His students have had massive hits, including Subah by Ammy Virk and RickHRT, Bille Bille Naina Waliye by Khan Bhaini and Sycostyle, P.U Diyan Yaarian, Cute Munda by Sharry Maan and Ricky T GiftRulerz, Atom Bamb by Bohemia and Ricky T GiftRulerz, Shankara by Hansraj Raghuvanshi and Ricky T GiftRulerz, and Hum Hindustaani by Sonu Nigham, Kailash Kher, and Beatlab.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1: Getting Started withStudio One

1

Choosing Your Flavor of Studio One

Meeting the candidates – Prime, Artist, or Pro

Free and lightweight – Studio One Prime

The power of simplicity – Studio One Artist

Here comes the flagship – Studio One Pro

Picking a one-time purchase or joining Studio One+

Sifting through the additional content

Virtual instruments

Effects plugins

Loops and sounds

Summary

2

Installing and Configuring Your Studio One Environment

Technical requirements

Installing Studio One and additional content

Installing Studio One

Installing additional content

Exploring online resources

Configuring Studio One

Filling in the Artist Profile

Configuring your audio device

Buffer size and latency

Configuring your external devices

Optimizing your system for best performance

Working with multiple disks

Configuring file locations

Summary

3

Exploring the Studio One Environment

Technical requirements

Understanding the Song, Project, and Show Pages

Touring the user interface

The Song page

The Project page

The Show page

Navigating the Studio One environment

Window management

Zoom levels

Extra navigation tips

Summary

Part 2: Creating in Studio One

4

Creating a New Song

Technical requirements

Setting up your Song and exploring the Song settings

Name

Saving the location

Sample rate and resolution

Other New Document page settings

Changing the tempo, key signature, and time signature within the Song

Using the Tempo Track to change your Song’s tempo

Using the Signature Track to change your Song’s key or time signature

Summary

5

Recording Your First Audio Track

Technical requirements

Setting up your hardware to record audio

Setting up a microphone

Setting up an instrument

Setting up Studio One to record audio

Creating an Audio Track

Setting recording levels

Applying effects during recording

Setting up the metronome

Understanding different recording modes

Basic recording

Auto Punch

Loop Recording

Recording best practices

Summary

6

Adding Virtual Instruments and Recording MIDI

Technical requirements

Introducing MIDI

Connecting devices to Studio One

Adding and configuring MIDI instruments

Adding a software instrument

Adding a hardware Instrument

Recording and inputting MIDI

Recording a live performance with MIDI

Inputting MIDI notes manually

Using Melodyne to convert audio into MIDI

Choosing the right type of audio material

Audio-to-MIDI-conversion walkthrough

Summary

Part 3: Editing in Studio One

7

Editing and Rearranging Your Song

Technical requirements

Exploring the editing tools

Arrow tool

The Range tool

The Split tool

The Eraser tool

The Paint tool

The Mute tool

The Bend tool

The Listen tool

Understanding Snap and various Snap modes

Snap To Grid and Relative Grid

Snap To Cursor & Loop

Snap To Events

Snap Event End

Snap To Zero Crossings

Using the Arranger Track to edit a Song

Summary

8

Editing Audio

Technical requirements

Mastering the audio editing tools

Transposing and tuning audio events

Strip Silence

Working effectively with editing commands

Fixing and enhancing the timing of audio recordings

Understanding transients

Using the Audio Bend tool to fix errors manually

Quantizing audio to fix timing errors automatically

Extracting and quantizing to custom grooves

Using Melodyne to fix and enhance vocal recordings

Fixing an out-of-tune vocal performance with Melodyne

Using Melodyne to create background harmony vocals

Summary

9

Editing MIDI

Technical requirements

Using basic editing tools and quantization

Using the Arrow tool to perform basic editing tasks

Using the Select Notes window to make a precise selection

Quantizing MIDI notes to change the timing of a performance

Adjusting note lengths and applying half time or double time

Adjusting MIDI data to enhance a performance

Transposing notes

Adjusting velocity

Adjusting modulation and other parameters

Working in the Pattern Editor

Using Note FX to spark creativity

Loading Note FX plugins

Arpeggiator

Chorder

Repeater

Input Filter

Summary

10

Using Global Tracks

Technical requirements

Using the Chord Track to control the harmonic content of a Song

Getting started with the Chord Track

Detecting and extracting chords automatically

Entering chord information manually

Setting Instrument Tracks to follow the Chord Track

Setting Audio Tracks to follow the Chord Track

Using the Ruler, Marker, and Lyric Tracks to work more efficiently on Songs

Keeping track of different time units with the Ruler Track

Using the Marker Track for easy navigation

Using the Lyric Track

Using the Video Track to add sound and music to a video

Importing video files

Navigating the Video Track and Video Player

Editing video

Synchronizing audio and MIDI events with video

Understanding different time units

Exporting video

Summary

Part 4: Mixing and Mastering

11

Preparing for the Mix

Technical requirements

Preparing a Song for the mix session

Optimizing hardware and software for the mix

Should I convert Instrument Tracks into Audio Tracks?

Editing for perfection

Gain staging

Organizing tracks for better control

Setting levels, panning, and automation

Setting levels

Panning to create a stereo image

Adding automation to create a dynamic mix

Summary

12

Working with Effects Plugins to Craft a Mix

Technical requirements

Controlling level and frequency with dynamics plugins and an equalizer

Compressor

Limiter2

Expander

Gate

De-Esser

Multiband Dynamics

Tricomp

Equalizer plugin – Pro EQ3

Adding depth and space with reverb and delay plugins

Reverb plugins

Delay plugins

Adding color and character with plugins

Distortion plugins

Modulation plugins

Combined mix plugins

Using special tools and analysis plugins

Special tools

Analysis tools

Summary

13

Optimizing Signal Flow and Elevating Your Mix

Technical requirements

Understanding Studio One’s signal flow

The anatomy of a mixer channel

Using the Inserts rack to add effects

Using FX channels

Using buses to control several channels

Using VCA channels to control volume

Applying advanced techniques

Sidechain processing

Using Splitter for precise targeting

Using groups for a faster workflow

Customizing plugins

Exporting final mixes and stems

Exporting final mixes

Exporting stems

Summary

14

Navigating the Project Page and Producing Final Masters

Technical requirements

Creating a new project and navigating the Project page

Creating a new project

Navigating the Project page

Integration between the Song and Project pages

Mastering on the Project page

Entering metadata

Sequencing tracks

Editing tracks on the Project page

Adding effects plugins

Using the metering tools

Using automation on the Project page

Rendering final masters for publishing and delivery

Creating final masters for digital release

Creating final masters for release on a CD

Summary

15

Using Additional Studio One Features

Technical requirements

Using Studio One in live performances with the Show page

Creating your first Show

Exploring the Show page

Working with Players

Adding effects to a live performance

Using the Arranger Track to define sections of Songs

Performing live with the Show page

Using the Score Editor

Opening the Score Editor

Exploring the Score Editor

Entering notes in the Score Editor

Editing notes in the Score Editor

Adding musical expressions and formatting the score

Finalizing and printing a score

Creating and manipulating samples with SampleOne XT

Adding a sample

Editing a sample

Selecting Trigger modes

Summary

Appendix –Customizing Studio One and Following Best Practices

Technical requirements

Customizing Studio One

Creating your own Smart Templates

Working with Track Presets

Using Effects Chains

Understanding the file and folder system

Exploring Studio One’s file management system

Locating and copying missing files

Removing unused files

Using autosave and recovery

Saving incremental versions

Sharing your files with others

Sharing with a collaborator who has Studio One

Sharing with a collaborator who does not have Studio One

Sharing tracks for mixing

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

Music production is a fascinating and rewarding pursuit, but it can be daunting at times. With so many tools, techniques, and software options available, it can be difficult to know where to start. That’s why I’ve written this book, to guide you through the process of making music with PreSonus Studio One.

Studio One is a powerful digital audio workstation that offers a wide range of features and tools to help you create, record, and mix your music. Whether you’re a singer-songwriter, a producer, or a composer, Studio One can help you achieve your musical vision.

In this book, I’ll take you through the essential steps of creating music with Studio One. We’ll start by looking at the interface and the basic tools you’ll need to get started. We’ll then move on to recording audio and MIDI data, editing your recordings, and adding effects and virtual instruments to your tracks. Finally, we’ll explore how you can use the mixing and mastering tools in Studio One to deliver professional-sounding final masters of your songs.

Throughout the book, I’ll provide step-by-step instructions and practical tips to help you make the most of Studio One. Whether you’re a complete beginner or an experienced musician, this book will help you take your music to the next level.

So, if you’re ready to dive into the world of music production with Studio One, let’s get started!

Who this book is for

This book is for musicians, bands, and composers who want to learn Studio One from scratch in order to create their own music on a professional level. It is also aimed at producers and audio professionals who already have experience in another DAW but now wish to switch to Studio One or include it in their workflows.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Choosing Your Flavor of Studio One, provides an overview of the different versions of Studio One and is designed to help you choose the version that is right for you.

Chapter 2, Installing and Configuring Your Studio One Environment, walks you through the process of installing Studio One and its additional components. This chapter also explains how you can configure Studio One to get the best results for your system and production workflow.

Chapter 3, Exploring the Studio One Environment, provides a guided tour of the Studio One interface and describes the windows, panels, and other components that we’ll work on in the following chapters.

Chapter 4, Creating a New Song, shows you how to create your first song in Studio One, with step-by-step instructions on how to set up initial song parameters such as sample rate, tempo, and key signature.

Chapter 5, Recording Your First Audio Track, walks you through the process of recording audio using a microphone or instrument. This chapter also provides a list of best practices that will help you make the most of every recording session.

Chapter 6, Adding Virtual Instruments and Recording MIDI, starts with a crash course on MIDI for beginners. Then the chapter shows you how to add virtual instruments to a song and explores several alternative methods of recording MIDI, with or without a keyboard.

Chapter 7, Editing and Rearranging Your Song, provides an overview of Studio One’s editing tools and their various modes of operation, which creates a foundation for the next two chapters.

Chapter 8, Editing Audio, shows you how to use audio editing tools to fix timing and intonation errors in audio recordings. This chapter also discusses several methods of using editing tools for creative purposes, such as changing the groove of an existing Drum Track or creating harmonious background vocals.

Chapter 9, Editing MIDI, explores Studio One’s extensive MIDI editing capabilities and discusses several ways in which these capabilities can be used to embellish your musical ideas.

Chapter 10, Using Global Tracks, provides an in-depth look at Studio One’s Global Tracks and shows you how to harness their power to gain more control over your projects.

Chapter 11, Preparing for the Mix, walks you through several steps you can take to make sure that your mixing sessions run smoothly. This chapter also covers several best practices that will help streamline your production workflow.

Chapter 12, Working with Effects Plugins to Craft a Mix, provides a tour of Studio One’s effects plugins. The chapter then goes on to explain how you can choose the right plugin for a given task and add it to your projects.

Chapter 13, Optimizing Signal Flow and Elevating Your Mix, provides an in-depth look at how signal processing works in Studio One and how you can harness the power of the Mix Console to present your songs in the best light. Then the chapter discusses how to apply advanced mixing techniques in Studio One, and finishes by explaining how to export stems and final mixes of your songs.

Chapter 14, Navigating the Project Page and Producing Final Masters, starts with an overview of the Project page, Studio One’s unique mastering environment. The chapter then goes on to explain how you can work on the Project page to master your songs to the specifications required by digital music platforms.

Chapter 15, Using Additional Studio One Features, explores exciting features in Studio One that fall outside the standard music production workflow, but deserve a special mention nevertheless. These features include the Show page, which allows you to use Studio One on your live performances; the Score Editor, which allows you to input MIDI data using standard musical notation; and SampleOne, which allows you to create your own unique sound samples for unlimited creative options.

The Appendix: Customizing Studio One and Following Best Practices, discusses several methods to optimize your workflow by customizing Studio One and provides a set of best practices for sharing your projects with others for collaboration.

To get the most out of this book

To get the most out of this book, you should already have a basic knowledge and experience of musical processes – such as arranging, recording, mixing, and mastering; however, you will learn how to perform these processes more effectively in Studio One.

Software/hardware covered in the book

Operating system requirements

Studio One Pro 6

Windows 10 (64-bit only) or Windows 11 (64-bit only)

macOS 10.14 or higher (64-bit only)

A minimum of 8 GB RAM is recommended. An internet connection is required for installation and activation. A minimum of 40 GB storage space is required for the included content that comes with the Pro version.

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots and diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://packt.link/PoANx.

Conventions used

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: “The Range tool can be linked with the Arrow tool, creating a tool with superpowers. ”

Tips or important notes

Appear like this.

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Part 1: Getting Started with Studio One

In the first part of this book, you will learn about the different versions of Studio One, and how you can pick the one that best suits your needs. Then, you will learn how to install and configure Studio One to run smoothly on your system. Finally, you will take a guided tour of the Studio One interface and get to know the windows that we will use throughout this book.

This part includes the following chapters:

Chapter 1, Choosing Your Flavor of Studio OneChapter 2, Installing and Configuring Your Studio One EnvironmentChapter 3, Exploring the Studio One Environment

1

Choosing Your Flavor of Studio One

Competition is fierce in the world of Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs), with well-established major contenders having, over time, specialized in different aspects of music production. Although Studio One, the ever-popular DAW developed by PreSonus, is more than a decade old at the time of writing, it’s still considered a newcomer. However, it has garnered a well-deserved reputation as the “program that does it all.”

As exciting as that may be, not everyone needs all the functionality that the full-fledged version has to offer, so PreSonus has come up with several alternative packages to choose from, offering different levels of functionality, complexity, and pricing.

In this chapter, we will go over these versions, analyze the differences, and discuss which user profile each version would be most suitable for. By the end of this chapter, you will have a solid understanding of which version will best meet your needs, and why.

In this chapter, we will cover the following main topics:

Meeting the candidates – Prime, Artist, or ProPicking a one-time purchase or joining Studio One+Sifting through the additional content

Meeting the candidates – Prime, Artist, or Pro

The core Studio One software comes in three flavors:

Prime, the free versionArtist, the version targeted at home studiosPro, the full-fledged version

In this section, we will compare these versions in detail.

Keep in mind that this book aims to provide extensive coverage of the functions and features of Studio One. Therefore, depending on the version that you decide to work with, you may find that some of the features described in this book are not available in your system.

Free and lightweight – Studio One Prime

Prime is the free version of Studio One and as such it offers tremendous value compared to free DAW alternatives from other vendors. You can record and edit audio and MIDI, arrange and produce your tracks, and mix and master your song using the same intuitive drag-and-drop interface and rock-solid audio engine that made Studio One such a great success.

Prime offers some nifty features that make life easier, and definitely not expected in a free program, including the following:

“Comping” and creating the perfect take out of several recordingsMIDI retrospective recording (for those moments when you run into a great idea while noodling on your keyboard and say “Oh, I wish I recorded that!”)The Arranger Track, which lets you easily move and copy entire sections of your song (such as the intro, verse, chorus, etc.) within the project to try different arrangements and create different versions of your song (radio-friendly versions, extended versions, etc.)The Pattern Editor, a game-changer in drum programming with an intuitive interface reminiscent of classic drum machines

However, unless you are willing to settle with a very modest production style, you will likely soon run into some limitations, the most important of which are as follows:

Only two inputs can be simultaneously used for recording.A very limited set of included (stock) effects plugins, which is only exacerbated by…No support for third-party plugins, not to mention…A very limited number of virtual instruments. Prime only comes with Presence, the Sound Set of which is not significantly better or worse than similar entry-level instruments found on competing DAWs, but you will probably not want to rely on it exclusively in your productions.

Verdict: Prime offers an amazing set of features for a free program. It’s an excellent choice for someone who would like to try their hand at computer-based music production, or for someone with zero budget. But considering today’s music production standards, you are soon likely to run into limitations.

The power of simplicity – Studio One Artist

Artist is aimed at people who want to create their own music and podcasts in a home studio environment. Definitely one of the best contenders at its price point, Artist provides a streamlined workflow, a simple interface, and an easy learning curve. With Artist, you’re free from all the limitations we listed for Prime: you can add third-party effects and instruments and use as many simultaneous inputs as your sound interface will allow.

The most important asset that Artist will bring into your production arsenal is a seriously good set of effects plugins. Although you may now add third-party plugins, chances are you will not need to.

Artist also comes with a solid set of virtual instruments, namely Impact, Mai Tai, Mojito, and SampleOne, as well as the aforementioned Presence. We’ll talk about these in detail later in this chapter, but suffice it to say for now that these instruments will give you enough horsepower to produce great-sounding tracks for most EDM, pop, and hip-hop styles.

You may establish a long and fulfilling relationship with Artist if your goal is to create modest productions or podcasts in a home studio environment. The scenarios in which you may reach its limitations and wish to upgrade to Pro include, but are not limited to, the following:

You want to work with the Chord Track and Harmonic Editing to automatically detect and manipulate harmonic content in your songYou want to use Score View to notate your songYou want better control of the mastering process through the Project pageYou want to take your productions to the stage using the Show pageYou want to work with video

Verdict: Artist is an excellent and budget-friendly choice for those who wish to create modest music productions or podcasts in a home studio environment.

Here comes the flagship – Studio One Pro

Studio One Pro is the DAW that does it all. Well, almost. If we compare Pro head to head with all the other DAWs from all other vendors combined, there are still some things that it cannot do, but the gap is very marginal and it is getting smaller with each new version.

With all that functionality under the hood, you would expect Pro to be a pain to learn, but thanks to a very intuitive user interface, and with the help of this book of course, it’s a breeze.

So there’s actually no reason not to go for Pro, other than budget considerations. Having said that, Pro is much easier on the wallet compared to the flagship products of most of its competitors, and major discounts are available throughout the year.

Having worked with all major DAWs, the feeling I get when working with Studio One, and one that I hear a lot from colleagues, is that the development team really listened to feedback given on other DAWs and used it to create the — almost — perfect music production software.

Verdict: If you can afford it, get Studio One Pro. If you can’t afford it, wait until Black Friday and get Studio One Pro.

Note

You can find an up-to-date comparison between different versions of Studio One at https://www.presonus.com/products/studio-one/compare-versions

In this section, we explored the different versions of Studio One and compared the feature sets offered by each. But the choices at your disposal do not end here. Coming up, we will take a close look at another enticing alternative: Studio One+. By the end of the next section, you will have all the information you need to decide which option is best for your needs and your production style.

Picking a one-time purchase or joining Studio One+

The choice between core versions of Studio One is fairly straightforward. Now let’s take a deep dive into Studio One+, which brings many more features to the table, and see whether it is the right choice for you.

Studio One+ (formerly known as Sphere) is a subscription-based model that gives you access to Studio One Pro and almost every other kind of software developed by PreSonus. This includes Notion, a powerful music notation program that tightly integrates with Studio One, as well as a huge list of sound effects, virtual instruments, Sound Sets, and loops that are not available when you purchase Studio One Pro “normally.”

Since the inception of Studio One+ and its predecessor, Sphere, PreSonus has really beefed up the package to make it more attractive. Thus, a subscription will get you extra goodies, such as access to exclusive online events and educational materials, cloud storage, cloud exchange and collaboration tools, live streams, and so on.

Studio One+ brings in a lot of extras to sweeten the deal, but how about the price? At the time of writing, the cost of an annual subscription to Studio One+ is half the cost of purchasing a regular license for Studio One Pro. In other words, it’s like purchasing a new license for Studio One Pro every other year. If you like the majority of the additional content and plugins and they match your style, this is definitely a good investment. But keep in mind that you can purchase Studio One Pro as a one-off and selectively purchase any extra content further down the line.

Verdict: Give yourself a couple of days to check out the extra content and listen to the demos on PreSonus’ website. If you think you would use at least 30% of the extra content in your productions, go with a Studio One+ subscription. If not, purchase selectively.

The best way to decide whether a Studio One+ subscription is the right choice for you is to take a close look at all the extras that come with it and see whether they will be useful for your production. We will examine the main ingredients of this package in the following section. Be sure to also visit PreSonus’ website to listen to the demos and hear them in action.

Sifting through the additional content

PreSonus offers a plethora of additional content that can be used as plugins or extensions within Studio One. In this section, we will go over the main categories since this will help you in choosing the right combination for your production style, but keep in mind that there are far too many items to cover individually here. Once you have a clear idea about content categories, it’s a good idea to spend some time on PreSonus’ website to go over the product catalog and see which ones will be useful for your production style.

Virtual instruments

Studio One comes with a variety of virtual instruments that will cover all your basic needs to kick-start an arrangement – everything from sampled acoustic instruments to drums and synthesized sounds. When you outgrow these virtual instruments, Studio One+ offers several alternatives that will take your productions to the next level. In this section, we will take a close look at each of these instruments to help you decide which of these alternatives will work best for you. All the core instruments listed here are available in Studio One Artist and Pro, with extra features available through a Studio One+ subscription.

Presence

Presence is the standard equipment that ships with all versions of Studio One. It is a sample player that triggers audio samples of actual instruments; hence, the sound quality you get from Presence is directly related to the quality of the samples that you load into it.

Figure 1.1: Presence

Presence has its own sample file format, called Sound Sets. The standard Sound Set (that ships with Prime, Artist, and Pro) contains hundreds of instrument sounds, mostly run-of-the-mill, nothing to get excited about. They can be used to create tracks for a demo, but are highly unlikely to make their way into a final, polished production.

Studio One Pro comes with another Sound Set, called Presence XT Core Library, that has higher-quality samples. A Studio One+ subscription will allow you to get your hands on Grand Piano and Symphony Orchestra Sound Sets, but this is just the tip of the iceberg – there are many, many other Sound Sets available in the PreSonus catalog, so there’s plenty to explore.

Presence can also load and play samples in EXS, Giga, Kontakt (version 4 and below at the time of writing), and SoundFont formats, acting as a gateway between the PreSonus ecosystem and other vendors. If you’re switching from another DAW and already have a sample collection in these file formats, Presence has got you covered.

Impact

Impact is PreSonus’ take on the ever-popular pad-based drum sampler, allowing you to program intricate Drum Tracks. A different sample is loaded into each pad, which can then be further tweaked and manipulated individually, allowing for granular control of your drum sounds.

Figure 1.2: Impact

Impact comes with several drum kits, each of which is a collection of drum sounds tailored to a particular genre. EDM and hip-hop receive preferential treatment over acoustic drum kits in the standard package. Studio One Pro gets you a couple more acoustic drum kits, and a Studio One+ subscription gives you access to around 100 GB of additional kits, loops, and sounds.

One overlooked feature of Impact is its ability to act as an instant sample player: just drag any audio clip or file, either from Studio One itself or from your desktop, Finder, Explorer, and so on, and drop it into any of its pads. You can use this method to create your very own custom kits and save them for your future projects as well!

Mai Tai

A polyphonic, analog-modeling synthesizer, Mai Taidelivers an amazing variety of high-quality sounds, excellent presets, and a simple user interface.

Figure 1.3: Mai Tai

Mojito

A simple, monophonic, subtractive synthesizer, Mojito is perfect for creating and tweaking bass and lead sounds. Unless you’re going for deep-level music synthesis, Mai Tai and Mojito will have your bases covered for most EDM and pop styles.

Figure 1.4: Mojito

SampleOne

SampleOne is a powerful, feature-packed sampler that lets you trigger any audio recording with MIDI. It comes with a vast range of tone-shaping tools and onboard effects. If you’re into electronic music or hip-hop production, this is something you definitely want to have in your arsenal.

Figure 1.5: SampleOne

In this section, we reviewed the virtual instruments that come with a core Studio One installation and the extra features available through a Studio One+ subscription. We will take a much closer look at these instruments when we work with them in Chapter 6, Adding Virtual Instruments and Recording MIDI. Now let’s focus on the wide selection of effects plugins available in the Studio One ecosystem.

Effects plugins

Studio One users have long been happy and content with its stock plugins. The only thing lacking in earlier versions was “analog flavor,” plugins designed to give that elusive analog character or warmth that many people feel is missing in DAWs. In recent years, PreSonus has boldly and successfully entered the analog-modeled plugin market and released several successful products. Today, there is even less need for third-party plugins.

In this section, we will look at the plugin selection that comes with each version of Studio One so that you can decide which particular version will best suit your needs.

Prime

As expected, Prime comes with a very slim list of effects plugins. Basically, you get one representative from each signal processing category. It may be enough for the production of modest projects, but it is very likely that you will end up looking for more variety.

However, the good news is that Prime allows you to add (paid) plugins from PreSonus’ Fat Channel plugin collection. This is a modular plugin suite comprising analog-modeled processors and is an effective way of adding warmth and character to your mixes.

Artist

Artist has almost three times the number of plugins compared to Prime, providing a decent offering for a typical modest home studio environment. These are high-quality plugins and you get a couple of alternatives to choose from for each plugin group, so this will definitely fit the bill if you’re not planning to do advanced production. Artist also has third-party plugin support, which means you can add plugins from other vendors if you like.

However, two points that I find seriously lacking in Artist’s effects arsenal are the following:

Melodyne Essentials comes with a trial version, whereas it’s included in the admission ticket for Pro. This potential extra cost is something to consider if you want to be able to do pitch correction, create harmony vocals, and convert audio into MIDI.Ampire, the amp modeling plugin for guitars (and anything else you might want to mildly overdrive or totally obliterate) comes with a basic version. That’s a bummer because it gives you very limited tone-shaping options, which may be a deal breaker if you depend on your DAW for your guitar tone.

Pro

For most users, Studio One Pro’s stock plugins will be all they ever need. There’s a good amount of variety and the overall quality is more than enough for professional music production. PreSonus has chosen to exclude some new and/or exotic plugins from Pro’s stock list, apparently to make Studio One+ more enticing. However, if you fancy any of these, keep in mind that they can also be purchased individually and added to an existing Pro installation.

Studio One+

This is the way to go if you’re looking for the ultimate level of variety and a dazzling number of choices. At the time of writing, Studio One+ will give you 15 different compressors to choose from, including RC-500, FC-670, and Everest C100A, all modeled after classic vintage analog hardware. At this point, it becomes a matter of personal, rather than musical, style. Some people like to have many toys to play with (of which I’ve sometimes been guilty, but beware of the dreaded G.A.S. – Gear Acquisition Syndrome), whereas some people just select a couple of effects, stick with them, and focus on their music. If you’re in the former group, Studio One+ is guaranteed to keep you happy with its abundance of choices.

In this section, we saw that although there are a lot of plugin options to choose from, identifying your production goals will narrow down the choices and make it easy for you to pick the best alternative. Up next, we will take a look at the final component of the vast collection known as Additional Content, and we will complete our tour of the Studio One ecosystem.

Loops and sounds

Loops and sounds are “production-ready” elements that can be used as starting points to spark that first flame of inspiration when you’re creating a song or to spice up and embellish a maturing project.

Loops are pre-made audio recordings. They can contain anything from a drum groove to a synthesizer arpeggio. When you drag and drop them into your project, they will automatically match your song’s tempo and are constructed in a manner that allows you to repeat them over and over again in your arrangement – hence the name.

Sounds, on the other hand, refer to the building blocks that virtual instruments use to generate complex sonic textures. So, for example, when you load Prime Selection Sounds into Presence, Presence will use that Sound Set to produce sounds unique to that collection.

Collectively, loops and sounds are organized into production kits, several musical elements comprising an entire song arrangement, which you can freely drag and drop into your own project. Then, you can tweak them to your heart’s content, or since they are royalty-free, leave them as is (and sound like ten thousand other songs on Spotify).

Studio One Prime comes with only two such production kits (aimed for a general-purpose pop production scenario). Artist comes with six (which, again, is a decent selection for home studio use). Pro comes with thirteen (with a preference skewed toward electronic music genres).

But the real blast is Studio One+. You gain access to a seemingly endless list of production kits, drum kits, loops, and sounds. If loops are the main ingredient of your production style, then this is a no-brainer; a Studio One+ subscription costs much less than buying all (or several) of these materials separately.

If you feel that you might only need an occasional loop or production kit every now and then, though, this might be overkill. It’s a good idea to go over the catalog at PreSonus’ website to see how much of this additional content may eventually find its way into your songs. Then, you can make an informed decision on whether a Studio One+ subscription is the right choice for you.

This concludes our tour of the vast array of alternatives available in the Studio One ecosystem. While the sheer number of options may be daunting at first, focusing on your production goals and musical style will narrow down the choices and help you decide which version is right for you.

Summary

In this chapter, we learned about the different versions of Studio One and took a close look at the functions, features, and content provided by each. Then, we examined the additional content offered by PreSonus and discussed which option would be the right choice for several different scenarios.

In the next chapter, you will configure Studio One to run smoothly on your system and learn about best practices that will save you tons of time further down the line.

2

Installing and Configuring Your Studio One Environment

Installing and configuring software is normally a simple task, but when it comes to audio production software, things can get really messy. Computers are designed to process data in chunks, and in between those chunks, they either process chunks from background tasks or wait patiently for your next command. Audio production, on the other hand, requires processing an uninterrupted flow of data at high volumes, something computers are not equipped to handle off the shelf.

In this chapter, we will take an in-depth look at the strategies you can use to optimize Studio One for your production environment and make sure you get the best performance possible out of your system. We will go over the process of selecting and downloading the software components and additional content that you will use. Then, we will discuss several options available for different scenarios – all the way from a portable rig based around a laptop computer to a fully fledged music studio – and see how you can configure Studio One to run efficiently on each system.

By the end of this chapter, you will be ready to start producing music with Studio One, confident in the knowledge that it runs with optimum efficiency, and you will be well equipped to troubleshoot any configuration problems that may occur down the line.

In this chapter, we will cover the following main topics:

Installing Studio One and additional contentConfiguring Studio OneOptimizing your system for best performance

Technical requirements

In order to run Studio One, your computer must meet the following minimum system requirements. Please note that these requirements are the same for all versions of Studio One:

Operating system: macOS 10.14 or higher, or Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit only)Processor: Intel Core i3 (minimum), or Intel Core i5 or better (recommended)Ram: 4 GB (minimum), or 8 GB or more (recommended)40 GB available hard disk space for installation, additional content, and projectsMinimum monitor resolution of 1366 x 768 dpiInternet connection (required for activation, updates, and cloud integration)

Installing Studio One and additional content

Whether you purchase Studio One separately or go down the Studio One+ route, your journey will begin by creating an account on PreSonus’ website. This will be your hub for everything Studio One. Once you complete your purchase, log in at my.presonus.com. There is a lot to explore here, and lots of valuable content to help you make the most of your Studio One experience. We will take a closer look at these resources, but first, let’s get Studio One up and running on your computer.

Installing Studio One

From the my.presonus.com home page, head over to the Products page. Here, you will see a list of all the software, virtual instruments, effects, samples, and loop libraries included with your purchase:

Figure 2.1: The Products page on PreSonus’ website

At the top of the list, you will find the latest version of Studio One. Click on it, and you will be taken to its own separate product page, where you can find the installer:

Figure 2.2: The Studio One download page with a download link and additional content

Download the installer and run it on your computer. When the installation is complete, your shiny new Studio One installation will ask you to log in to your MyPreSonus account. Once you’ve done that, it will automatically retrieve the activation code and activate itself.

Tip

You can install Studio One on up to five different computers using the same activation code. This is an excellent (and very generous, compared to competitors) option for those who need to work on different platforms. So you can, for example, install Studio One on two different computers in your studio, on your home computer, your laptop, and your live rig, and share the same project across all of these computers using Workspaces. It is important to note that these computers must belong to a single user; sharing an activation code between users is not permitted.

Installing additional content

You will see that the core installer for Studio One is pretty lightweight. PreSonus has maintained a modular, open buffet approach, where you get to pick and install only the components that you will actually use, saving you time, bandwidth, and disk space.

Free extra content and plugins

If you go back to the Products page, you will find additional software, effects plugins, Sound Sets, and loops that are not part of a standard Studio One installation but are available to you for free as part of your purchase. Take your time going through the options, checking out their demos on the PreSonus website, and picking the ones that you would like to use.

I recommend that you install the following:

Ampire: A suite of plugins comprising digital simulations of vintage guitar amplifiers, cabinets, and effects pedals. While targeted mainly at electric guitars, you can use it to add vintage color to just about any sound.Fat Channel XT: A collection of digital models of highly prized vintage analog effects processors, found in top studios all over the world. These processors will be extremely handy when we talk about mixing your projects.

Once you’ve selected the materials you want to use, download them. Go ahead and run the installers for the effects plugins, but leave the Sound Sets and loops in your download folder.

Included Sound Sets

Back on the page where you downloaded the installer for Studio One (Figure 2.2), click on the button that says Show “n” Bundled Downloads (where “n” is the number of additional content available for free, depending on your version of Studio One). Click that, and you will see a list of Sound Sets containing a large selection of instruments, ranging from symphonic strings to synthesized textures, as well as production-ready loops that you can use to kick off or spice up your production. Take your time to go over each item. Listen to their demos on the PreSonus website and see whether they match your production style.

Regardless of your production style, I recommend that you download the following:

Studio One Instruments Volume 1 & 2Impact XT Kits and SoundsStudio One Musicloops

These offer a generous palette of sounds that will cover your bases on a wide variety of genres. (However, availability depends on your version of Studio One.)

Although those are the ones I recommend, download the ones that you like and leave them in your downloads folder for now. We will come back to them later in this chapter when we talk about configuring Studio One.

Melodyne Essential

Further down the same page, you will see a section titled Downloads. Here, you can download Melodyne Essential, a bundled third-party program that lets you do pitch correction on vocal recordings and convert audio recordings to MIDI. Download and run the installer; it will introduce itself to Studio One. We will talk about Melodyne in great detail in Chapter 8, Editing Audio.

Exploring online resources

Now that we have installed Studio One and some additional resources, let’s take a quick guided tour of the excellent resources available at my.presonus.com so that you don’t miss out on any of the features:

We talked about the Products page already. It’s a good idea to check back here every now and then – there may be some new goodies!On the Learn page, you will find a collection of videos that will show you how to perform specific tasks or use certain features in Studio One. An even larger collection is available for Studio One+ members under the Exclusive Videos section. (Since you’re reading this book, it is highly unlikely that you will ever need them, but they’re still nice to have!)The Support page is where you will open and monitor tickets if you ever need assistance from the PreSonus support team.Workspaces are the gateway to an innovative feature available to Studio One+ members only. It lets you share your mixes and stems with collaborators and allows you to communicate with them in real time, using markups and performance notes. This is a brilliant tool to collaborate with fellow musicians or receive feedback from clients over a distance.The Exchange page is an excellent platform, where users share resources that they have created for Studio One – everything from Sound Sets to drum patterns, and from FX chains to color schemes. If you ever need a feature that Studio One does not have, this is the first place to look; chances are someone else may have already needed that feature, written a macro for it, and shared it for other users to enjoy. All the content on this page is free!Finally, the Community page hosts a very active discussion board with a wide variety of topics. Thread topics are not limited to Studio One; you will find discussions on everything from woodwind instruments to video post-production. A MyPreSonus account will let you read the posts; however, in order to join the conversation, you’ll need a Studio One+ subscription.

Great! You have just completed the first step in your journey with Studio One. By now, you have chosen and downloaded everything you will need for your Studio One-based production environment. You are now ready to customize Studio One and optimize it to run smoothly on your system.

Configuring Studio One

When you launch Studio One, the software will take a moment to familiarize itself with its new home needs - it will analyze your computer’s hardware configuration, search for any friendly or unfriendly plugins you have installed (yes, it does have a blacklist!), phone home to PreSonus, sniff out the peripherals connected to your computer, and then greet you with the Start page:

Figure 2.3: Studio One’s Start page

Now, let’s start configuring Studio One.

Filling in the Artist Profile

Right in the middle of this page is the Artist Profile window. When you installed Studio One in the previous section, you logged in to your PreSonus account, so Studio One already knows who you are, and it will populate this section by pulling your photo, name, last name, and website link from your account info. If for some reason (e.g., a firewall) this section is still empty, go ahead and fill out the information manually.

Studio One will use this information to give you a warm welcome every time you launch it, but it’s much more than eye candy – this information will also be used by Studio One to populate meta tags within the awesome audio files that you will soon be exporting. Ever wondered how additional information such as an album name and year appears when you play mp3s? That information is stored in meta tags contained in mp3 files. So, the next time you export an mp3 to share a rough mix with a friend or client, your name and contact info will be added automatically.

This is also a good time to ensure that Studio One uses the language you feel the most comfortable using. At the time of writing, the Studio One user interface supports eight languages. If you want to use it in a language other than English, go to Studio One on the top menu and make your selection under Language:

Figure 2.4: Selecting your language

Configuring your audio device

When you launch Studio One, it asks your operating system about the audio devices available on your computer and makes an educated guess about which one you will want to use. Now, let’s make sure that the correct device is selected and optimized for best performance.

Back on the Start page, right under your photo and name, you will see a section called Setup. Here, click Configure Audio Device, which will open the Audio Setup tab of the Preferences window:

Figure 2.5: The Audio Setup window

There are two drop-down menus on this tab:

Playback Device: You can think of this as the audio output coming out of Studio One. The device you select here will be the device that you will be connecting your speakers or headphones to.Recording Device: The input going into Studio One. This is the device that you will be hooking up your sound sources to, such as microphones and instruments.

In most home studio environments, these two devices are one and the same; a typical audio interface will serve both as a playback device and a recording device. So, for the great majority of users, all you need to do here is to select your audio interface on both of these menus, and you will be good to go.

The same thing applies to USB microphones, which are becoming increasingly popular due to their ease of use. A USB microphone is basically a microphone with a built-in tiny audio interface, connecting to a computer with a standard USB cable. If you have one of these, select it on the Recording Device drop-down menu, and it will be ready to go.

If your studio requires a more complex setup, you can get creative with the options on the Audio Device tab. Let’s explore some options:

If you have a more elaborate setup comprising discrete analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters, you can set them independently as recording and playback devices, respectivelyIf you’d like to route Studio One’s audio output to streaming or screen-capturing software (to play a project to a client in an online meeting, for example), you can set a loopback software as the playback device

However, for the purpose of this book, we will stick with the most typical home studio scenario and assume that you have selected the same audio device for both menus.

Note

If your device is connected to your computer but you cannot see it in these lists, most likely the driver software for your device has not been installed or recognized. Studio One uses the ASIO protocol to access audio devices, so go to your device manufacturer’s website and download the ASIO driver that matches your operating system. After that, restart your computer and you should be fine. If a suitable driver is not available (which happens), you can try installing the free and generic ASIO4ALL driver on Windows machines.

Buffer size and latency

Audio production requires the uninterrupted flow and processing of a huge amount of data, and computers are not natively equipped to handle this. Digital audio workstations and audio devices work around this problem by using buffers.

You can think of a buffer as a water tank that protects a house from water outages. Working with buffers buys time for your computer’s and audio device’s processors to perform their tasks gracefully. A larger buffer means much better performance, even on a modest computer. However, as with many things in life, there is a payoff – latency. Simply put, latency is the time delay between when you sing into your microphone and hear yourself back on your headphones. Just like water going into and coming out of a water tank, it takes time for audio data to go through a buffer. There are several buffers along the signal path, and the delay introduced by each of them will add up.

When you hook up a microphone to your audio device and sing into it, the sound captured by your microphone must go through several buffers before you can hear yourself back on your headphones. This is the roundtrip latency imposed by your entire system, measured in milliseconds (ms). Anything above 10 ms will be very noticeable and distracting. You will not be able to record with a latency above that level. The solution is to decrease the buffer size. As you decrease the buffer size, latency will decrease, but you will place a heavier burden on your system. You will start hearing clicks, cracks, and all sorts of artifacts as the computer struggles. Eventually, you may experience audio dropouts or system freezes.

This dilemma has existed ever since DAWs existed. The classic workaround is to decrease the buffer size when recording (because that’s when latency becomes noticeable) and to bring it back up when editing and mixing. However, Studio One introduced an innovative and more effective approach that lets you adjust your audio device’s and computer’s buffer settings independently.

Here’s how you can configure your system to work with minimum latency and maximum performance. Go back to the Audio Setup window, but this time, take specific note of the two tabs labeled Audio Deviceand Processing.

The Audio Device tab displays, and lets you adjust, the latency created by your audio device:

Figure 2.6: The latency measurements and settings for the audio device

When you sing into the microphone, converters in your audio device will convert the analog signal from the microphone into digital data. This conversion takes some time and is listed as Input Latency on this page.