Fast workflow for music composition and audio recording. Robust included sound sets. Attractive drag-and-drop interface. Powerful free version. Multitouch-enabled on the Windows side.
$399.00
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Cons
No notation editor. No easy way to import session data or save I/O templates. MIDI editing is still weaker than the competition. Cluttered mixing console.
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Bottom Line
PreSonus reinvented the common digital audio workstation in 2008 with Studio One; the latest version is the most inspired yet.
A Subreddit for Users of Studio One. R/StudioOne is an educational tool. Please post anything related to Studio One; compatible hardware and software, synths, VSTs, controllers, etc. Questions about effects, getting a certain sound, troubleshooting, general or specific production questions and the like are welcome.
It's all about workflow. Perhaps more than any DAW I've tested recently, Studio One 3 makes it easy to lay down beats and record audio, and it simultaneously feels like a mature workstation. It's as if someone took Pro Tools, removed many of the unnecessary mouse button presses, and rearranged the menus and dialogs to make sense. Studio One doesn't scale to larger studios as well as Pro Tools, and is still missing some key features. But it's an inspired audio editing choice for anyone who needs a serious audio and that dislikes Avid's move to subscription pricing for support.
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$199.99
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$599.00
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$299.00
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$60.00
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$749.00
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$0.00
Versions and Setup
PreSonus offers three versions of Studio One 3. The impressive Prime (free) includes unlimited audio and MIDI tracks, some basic plug-in effects, drag-and drop editing and comping, and the Presence XT sampler (really a 'rompler,' with no sampling capability) with 1.5GB of instruments. You can save as many projects as you want, and there are no nag screens, but you can't add third-party plug-ins.
Artist ($99) adds more editing tools, including track folders and event-based effects, multi-touch support on Windows machines, the excellent Mai Tai analog modeling synth, and the Fat Channel track plug-in that offers a bevy of mixing tools in a single interface. Professional ($399), which I tested for this review, adds built-in Melodyne pitch correction for vocals, many more effects including a multi-band compressor and convolution reverb, and more virtual instruments, and it switches from 32-bit to a 64-bit summing engine. You can also add third-party VSTs and AU plug-ins to Professional, although this feature is also available as an optional add-on to Artist.
Your PreSonus account shows dozens of separate downloads for the various included instruments, loops, and content packs. But don't fret; when you first fire up Studio One, it'll prompt you to download all of it at once from inside the program, rather than having to run all of those as separate installs. Melodyne is separate, though; you'll get a second product key for it.
For this review, I tested PreSonus Studio One 3.5.2 on a four-year-old MacBook Air with 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD running macOS Sierra 10.12.6, a PreSonus AudioBox USB audio interface, and an M-Audio Oxygen 25 MIDI keyboard controller. I also tested it on a Core i7 Windows 10 PC with 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, and 3TB hard disk, and it ran just as well on that machine with the same interface. Given that I tested Studio One using an audio interface from the same company, I wasn't expecting any latency issues and didn't run into any. But I found you could switch audio interface hardware while the program is open and a session is running, which is something you can't do in Pro Tools.
Interface and Recording
Getting settled in Studio One is pretty straightforward if you're coming from another DAW, although it's probably a little intimidating for first-timers. Studio One automatically suggests dates and names for your new projects to help keep you organized. You can also set the keyboard shortcuts to mirror Pro Tools or another DAW to ease migration to Studio One. A few minor nits: It's tough to get everything on the screen at once, and the interface doesn't scale to higher resolutions the way it does in FL Studio.
New low latency monitoring in version 3.5 is a long overdue feature, and it works on both recording and monitoring audio as well as with virtual instruments. Recording and editing the latter seems to use less clicks than some other DAWs: Click once to record, once for the metronome, once for rewinding, and double-click to split a clip into two. It's fast, and the program is super-responsive. You can set up instruments so that you just have to drag the plug-ins over, complete with a picture representation. Within moments, I had an offbeat, syncopated groove happening exactly the way I wanted using Impact and its '60s a GoGo' kit. You can easily create your own Split and Multi instruments by dragging and dropping additional ones on the same track.
Most of the regular audio editing features you'd expect in a proper DAW are here. You can trim or split clips, add fades, and adjust the gain of a clip right from the Edit window. Studio One was the first DAW to integrate genuine Melodyne pitch correction directly within the app, rather than having to export audio, correct it, and then reimport it back in a la Pro Tools. Since then, other popular DAWs like Logic and SONAR have added some type of integrated pitch correction. It's not only faster, but it means you can continue to edit the pitch-corrected clips from within Studio One without having to go back out to Melodyne first.
While Studio One is almost 10 years old, it's still several decades younger than its major competitors, so it's expected that some features will not be as fleshed out in this program. One is a proper score editor, which is completely missing. If you need this and prefer Studio One, PreSonus sells Notion, a full-featured notation program that can work alongside Studio One Artist and Professional (the top two tiers). There's no easy way to save I/O routing templates or track templates, or import session data from other projects. There's also no Pro Tools-like Smart Tool to help out with MIDI editing, although you get an alternative tool you can switch between like you do in Logic Pro X, and in some audio editing contexts the arrow can change to the range tool. You don't get some other more advanced MIDI editing features, like a drum editor, or the ability to stretch clips or scale velocities over a period of time.
Mixing
The mixer is laid out intelligently, as long as you understand one quirk going in: You must click the Expand arrow on a channel to open up the insert and send panel to the right. From there, you can insert all kinds of effects, and PreSonus provides dozens of Extended FX chains in a separate drop down folder that helps you mix faster. You can search for plug-ins just by typing, and you can drag inserts from one channel to another and mirror them immediately like you can in Logic. That said, if you're working with multiple plug-ins on each mixer channel and have them all open, you begin to lose your overall look at all the meters, and the view ends up quite cluttered.
One feature I love is setting up a reverb on a send; all you have to do, literally, is drag the reverb to the track. Studio One automatically sets up the send, the plug-in, the return, and the level so that you've got a reverb happening instantly, and you can then activate the same send on additional tracks. You can also click the send to bring up the reverb plug-in to change the release, the type, or any other parameter, without having to hunt up and down the mixing board for the correct channel first. This is all significantly faster than it is in Pro Tools.
Using Studio One's Mix Engine FX and its Console Shaper plug-in, you can model the sound of an analog console from within the mixing engine, including drive, noise, and crosstalk. The mix bus, even with the standard compressor, sounds good when set to a low ratio (1.3) for just a few dB of reduction on the peaks. In the box, you get enough effects to bring a project from start to finish, including mastering (though I'll always recommend having an experienced second pair of engineers do the final mastering if the budget allows).
Studio for All
On the Mac, Apple made it difficult for just about every competitor by slashing the price of Logic Pro to $199 back in 2011 with version 9. Six years later, other DAWs still seem to be thriving. Pro Tools remains the pro-studio standard; there have been some high-profile switches to Studio One, and there probably should be more, given how good this program is. Pro Tools still excels in importing session and individual track data, and its Smart Tool-based approach to audio editing is second to none. But Pro Tools is more expensive up front and requires monthly support fees, and it lacks integrated pitch correction. Unless you have the need for Avid's support for broadcast standards or the budget for a rack of HDX hardware, or want to have maximum compatibility with other studios and sessions, going with Studio One could well be a smart, alternative choice for a pro-level DAW.
PreSonus Studio One
Bottom Line: PreSonus reinvented the common digital audio workstation in 2008 with Studio One; the latest version is the most inspired yet.
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