Presonus Studio One 50% off sale

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tremo
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Presonus Studio One 50% off sale

Post by tremo »

Studio One Professional is $199 until December 2nd.

http://www.presonus.com/products/studio-one

The reason I bring it up here is not to tout S1 as a tracking/mixing DAW (for one thing, its MIDI capabilities are nowhere near those of DP), but because DP users may be interested in S1's "Project" mode. This is a mastering/album assembly application similar in some ways to Waveburner (staggered track layout, plugin inserts for both individual songs and master output). Some nice convenient output options, including DDP and digital release (MP3 w/metadata, etc.).

I considered Studio One before I decided to go with DP, so I actually own the program, and though I haven't used the Project mode (don't have an album's worth of material yet!), I plan to in the future.

Here's a third-party overview (kinda novice-oriented, but lets you see the main concepts and features):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxOPAsUOwqI

At full price ($400, or $300 with a crossgrade from DP), S1's a bit steep for just this specific use, but at $200, and given the lack of mastering options on the Mac, I thought some DP users might find the offer tempting...
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mikehalloran
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Re: Presonus Studio One 50% off sale

Post by mikehalloran »

If you already have DP as most of us do, is there a reason to consider this instead of DSP Quatro at $89 (or $49 if te sale is still going on) if a dedicated mastering program is the goal?

I am curious.
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tremo
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Re: Presonus Studio One 50% off sale

Post by tremo »

I'm sure it comes down to a matter of taste; I like S1's "consolidated" Project window (just as I liked Waveburner's in the past). DSPQ seems a bit cluttered to me. Again, I haven't used S1 for a full-blown mastering job, I've just thrown in a few dummy files to get a feel for it, and I was impressed. There's a fully-functional (I believe) demo, so those who are curious can give it a try.
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mhschmieder
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Re: Presonus Studio One 50% off sale

Post by mhschmieder »

I downloaded the latest demo and tried the Project Window last week and couldn't wrap my head around it. Granted, I'm working insane hours at my day job these days and haven't a lot of time to explore problems and new territory, but it seemed to me that their Project Mode is ONLY good for "projects" created in Studio One.

Maybe I missed something, but I was unable to pull normal stereo WAV files into their Project window to do standard Mastering operations. It seems to only work with their proprietary files, and that would be unappealing to me even if I mixed in StudioOne as I like to be in control of my workflow and to have industry standard open file formats the whole way.
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tremo
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Re: Presonus Studio One 50% off sale

Post by tremo »

mhschmieder wrote: ... it seemed to me that their Project Mode is ONLY good for "projects" created in Studio One.

Maybe I missed something, but I was unable to pull normal stereo WAV files into their Project window to do standard Mastering operations.
No, something's not right there -- the only way it's proprietary is that Studio One session files will auto-update in the Project if you go back and tweak the mix. Obviously this won't work with files created in another DAW. But I just check using the latest version (2.6.1), and had no problem dragging WAV and AIF files into either the Timeline or the Tracklist in S1 Project mode.
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nk_e
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Re: Presonus Studio One 50% off sale

Post by nk_e »

tremo wrote:
mhschmieder wrote: ... it seemed to me that their Project Mode is ONLY good for "projects" created in Studio One.

Maybe I missed something, but I was unable to pull normal stereo WAV files into their Project window to do standard Mastering operations.
No, something's not right there -- the only way it's proprietary is that Studio One session files will auto-update in the Project if you go back and tweak the mix. Obviously this won't work with files created in another DAW. But I just check using the latest version (2.6.1), and had no problem dragging WAV and AIF files into either the Timeline or the Tracklist in S1 Project mode.
I used to use StudioOne a lot before finding my way back to DP (and to a lesser extent Cubase). It's a damn nice DAW for sketching or getting things going quickly. The auto-update feature of Project "mode" was really quite nice. Would love to see that type of integration with a mastering solution for DP (or Cubase for that matter).

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mhschmieder
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Re: Presonus Studio One 50% off sale

Post by mhschmieder »

Oh, that never occurred to me; I expect all features to be available from menus, and also try not to do too much dragging (though I do it all the time in DP to import tracks) as it's hard to do without slipping. But after just a few minutes (maybe fifteen total) I feel this is better than BIAS Peak from an editing and workflow point of view. Also it has a lot of CD Mastering features.

Didn't notice whether it has simple stuff like fades and change gain, but it has a loudness detection analyzer and probably is worth the price for the 64-bit mode (unique to this tool in terms of Mastering on the Mac; all my other mastering programs are 32-bits except for Triumph which I decided not to "upgrade" to).

Lucky thing my demo still and one more day on it, but I have to rush to a gig in a few minutes. I'll check quickly to see how much longer the sale is on for and whether it's an especially good and rare price or not.
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mhschmieder
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Re: Presonus Studio One 50% off sale

Post by mhschmieder »

Done. Just bought it for $194 from Florida Music by tagging on their $5 November discount.

The cross-grade costs more at the moment. :-)

I don't really like the grey look (hard on my very challenged eyes; I have a lot of visual impairments) and that it doesn't seem to be possible to customize it (also the fonts are fuzzy), but I am convinced this is currently the most professional tool on the Mac for 64-bit MASTERING (especially CD Mastering), that doesn't cost over $1000.

I still feel WaveLab isn't quite "there" but is an improvement in v8 over v7.

There are other useful features unique to StudioOne from a "tools" and "file conversion" point of view (though much of that I can do in RX Advanced).
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tremo
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Re: Presonus Studio One 50% off sale

Post by tremo »

mhschmieder wrote: I don't really like the grey look (hard on my very challenged eyes; I have a lot of visual impairments) and that it doesn't seem to be possible to customize it (also the fonts are fuzzy), but I am convinced this is currently the most professional tool on the Mac for 64-bit MASTERING (especially CD Mastering), that doesn't cost over $1000.
Yeah, I totally agree (and I've read plenty of similar comments from others) on the monochrome GUI; in fact, it's one of the biggest reasons why I'd much rather record and mix in DP. In Studio One's regular multitrack Session window, everything looks like one big mass of bluish boxes -- your eye has to "search" for the controls you want. User-customizable GUI is a big feature request on the Prersonus forums (then again, there are those who don't seem to be bothered by it...)

But the Project/mastering page doesn't have as many elements to deal with, so the undifferentiated blueness is much more tolerable.
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