Does the PreSonus StudioLive 16.4.2 play nice with DP7?

[Eleventh Hour Sound]

Hi, My church is considering getting a PreSonus StudioLive 16.4.2 and wondered if anyone knows if it plays nice with DP7. They don't mention it being DP compatible on their site. Besides using it for live sound, I want to use it as a 16x16 audio interface for DP.

If you have any experience good or bad that you would like to share I would be interested. Thanks!

[mhurwitz]

Yes, I have been using it for about a month now.

MOH

[Eleventh Hour Sound]

Thanks for writing. Are you able to use it with the MOTU audio driver or did you have to install the PreSonus driver? If/so, when you use DP, which audio driver do you select? Finally, do you know if you are able to use DP's plugins as realtime DSP FX for sounds running the PreSonus? Thanks!

Yes, I have been using it for about a month now.

MOH

[Rainman]

Yes, you should install the Presonus driver. When I use DP7 and 16.4.2 together I use the Presonus driver, don't really understand you 3rd question. When working live with the board I record everything flat while simultaneously eq'ing strips and on-board FX to the house speakers. The latest software update gives you 1/3 octave eq on each of the 6 aux outs and 2/stereo 1/3 octave on the mains, plus other stuff which I presently forget. I love the board, the mic pres are very good/respectable.

Rainman

[Eleventh Hour Sound]

Thanks. I was wondering if I could apply DP plug ins (like auto tune) to a live mix in real time.

Yes, you should install the Presonus driver. When I use DP7 and 16.4.2 together I use the Presonus driver, don't really understand you 3rd question. When working live with the board I record everything flat while simultaneously eq'ing strips and on-board FX to the house speakers. The latest software update gives you 1/3 octave eq on each of the 6 aux outs and 2/stereo 1/3 octave on the mains, plus other stuff which I presently forget. I love the board, the mic pres are very good/respectable.

Rainman

[mhurwitz]

Definitely need the Presonus driver.

Yes you can apply "in the box" effects when on a gig in real time. However, whenever there is analog-digital or digital-analog conversion there is increased latency. This is normal and expected and the amount of latency will depend on several factors, most notably the CPU speed of the computer. This is the whole raison-d'etre for having on-board effects like the EQs, compressors, and reverbs provided by the Studiolive.

If you absolutely MUST use your computer's effects the only way to see how it will sound is to try it. I suspect with something like standard auto-tune that the latency will be unacceptable for live performance.

MOH

[Dwetmaster]

Yes, you should install the Presonus driver. When I use DP7 and 16.4.2 together I use the Presonus driver, don't really understand you 3rd question. When working live with the board I record everything flat while simultaneously eq'ing strips and on-board FX to the house speakers. The latest software update gives you 1/3 octave eq on each of the 6 aux outs and 2/stereo 1/3 octave on the mains, plus other stuff which I presently forget. I love the board, the mic pres are very good/respectable.

Rainman

Hi Rainman, I hope you're having a good day.
I'm planning to record some vocals with the presonus and I just wanted to prepare for it a bit. So I have 3 questions.
Is there anything that needs to be installed aside from the driver?
Any software that needs to be running alongside dp to use it as a dry audio interface?
Where are the settings to record dry while still monitoring wet?

Thanks for your time.

[Rainman]

Hi Rainman, I hope you're having a good day.
I'm planning to record some vocals with the presonus and I just wanted to prepare for it a bit. So I have 3 questions.
Is there anything that needs to be installed aside from the driver?

No, if you have the "Universal Control" installed you should be good to go, you just choose to use that in your hardware setup in DP. You may want to go to bundles and do some re-naming since the input and output names are long, long, long.

Any software that needs to be running alongside dp to use it as a dry audio interface?

No

Where are the settings to record dry while still monitoring wet?

The send to DP via FireWire is tapped right after the mic pre so it should be sent dry. You can send post eq fx etc. by switching something (Ijust forget, never use it, your manual will say) but I'm sure the default is dry. Set your input channel to taste on the board and monitor and send a headphone feed from the board. The vocalist should hear whatever you've applied to the strip, reverb, eq etc.
You MUST have the FireWire button "lit" in the monitor section of the board located above the 4 subgroups section to hear what's happening in the box, i.e., the other tracks, you won't want the vocalists track coming back in this return mix so defeat it in DP.
Another very very important note. Go to "Audio MIDI Setup" and select PreSonus FireStudio. Select Output, you'll notice a drop down menu with "output stream 1". This to stream outputs from DP to each channel return on the board, useful if you want to mix via the board or setup a specific monitor mix. In your case this is overkill. You want to select "output stream 2" and assign channel 17 & 18 to left/right out respectively. These are the equivalents out you main outs in DP and in fact THat's what I name them in 'bundles", which incidentally is where we're going next.
In bundles, select outputs and assign the stereo left/right to "Output Stream" 17 & 18, this is the main return to your board which you'll use to monitor/listen to what comes from DP. As I said, I re-named it "Mains". I suggest getting this set up well in advance of your session (I'm sure you already know this) and work through it. While it may sound complicated it really isn't. Keep me posted and if you have some issues, I'll do my best to walk you through them.

Thanks for your time.[/quote]

You're most welcome.
Rainman

[mjmoody]

The send to DP via FireWire is tapped right after the mic pre so it should be sent dry. You can send post eq fx etc. by switching something (Ijust forget, never use it, your manual will say) but I'm sure the default is dry. Set your input channel to taste on the board and monitor and send a headphone feed from the board. The vocalist should hear whatever you've applied to the strip, reverb, eq etc.
You MUST have the FireWire button "lit" in the monitor section of the board located above the 4 subgroups section to hear what's happening in the box, i.e., the other tracks, you won't want the vocalists track coming back in this return mix so defeat it in DP.
Another very very important note. Go to "Audio MIDI Setup" and select PreSonus FireStudio. Select Output, you'll notice a drop down menu with "output stream 1". This to stream outputs from DP to each channel return on the board, useful if you want to mix via the board or setup a specific monitor mix. In your case this is overkill. You want to select "output stream 2" and assign channel 17 & 18 to left/right out respectively. These are the equivalents out you main outs in DP and in fact THat's what I name them in 'bundles", which incidentally is where we're going next.
In bundles, select outputs and assign the stereo left/right to "Output Stream" 17 & 18, this is the main return to your board which you'll use to monitor/listen to what comes from DP. As I said, I re-named it "Mains". I suggest getting this set up well in advance of your session (I'm sure you already know this) and work through it. While it may sound complicated it really isn't. Keep me posted and if you have some issues, I'll do my best to walk you through them.

Thanks for your time.

You're most welcome.
Rainman[/quote]

This is SO helpful! I had no idea about the 17/18 streams. I will experiment with that later today!!

I'm trying to figure out a way where I can keep the vocal tracks "active" within DP, but also use the "chunks" feature to set up various special vocal effects. Maybe there's a way to bus the tracks to or from some aux tracks to achieve this? Thanks for any suggestions!

John